Qaminante: November 2008

Asa banana

I never realised my staple breakfast for years has been something of a fad in Japan and therefore contributes to the year's favourite expressions in Japanese.

Grand Central Station

The renovations going on at Gare centrale have unexpectedly produced a wonderful new pedestrian connection from the station to the city centre, a real treat for the hordes of commuters who pour out of there every morning and back for their train home every evening.

I do like the more frequent use of coloured lighting in new buildings, we really need light in these grey days and the changing colours make everything seem so much more lively.

More than 20 years after giving it up, I still appreciate not having to do the 1 1/2 to 2-hour (each way) commute by bus, train and bus that I used to have when I was working in London! But if I still had to do it, it would cheer me up a bit to pass through this station - or at least this part of it, the rest is still in a bit of a mess.

Tourist questions and country ranking

As someone who haunts the Tripadvisor forum for Belgium, and was recently looking at the ones for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, I was intrigued by some of the differences, and wondering which country had attracted the least posts. The results are largely for Europe with a few interesting numbers added from the other areas - which, if nothing else, would appear to illustrate largely North American membership (U.S. , Mexico and Canada split into States/provinces). Totally unscientific, as I couldn't be bothered to do include all TA countries, but interesting, I thought. The first number is the number of topics or question and the second the total number of posts - it seems the forums for France and the UAE attract vastly more entries per question compared with other forums, I don't know why..!
01. Yucatan Peninsula: 162,356 (1,182,842)
02. Florida: 117,878 (787,072)
03. Italy: 116,384 (574,341)
04. United Kingdom: 72,529 (559,361)
05. Spain: 72,128 (292,313)
06. France: 67,335 (402,153)
07. Thailand: 53,900(269,571)
08. Greece: 43,441 (236,585)
09. Egypt: 40,606 (245,616)
10. China: 27,933 (143,008)
11. Turkey: 24,970 (133,303)
12. India: 22,465 (115,709)
13. Costa Rica: 21,262 (94,901)
14. Ireland: 20,780 (131,179)
15. Germany: 19,264 (80,720)
16. United Arab Emirates: 14,344 (100,344)
17. Portugal: 12,869 (24,482)
18. Switzerland: 11,810 (58,775)
19. Argentina: 11, 330 (83,904)
20. Czech Republic: 11,155 (57,580)
21. Ontario: 10,994 (65,344)
22. Netherlands: 10,245 (58,615)
23. Austria: 9,086 (38,316)
24. Croatia: 7,217 (29,870)
25. Cyprus: 6,524 (29,051)
26. Poland: 5,572 (12,103)
27. Belgium: 4, 816 (19,068)
28. Hungary: 4,206 (19,745)
29. Finland: 3,874 (27,752)
30. Russia: 3,326 (14,041)
31. Malta: 3,224 (17,482)
32. Bulgaria: 3, 063 (12,615)
33. Norway: 2,914 (12,103)
34. Iceland: 2,757 (11,636)
35. Sweden: 2,546 (9,068)
36. Denmark: 1,883 (7,632)
37. Latvia: 1,579 (8,131)
38. Slovenia: 1,450 (5,636)
39. Romania: 973 (4,604)
40. Slovakia: 923 (3,953)
41. Estonia: 851 (3,586)
42. Ukraine: 619 (2,038)
43. Serbia: 542 (2,250)
44. Andorra: 485 (1,664)
45. Monaco: 442 (1,422)
46. Lithuania: 440 (1,799)
47. Gibraltar: 280 (1,179)
48. Bosnia & Herzegovina 231 (811)
49. Albania: 176 (625)
50. Luxembourg: 172 (545)
51. Montenegro: 162 (581)
52. Macedonia: 110 (374)
53. Belarus: 108 (458)
54. Moldova: 52 (123)
55. Liechtenstein: 41 (128)
56. Faroe Islands: 25 (96)
57. East Timor: 20 (83)
58. Lesotho: 2 (2)

Let there be light

Unfortunately it seems the lotus lamps don't get lit after all, perhaps it would be a fire hazard! However, I did discover something called "ceiling of light" in the Grand' Place.

Lotus lamps

I read that 2000 lotus lamps had been hung in the rather boring Galerie Ravenstein as part of the current "Made in Korea" festival so I hurried down to see this wonder - but in fact it's only the rotunda of the gallery that has been so decorated. Still, it's an improvement on what it usually looks like. Now I have to find the time to visit in the evening when hopefully the lamps are lit!