Amazing Performance - Beijing 2008 Olympics

Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony.......amazing performances with spendour

Amazing Beijing 2008 - Olympics Opening Ceremony

Olympic rings are first formed by fireworks then by lights which are raised into sparkling clusters to represent beauty and romance.

The globe transforms into a glowing golden Chinese lantern. The smiling faces projected around the rim of the stadium roof are pictures of 2,008 children from around the world, photographed over the last year by Beijing Olympic organisers

China is the love child of Chairman Mao and Lady Thatcher, so these Beijing Games will be a battle between Communist totalitarianism and freedom. This was the story the opening ceremony for the biggest and most momentous sporting event in history, as the last frontier of East-West suspicion was finally crossed. The age of Chinese power dawned in a spellbinding and futuristic curtain-lifter which featured 15,000 different types of costume and 14,000 performers, 9,000 of them on loan from the People's Liberation Army.

2,008 drummers from the People's Liberation Army beat drums in a tradition dating from 1600 BC

It was fitting that soldiers should play such a major role. They are everywhere here in Beijing, either to protect or intimidate the city's visitors, depending on your world view.
Bug-eyed with culture shock, we were sucked into the new Republic of Olympia - a £20billion world of majestic sporting architecture inside a giant compound, closed off from the rest of this vast and unknowable land. 'Welcome, World' ran the front-page headline in the China Daily and Confucius himself was rolled out to provide the main greeting: 'Friends have come from afar, how happy we are. All those within the four seas can be considered brothers.' This shameless rewriting of Chinese isolationism for a two-week carnival is all part of the hosts' wish to be an economic powerhouse while remaining a repressive one-party state. If you were a Beijing resident, you were either one of the lucky ones inside the 91,000-seat arena for an unveiling of startling beauty and drama, or cleared off the streets around the latticed structure where the cauldron for a new age was lit after the former gymnast Li Ning had run round the inside of the roof on a harness, and ignited a staircase of flame. It was a moment of sheer genius.

To say these Games would be a landmark in world politics was no idle claim. The ceremony proved it. Steven Spielberg had resigned as artistic director for opening night, but his dream-like visions were apparent in the brilliant orchestrations of the chief choreographer and acclaimed film director Zhang Yimou. Hollywood will study the DVD for years to come and plunder Beijing's visual tricks. Another sign, this, that China believes it can match any country in any department. This was a feast for the eyes cooked not from the books of ancient culture so much as the latest Microsoft manuals.

Sprays of fireworks shoot up from the roof of the stadium in a 20-second burst at the start of the ceremony The lustrous Silk Road unfurled on the floor of the Bird's Nest stadium in a dazzling series of light projections was intended to tell us that Chinese potency is rolling out across our world.

An anti-aircraft gun was trained on a night sky rendered infinitely more photogenic by nightfall. Smog, mist, call it what you will shows less embarrassingly in the dark. With a worldwide television audience estimated at 3billion, China's rulers were paranoid about portraying a poisoned city, suffocated by industrialisation. Representatives from London 2012 must have blanched at the scale of Chinese ambition. Will our high-stepping Pearly Kings and Queens match the gymnastic display by hundreds of Chinese squaddies in white silk outfits?
Can a modest Olympic Stadium at Stratford, East London, compete with the entrails-on-the-outside splendour of the Bird's Nest, which exploded with fireworks at 8.08pm on the eighth of the eighth, 2008? Over to Boris Johnson, when he arrives for the closing ceremony and London handover. Maybe the Tory back benches and a column in the Daily Telegraph were safer bets after all. The Princess Royal greeted members of Britain's 313-strong team, including the 14-year-old diver Tom Daley, set an ambitious target of 41 medals by a government desperate to recoup its £300million lottery investment. London will at least be less propaganda-ridden. The regeneration of the East End hardly equates to China trying to knock America off its perch as No 1 superpower. President Bush, who was present, finally joined the PR war with a belated appeal to the Chinese government to 'put its people first'.

Carnival of the academics: Scholars wearing the bamboo plumes and traditional gowns adopted by followers of Confucius perform movements reflecting his thoughts.

