The Standup Egg

Does everybody know that you can actually make an egg to stand up by its own on a specific day and time every year? Yes? No?

My niece took these pictures on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, aka Dragon Boat Day aka Dumplings Day, or Duan-Wu (in Chinese). She tested it out at 1200 noon sharp and it stood up for about 60 seconds (just enough time for her to dance around and took these 3 photos, LOL!)


Old people said that you will be lucky for the coming year if you can make an egg standing up on this particular day.But young people like us try to look for the scientific explanation(heehee!), such as below:-

The egg can standup easily is because the Dragon Boat Day is close to the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice occurs when the Earth's axis tilts the most toward the sun, causing the sun to be farthest north at noon. Sun reaches to the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere on the day of summer solstice. Before sun travels back to the southern hemisphere, it seems as if the sun stands still. When the gravitation between sun and earth are pulled each other to the most, an egg can stand up easier.

Well, this certainly sounds Greek to me, any other easier, more creative and less jargon way to explain this to a 3 year old??

E for Egg, B for Bird, N for Nest

A week ago, when i was just back from work, Kyra pulled me to the garden and showed me something very exciting - a bird nest on a small plant in my garden! There were two tiny eggs inside the nest, and what made us thrilled was who on earth would think there would be a nest built on a small plant in a flower pot!

I didn't manage to snap the photo of the eggs. Frankly, i didn't think the eggs would make it, i mean incubated. Nevertheless i explained to Kyra that the eggs would turn into small birds, the birds would grow bigger and bigger until they are able to fly away - just like her bedtime story for the week "Soar, Eagle Soar". Two days later, the eggs turned into these small creatures.


Due to the heavy pour, one of them didn't make it, leaving the only one struggles hard to live. Today, we saw him resting steadily inside the nest, waiting for his mother to feed him and it has grown lovely black feathers.


Kyra will be busy monitoring its progress and updating me in these few days, and i am not sure how will she react when she finds it fly away and never get back to its nest one day. But one thing i am very sure is she has learnt well on Egg, Bird and Nest after this experience.