kong hee fatt choy dragon year

london
Today, is the start of the water dragon chinese new year.
And how appropriate that i wish to talk about money.
not that i have deliberately chosen to do so, it is just that yesterday i blogged about the new £50 note
and it was mentioned that it will come out in november.
added 25.1.12 i assumed it is nov 2012, but i found out after googling today that it allready came out in november2011.what is strange is this... i live here in london and i read the papers everyday, and yet i have not heard of this new note issued in 1stnovember last year.  and yet, searching google, there were all those references to nov 11 reporting on it.  
and in that same search i found jersey is going to produce a £100 note this year to commemorate the jubilee. meant more for the collectors' market.

Last night, I was reading in this book , the wonder box, by roman krznaric in a chapter about work and there was a picture of the £20 note which has adam smiths head looking at the engraving of workers toiling in a pin factory to illustrate their point that the industrial revolution introduced the division of labour, the most deadening legacy, the author said.   it prompted me to take a look at the notes that i have.

i found to my surprise this £50 new note.

sorry that smudge on the left above that crest in the lower left corner should not be there. haha. it is a bit of food from my breakfast. i dont know how it got there, as i was not eating at the time. must be my soul wants it.  i tried to get another photo but i could not find the flash button to turn it on.

so i get the chance to physically feel that note.
i notice that the hologram on the green strip cannot be seen in reflected light but have to hold the note against the light and see it via transmitted light.
also there is a thin metal strip to the left of the queen's head . you would not notice it was there as it is not visible in reflected light. in the old £20 and £50 note u can see that metal strip on one side of the note as an interrupted line.

Added 9.30pm.
in the late afternoon i saw from the rss feed of the evening standard on my blog that there was this event going on in trafalgar square... a sun balloon and it will shine till about 7.30pm today. So i decided i shall take a walk there and see it.

Very nice effect, like a red setting sun. deck chairs in front of it, and some guys giving away tropicana orange drink. i got one and sat in the deckchair and just enjoyed the atmosphere. i ate a snack bar with my tropicana. as usual the orange drink is sweet but it also  has that sharp tang of citrus.  i am still glad i got my bottle of plain water to drink with it. still nice of the tropicana guys to give us free drinks. i am sure it is all a advertising thingy but who cares, right? it is still nice to get something free. though if they hope to entice me to buy it, they will be disappointed. haha.

After a bit, i moved on to the back towards the national gallery and i saw another of the tropicana people giving free bottles away and i got one and headed off to chinatown.

it is chinese new year day and shops in chinatown were all open. no holiday for them. the place was packed. i bought fish balls 400mg for £3.80(though there was a 200mg for £1.80. funny i did not buy two of those as they are cheaper. ah well next time perhaps., noodles and a chinese preserved vegetable which i dont know what it is called.

my mother called the veg she used that looked and smelt likethis as tung choy.

This is the name on the package. it was in the remainder bin.  There was no price and no code. unusual. i smelled it and it smelt exactly like a veg my mum used to use in rice porridge and in steam mince pork in the rice cooker. so i took it to the cashier and asked how much. she tried to get the barcode and discovered there was none, and manually typed in the price, £1.28 . i was rather glad it was that amount if it was a lot more i willhave to tell her to abort it.
I came home and weighed it. 575mg.
but it is a strange veg, it was the only one in the store, i could not see any other packs like it .
anyone can read and  tell me what that veg is called?
Added. I could not search google by image, so i typed in tung choy and found this.aiyah nonya blog
the list she gave of the preserved veg is useful. 6types .
Sweet or salty mui choy ( preserved mustard),



Char choy (Sichuan pickled mustard),


Hum choy (salted mustard),


Sweet or salted choy poh (preserved radish),


Tung choy (preserved cabbage) and


Choy kon (dried Chinese white cabbage).


Added 24.1.12 tuesday read in the dailymail today that we are going to have new 10p and 5p coins in April. it seems it will save the treasury £8million a year. Each 10p old coin costs 4.5p to make. the new ones will be made of steel, costing 1/5 of a penny to make. they will be thicker as steel is lighter and to make the new coins same size and weight of the old they need to be thicker.
first change in coins content since 1947 when the silver was removed.