In a speech in favour of religious freedom, Bush voiced his 'firm opposition' to the arrest of dissidents. Quite a change in tune. Three months ago, America's leader said: 'I'm going to the Olympics. You got the Dalai Lama crowd, you've got global warming folks, you've got Darfur. And I just - I am not going to go and use the Olympics as an opportunity to express my opinions to the Chinese people in a public way.' The American hope has been that China would remain a docile market with cheap labour and an isolationist foreign policy. But even seasoned Beijing-watchers have been taken aback by its extravagance and chutzpah. Think of these Games as the world's most expensive TV ad. A small act of American retaliation was to appoint the Sudanese-born 1,500m runner Lopez Lomong as the U.S. flag-bearer. Abducted by rebels at the age of six, Lomong escaped to a Kenyan refugee camp before moving to the States in 2001.
As a member of the Team Darfur coalition who have so angered the hosts with their protests over Chinese policy in Sudan, Lomong was never likely to draw a wave from President Hu Jintao.

Chinese athlete Li Ning, the tiny figure pictured on the right, lights the Olympic flame

Amazing Peacock - A gorgeous appearance

A peacock in full plumage is surely among the most beautiful and spectacular pheasants in the world. This gorgeous peacock is a larger, higher standing, and brighter bird with a long, straight crest.

Because of their gorgeous appearance, the peacock has long been famous outside of its native countries of Southern Asia and Malaysia, and was kept for centuries by people first in China and then in Europe. The Phoenicians brought the peacock to Egypt more than three thousand years ago. Peacock feathers are popularly used in unique crafts and decorations.

Fashion - Ultra low hip-hugging jeans

In the long and varied history of fashion, this may be the worst. But these ultra low-rise, crotch-clutching jeans are virtually guaranteed to provoke a stampede from the usual shameless Z-listers best known for flashing their derrieres in public and is worryingly reminiscent of the late-lamented g-string hitched above trousers fad, beloved of the style-free worldwide.

Frock horror: The low-rise jeans complete with bikini bottom are only for the very svelte. Most frightening of all, the ensemble is only held up by an elasticated thong or ribbon. It should come as no surprise that the clothing company behind the bikini jeans is based in Brazil, famed for its hordes of svelte, cellulite-free glamazons.

Unforgiving: The bikini bottoms are held up with ribbon ties at the sides and designers decided to introduce the designs as customers wanted very low trousers - but had difficulty keeping them up.

Travel & Places - The Salt Mines Of WIELICZKA

Dig beneath the town of Krakow in Poland and you’ll find an incredible treasure.

The Wieliczka Mine is 135m underground and is decorated with hundreds of religious statues carved from the salt. There’s even a cathedral and, if you time it right, you can catch a concert in the Blessed Kinga chapel.

Fashion - Four-legged fashionist

A fashion show is an event put on by a fashion designer to showcase his or her upcoming line of clothing. In a typical fashion show, models walk the catwalk dressed in the clothing created by the designer and occasionally, fashion shows take the form of installations, where the models are static, standing or sitting in a constructed environment
The catwalk becomes a dogwalk for shamelessly pampered pooches with fashion and jewellery designers creating a diamond dog-collar worth half a million pounds. The mind boggles.

Life – A time to pay respect

The Chinese seem pretty convinced that what comes to us after life is more life, just like this life, only ghostlier.

They are keen both on ancestor worship, and on the Confucian idea of filial piety, roughly the parent-friendly notion that children owe unquestioning gratitude to their parents. These two ideas, ancestor worship and filial piety, falls on the day known as Qing Ming. It's got such a pretty name because it falls in spring, 107 days after the winter solstice, and 15 days after the spring solstice, usually around April 5th by the western calendar on which the Chinese visit the tombs of their ancestors to remember the dead; a time for the living to pay their respects to those family members who have preceded them into whatever it is, if anything at all, that comes to us after life.

On Qing Ming, they weed and sweep the tombs of their ancestors, pray to the dead, make graveside offerings of food, drink, flowers, and incense for the ancestors' ghostly pleasure, burn representations of bank notes, and paper images of houses, cars, servants, treasure chests to ensure the dead have all they need in the Other World.

The ancestors are given time to "eat" the food offerings, then the living family members gets a chance to tuck in. Qing Ming is also an occasion of having a picnic with the dead and it's just the right time for people to go outside and relax, indulge themselves in the blue sky, green trees, breezy grass and beautiful flowers.

People - Marilyn Monroe

The most seductive woman of the past was named as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe ( June 1, 1926 – August 5,1962 ), was a Golden Globe award winning American actress, singer, model, Hollywood icon, cultural icon, fashion icon, pop icon and sex symbol. She is known for her comedic acting roles and screen presence. Monroe became one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. During the later stages of her career, she worked towards serious roles and her fame surpassed that of many entertainers of her time.


Quotes by Monroe

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated and talent is developed in privacy.

