Seniors Market

Because of the aging society, there are more and more attention paid to the graying population, which in a way presents unlimited business opportunities.

Making profits in this industry is never difficult. All businesses have to do is come up with some innovative ideas to meet the seniors' demand; in turn they will get new customers and new business opportunities.

In the past few years, the booming seniors market such as health food, health care, telemedicine services, beauty therapy and anti-aging skin care products, senior citizen tour packages, financial investment services for seniors, medical equipment, etc, has led to tremendous profits for businesses, making it stand out from other industries during the economic recession.

Grand Tour

Sophia asked me what "Grand Tour" meant. Frankly I really have no idea about it. Here is what I have found on the Internet.

In Google dictionary, it's a visit to the main cities of Europe made by rich young British or American people as part of their education "in the past".

According Wikipedia, the Grand Tour was the traditional travel of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage. Though primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy landed gentry, similar trips were made by wealthy young men of Protestant Northern European nations on the Continent, and from the second half of the 18th century some American and other overseas youth joined in. The tradition was extended to include more of the middle class after rail and steamship travel made the journey less of a burden, and Thomas Cook made the "Cook's Tour" a byword.

Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised to see modern people use this term to describe their tours undertaken in Europe. I have seen some travel bloggers use it in their blogs.

I am better now.

The symptoms of my cold have been eased. Thank you all for your concern, and I also feel sorry for passing my flu over to other people like Paul Chen and whoever. Sorry about that.

A snap shot of the buildings in New Taipei City

I took the picture in the vicinity of my parents' home. The high rises in Taipei always amaze me, but I really don't like living in the urban area. Too many cars, too many people, and too many worries. To live a little, stay away from things that will freak you out.

The end of CNY

I have slept the whole day today since I came back from Taipei in the early morning. I really had a blast hanging out with my family. Knowing that the Chinese New Year vocation will end in one more day, I decided to stay put at home today in order to reserve more energy for the days to come.

Dream on (Jan 20, 2011)

On Monday morning, we will be learning an old song called "Dream on". I first heard of this song not from its original singer but from a Taiwanese lead vocal (主唱) Tarry Lin 林志炫. The song is short but very touching. Apparently I found Lin singing way much better than Scott after comparing their performance. Unfortunately I only could find the one sung by Andy Scott on Youtube.

Listen to this song on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF5oMngU1Kk

by the thousands and tens of thousands (Jan 30, 2011)

A friend to my class asked me how to say "成千上萬" in English. I think something like "by the thousands and tens of thousands" can be the proper expression. But I also found that "thousands of something" meaning "數以千計" and "tens of thousands of something" meaning "數以萬計" are even more commonly used in writing. I have hardly seen any sentence written with the phrase "by the thousands and tens of thousands". Just for everyone's reference here.

An excellent place for learning English. (Jan 26, 2011)

I would like to recommend another good website for all my friends- The ESL Pod. Here at this Website users can choose the topics which they want to listen to, and even download the mp3 files to listen to at their leisure. You can also find things like blogs and some other interesting features here. So make the most of it now!!

Check it out now:

http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html

Winter break of 2011 (Jan 18, 2011)

The winter break has begun. I can see more and more school students make the most of it by studying a foreign language. Some of them are returning students to their language schools. I am also looking forward to seeing them back in my class.

Together Forever & WhencI fall in love (Jan 17-2011)

We are going to learn two songs this week: Rick Astley's "When I fall in love" and "Together forever". Both songs are the ones of romance. The former "When I fall in love" is a very old song remastered by Rick, and the latter is originally sung by him. These two songs come in very different styles, so I really can't help but introducing the two songs to my students at the same time this week. Please hold your breath before listening to them.

Listen to the two songs on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfdTc4MCegM&feature=fvst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4geWXRaVunU&ob=av2nm