I have an innate hatred of supermarkets. The faster I can get in and out of them, the better. But the big supermarket near me in Nanjing takes the cake with the time and motion issues. Walking down the street you pass what were the… Read more
Monthly archives of “April 2016”
Cheap Eats Nanjing 19 – vegetarian at the Jiming Temple
The Jiming temple is our neighbour at NIGPAS ( the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology). I can see them out my office window. According to Wikipedia, the temple was first built in 557, then what we have today was “initially” constructed in 1387, then… Read more
New Zealand’s Rata and Pohutakawa – riders of the Miocene storms?
There is a Maori legend than when one of their ancestral canoes (the Te Arawa) approached New Zealand after traveling from its Pacific homeland, its crew saw the trees along the coast covered in red. Thinking these were abundant red-feathered birds, a chief thew away his priceless… Read more
Cheap Eats Nanjing 17 – Green tea and red bean ice-cream at Bellagio’s
The green tea and red bean ice-cream (see featured image) served by Bellagio’s became an absolute favourite of mine whenever I was passing through Beijing, going to and from Mongolia. Bellagio’s is a restaurant chain and there were two outlets I would go to there. When… Read more
Cheap Eats Nanjing 16 – Korean Leek Cake
Korean Leek Cake – yum! Never heard of it before, but it tastes as good as it looks (see featured image). This is a Korean restaurant that’s on the edge of locally cheap, but well worth a visit. The Korean leek cake is sort of a… Read more
Cheap Eats Nanjing 15 – even better chicken curry and rice
I thought I was on to a pretty good Nanjing food deal at the place where I had a chicken curry and rice, and the chick who cooked would sneak iPhone shots of me. But if I can ignore the ego-boost and focus on the price, this… Read more
Mongolia – crap, fire and herbal-tea
I once had a student come to me for help looking at sheep crap. It took the mystery out of what this stuff actually is. Under the microscope it’s quite a treasure-trove of little bits of plant leaf. From the various patterns you can tell… Read more
Ratbag – just another cat in Nanjing
The Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology has cats. There’s at least a dozen of them, if not 15 and more. Hard to tell exactly because of the clone of dirty white ones among them. Though at least one of them is (probably) unique in… Read more
Horsetail Marshes of the New Zealand Jurassic
In the Jurassic, New Zealand had ‘horsetails’ (Latin: Equisetum) – an odd-looking plant , a bit like a long brush with whorls of narrow leaves and are related to ferns. Apart from their shape some of the extinct forms had a strange ‘diaphram’ attached to their… Read more