Hollywood is a place where they pay u a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer. You're gay, you're sick, you're nervous or whatever.

I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they go right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart, so that better things can fall together.

I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.


Quotes about Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was late for everything – but much too early for death.

Everything Marilyn does is different from any other woman, strange and exciting, from the way she talks to the way she uses that magnificent torso.


She wasn't disciplined, and she was often late but there was a sort of magic about her which we all recognized at once.

Nobody discovered her, she earned her own way to stardom.

If it hadn't been for her friends she might still be alive.

I usually go to bed thinking about something I've learned in my day. Today I learned to never give up, and to always be confident, it helps you to grow stronger and with more and more beauty. But most of all, never sell yourself out because all it shows is a lack in confidence, strength and dignity.

Amazing Bird - It quacks like a duck

Are you a duck or a drake? Some people use "duck" specifically for adult females and "drake" for adult males.

Duck is the common name for a number of species in the family of birds, are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than their relatives the swans and geese and may be found in both fresh water and sea water.

Most ducks have a wide flat beak adapted for dredging. They exploit a variety of food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians and worms.

The expression "quacks like a duck" is sometimes a short form for "It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it swims like a duck, so it's a duck." The truth is that a duck's quack does, in fact, echo; however, it may be difficult to hear.

Travel & Places - The wooden churches of Karielia

The Church of the Transfiguration was built by the deeply spiritual residents of Karelia 300 years ago, built of wood without using nails.

The pogost of Kizhi is located on one of the many islands in Lake Onega, in Karelia. Two 18th-century wooden churches, and an octagonal clock tower, also in wood and built in 1862, can be seen there.

These unusual constructions, in which carpenters created a bold visionary architecture, perpetuate an ancient model of parish space and are in harmony with the surrounding landscape. Earlier it was called “subcapital Siberia”, a reference to this region of peaceful birds, blue lakes, bubbling rivers and innumerable islands overgrown with woods.

And it’s well worth taking a sleeper train from St Petersburg to get to see it, if it is winter, you can cross the frozen lake by snowmobile. Let's go.

Money - 6 Ways to Eat Better for Less

Times are bad and food prices are rising. How can we cook for less? People are moving away from steak and using ground beef. They're moving away from salmon and looking to tilapia, a cheaper fish. Recipes for less-expensive dishes, such as casseroles and chili, have also surged in popularity.



Those cooking trends reflect the fact that food prices are rising faster than a cheese soufflé. But cooking experts say that with the right ingredients and recipes, affordable and tasty meals are just a grocery list away. They offer these six tips:

Plan ahead - Shopping with specific meals in mind for the week ahead makes it easier to buy in bulk and repurpose ingredients, turning Sunday night's roast chicken into Monday night's enchiladas. A lot of folks get in trouble when they don't plan ahead. The day takes longer than expected, and they're ordering out or reaching for ready-made meals, and those are very expensive, The more you can cook from scratch, the further your dollar can stretch.

Do it yourself - Instead of buying a package of grated cheese, buy a chunk and grate it yourself, We pay for the convenience of all these things. Same goes for other ingredients.

Rediscover eggs and beans - Even though the price of eggs has gone up, they're still cheap compared with meat, On the same note, a simple dinner of black beans and rice—plus chopped onion, olive oil, seasonings, and shredded cheese can make dinner for two for under $5.

Go meatless - Cooking vegetarian meals often is a good way to save money. Spaghetti and Indian-style chickpeas recipe are packed with flavour without relying on meat.

Reinvent leftovers - Extra rice can go into a fried rice dish the following night, "That's one of my favorite cheap and good meals, just add celery, bell peppers, shallots.
Certain dishes, such as lasagna, chili, and soups, also are easily made in large quantities that can be frozen or eaten throughout the week.

Use what's in the fridge - Home cooks stuck with extra eggplant or flounder can avoid wasting food by using websites to search for dishes based on the ingredients they have at home. Favourite inexpensive recipe, spaghetti carbonara uses eggs, pasta, garlic, bacon, and other ingredients that are often on hand. "It has lots of flavour, and it's easy to make.

Travel & Places - The Lost Temple of BOROBUDUR

Amazing, this is one of the place to visit, Borobudur is a ninth century Mahayana Buddhist monument in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha sutras A main dome is located at the center of the top platform, and is surrounded by seventy-two Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa.

