I woke up around noon today, feeling mostly recovered from my head-cold. I looked out the window at the dreary and oddly colored skies and thought we were in for more thunderstorms. Turns out we were in for something much more unpleasant. After all, I like rain. No, the reason for the crazy colored skies was the annual invasion of yellow dust from the Gobi Desert in China/Mongolia. Apparently a "yellow dust alarm" has been issued, whatever that means. You can read more about yellow dust here and here, if you're interested.
This photo was taken from my balcony shortly after 2pm.
During yellow dust attacks, many people wear medical masks (think surgeon or Michael Jackson), and many kids wear cute masks with cartoon characters on them. I went on a quest for a mask this afternoon, and acquired a hot pink on with a cat face. The only problem is that my glasses fog up every time I exhale.
8 comments:
Are those masks meant for yellow dust attacks, or is there a SARS connection, too?
-Brooke S.
Heh heh, didn't you know that kimchi kills SARS?
:-)
Kim-chi kills SARS, Bird Flu, or whateve ails you. It is the healthiest food known to man. It is so important that the Koreans have decided - as their first experiment - to see how the properties of kim-chi are altered in space.
If you think I'm making that last bit up, google it.
I completely believe that. Of course, the Koreans tend to gloss over the high rate of digestive tract ills that come from prolonged consumption of foods containing high levels of red pepper paste, like kimchi.
Nice mask by the way! I originally had a cotton mask but I found it hard to breathe with. The air would just come in from the top of the mask! I found some thinner paper masks that had a flexible wire at the top...no more fogging up the eyes!
I should definitely see about finding one like that for the next time an ill wind blows this way. I love the absurdity of the pink cat mask, but between the eye fogging and the lack of a tight seal, I'm not sure how much good it did!
Thanks for the heads up. I guess I will be buying dust masks for the family. We could be a whole animal family. How fun.
You know, they may be onto something with the Kimchi. I was reading the other day about the health benefits of yogurt (while trying to NOT write a paper about motivation -- ironic, right), and it was all about the healthy bacteria that are in yogurt and how it can cure things. Of course there lots of different types of bacteria and there are disagreements over which ones are the best for you. One in particular is consumed most often in.....
KIMCHI!
So, maybe it can kill SARS.
Melissa
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