For a truly undiscovered temple you need to skip the well-trodden Inca Trail or Angkor Wat and head into the rainforests of Java in Indonesia.
Borobudur lay buried under volcanic ash until the early 1800s but now the huge pyramid-shaped temple rises high above the jungle canopy in a series of stepped layers.
Each is alive with intricately carved stone panels. Upper layers boast beehive domes and kneeling statues of Buddha inside. Climb it at sunrise for spectacular views.

Amazing Beauty - Flower power

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. Flowers are words which even a babe may understand, so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children honoured as the jewellery of God only by them. Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character.
Alina Kabaeva, a 24 year old beautiful Russian gymnast then moved into modelling, appeared in an action movie, become an MP and soon preparing to marry Putin, the President of Russia posing with a variety of beautiful flowers.

Health - Should we change our diet?

People are dying because of the global food shortages, which has sparked a sudden surge in food prices. World Food Programme officials say 33 countries in Asia and Africa face political instability as the urban poor struggle to feed their families. The world food situation is very serious due to the global food price increase and shortages.

Are we growing too little food to feed the world? World food supplies are further damaged by climate change, a large amount is being diverted to make biofuels to make car greener which is a crime against humanity, grains used to feed animals for the world's passion for meat which is a very inefficient way of producing food. It takes 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef, and large tracts of forest have been cleared for grazing land that might have been used to grow crops. Chicken is more efficient to produce, it takes 2kg of feed to produce 1kg of meat. To maximise food production, it is best to be vegetarian.

Soceities in the developing world are getting wealthier are behind the soaring food demands. Food export controls are imposed by Russia, China, India, Vietnam, Argentina and Serbia in response to the crisis and demand are growing not only over energy, but now over food.
In many countries meat is regarded as a relish, with the bulk of the meal coming from carbohydrates such as corn, rice, pasta or potatoes and vegetables and get used to thinking of meat as a treat to save the world's poor from starvation.

Should we be trying to cut out meat to help save the world's poor from starvation?

Some say yes because...
- Producing meat is less efficient than growing grain, it takes 8kg of corn to produce 1kg of beef
- Growing crops to feed animals means there is less land on which to grow crops for humans
- Shortage of grain for human consumption, and global food prices have leapt by 57% in a year

Some say no because....
- It is not realistic to expect people to switch to a vegan diet of vegetables, pulses, fruit and nuts
- Developing countries should not be denied a better diet as they grow wealthier
- An alternative way is to reverse the policy of diverting grain to make biofuels

So, what say you?

Fashion - Brief Encounters

UNDIES SO SEXY YOU WONT WANT TO GET DRESSED

Help yourself get in the mood for those warm, balmy nights, and the luxury lingerie will leave you thinking it’s way too good to cover up.

Wearing gorgeous and sexy set of undies is also a way to turn on your partner in bed. Have fun.

Health - Hello...Hello

Mobile phones are more dangerous than smoking. Young people are at particular risk from exposure to radiation.

Expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation. Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The use of mobile handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop. Mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that "there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours".

It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than smoking, with more than three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smokers which smoking alone kills some five million worldwide each year.

Amazing shots - You can catch the sun

It's April, it's Spring and the days are getting longer, the weather should be getting milder ... there isn't going to be much sun around. However, here's a chance to cheer yourself up , a new internet fad involves thousands of people from around the world posting pictures of themselves "holding" the sun.

I love the one with the cactus holding the sun.

Amazing Bettle - Volkswagen on a plate

The Volkswagen more commonly known as the Beetle or Bug, is a car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen in 1938. Although the names "Beetle" and "Bug" were quickly adopted by the public, it was not until August of 1967 that VW itself began using the name Beetle in marketing materials in the US. In Britain VW never used the name Beetle officially.

The Beetle outlasted most other automobiles which had copied the classic rear air-cooled engine layout. The Beetle is also one of the most commonly reproduced cars as a toy or model of all sizes. Even the sighting of a Volkswagen Beetle is cause for violent fun in the car-sighting game known as "Slug-Bug" or Punch Buggy.

Amazing Insect - Mad about a bee

Everybody knows that bees have stings in their tails, are meticulous in constructing their homes, dance to communicate with each other and do all they need to do in life in about six weeks. Do you know that bees have an acute sense of smell. are good navigators and can remember where they last had a meal.

Bees are the Rolls Royce of the insect world due to their amazing brain which is the size of a sesame seed but is 20 times the size of a fruit fly. The bees' brains rely on a small range of compounds to sort floral scents and their odour receptors can detect even the smallest scent molecule in the air. They can distinguish between hundreds of different aromas and also tell whether a flower is carrying pollen or nectar by sniffing its scent from metres away. They navigate by smell, colour and distance.

The scent triggers navigational memories of where to go and what the colour of the flower will be.... a bit like a whiff of cologne might remind you of someone you knew a long time ago.

Yes..... I know the smell of my darling....do you?

Amazing Worshipper - A dog's prayer

Buddhists clasped their palms to pray for enlightenment, but Conan, a chihuahua appears to have more worldly motivations. Conan....started to pose in prayer like us whenever he wanted treats. The dog, a two year old male with long black hair and a brown collar become a popular attraction at a Japanese temple after learning to imitate the worshippers around him. He sits in front of the altar and looks right up at the statue of the Buddhist deity and when the priest starts chanting and raises his clasped hand, Conan also raises his paws and joins them at the tip of his nose. He become a star when visitors flock to take pictures with him while praying at the temple.

Journey in Life - Are you Happy?

Through the power of truth there is wealth, and through the power of peace there is health. Together they give happiness. Happiness is earned by those whose actions, attitude, and attributes are pure and selfless.

Paradise, Heaven, the Garden of Eden and the Golden Age are names by which a world of peace, purity, and prosperity has been remembered. In such a place, each human being is like a flower, a country like a bouquet of flowers, and the world like a garden of flowers. The sun, the sustainer, shines upon the garden with golden rays, flooding it with newness and nobility. The Gate of Happiness stands open, welcoming the human family to the Golden Garden. In the past, the world was such a garden. It will become that again. Simply to have that faith is cause for celebration.

At present, many question the purpose of life. Some are tired of living, others have lost hope. Some make effort to earn wealth, believing that will bring happiness. Some who have wealth may not have health, and that causes unhappiness. Some choose certain professions, believing that will give happiness. Others seek happiness through relationships. Yet, however much happiness such measures may bring, they are temporary and limited sources of the material world, and in many instances, they bring equal amounts of sorrow and unhappiness. Such inability to hold onto pure and lasting happiness results from bankruptcy of spiritual values and powers. Awareness and application of spiritual truths provide the true source of happiness.

Through the power of truth there is wealth, and through the power of peace there is health. Together they give happiness. Like a tonic, spiritual knowledge makes the hopeless ones hopeful. Pure happiness returns to anyone who seeks such new and hopeful horizons. Important things forgotten are remembered. The feeling can be compared to returning home - as you see the trees and smell the breeze, you know you are nearing something close to your heart! The warmth and comfort of happiness is hidden within the self. When individuals turn within and take strength from the internal powers of peace and silence, they revive their virtues and allow the mercury of happiness to rise. The soul becomes open to the secrets of how to live in an interdependent way without becoming a victim of the material world which by its very nature robs people of their happiness. The vault of spiritual knowledge holds treasures on how to live and act with truth. True actions are pure, and purity is the mother of happiness and comfort. True actions bring strength and happiness to the self and pleasure to others. Spiritual treasures include guidelines on how to reform character and activity. For many, self-progress and personal transformation are keys that unlock the Gate of Happiness.

People speak of peace of mind. Happiness of mind is a state of peace in which there is no upheaval or violence. Peace within the self creates faith in the intellect. The flute of happiness plays softly and constantly in the minds of those who have such faith. No matter how adverse or challenging a situation may be, there is fearlessness, for the power of faith gives the guarantee of ultimate victory. As the intellect becomes enlightened by spiritual wisdom, there are less mood swings and doubts in the heart. An individual becomes better able to pay off debts of pain and sorrow while maintaining a healthy account of happiness. In a world where all relationships have accounts of happiness and sorrow, the greatest lesson to be learned about being happy is: " Give happiness and take happiness, don't give sorrow and take sorrow. " Happiness is prosperity which comes from self-sovereignty. Self- sovereignty means being master over the mind, intellect, personality traits, and physical senses of the body; being complete with all powers and virtues; and attaining a perfect balance between masculine and feminine characteristics. There is that state of perfection within each human soul. On the spiritual quest in search of such perfection, the intellect goes through a process of discovering its divine nature.

Happiness does not carry a price tag. It cannot be bought, sold, or bargained for. Happiness is earned by those whose actions, attitude, and attributes are pure and selfless. In other words, the quality of the consciousness and activities of individuals determines the richness of life. The road to happiness is paved with golden opportunities. Each footstep taken on this journey is guaranteed a return of multimillions. The actions performed along the way become the pen to draw the lines of fortune. There is a greater share of happiness when individuals walk the path together, and through collective actions, draw the lines of fortune on the living landscape of the world. Be happy.