Time zone:

    Eastern Standard Time (EST): GMT+l0 hours.

    There is no daylight saving time in Queensland.

    Legal drinking age:

    18 years and older. Always keep your ID with you to prove your age.

    Alcohol (酒) shops & hotels are the only places where alcohol can be bought.

    Dangers:

    Dial 000 from a fixed line or 112 from a mobile phone. Police, ambulance, fire.

    Electricity:

    240/250 volts AC 50Hz Universal outlets for 110 volts (shavers only) standard in hotels, apartments, motels.

    Telephones:

    Australian international code is 61.

    Road rules:

    Left hand side driving. There is a 50kmh speed limit in most living areas and on open highways 100-110 kmh, seat belts must be worn all the time. If you want to hire a car, take along your driver's license.

No smoking:

    Indoors: Indoor areas are no smoking.

    Poker Machines: Poker machine areas are no smoking.

    Outdoors: Non-enclosed eating and drinking areas are no smoking.

Swimming safety:

    ALWAYS SWIM BET WEEN THE RED AND YELLOW FLAGS and pay attention to the life guards' advice. Gold coast beaches are guarded by skilled life guards and volunteers at weekends.

    It's a warm summer afternoon. You're cooking up the catch of the day over a campfire. Suddenly, a few raindrops fall on your arms, and before you know it, the sky is opened up. Then you hear what sounds like thunder in the distance. What should you do? Your tent is close by and would offer shelter from the pouring rain. There's a campsite picnic shelter a few minutes down the path. And then you remember that your car is parked down the road. What's your safest choice to make sure you and your families are safe?

    It's a common question for many hikers(徒步者) and campers, especially when they are camping during summer months. Heading to your car is almost always the safest choice. Your tent and a picnic shelter will keep you dry, but they offer little or no protection against lightening. Your car, on the other hand, will keep you dry and protect you from lightening strikes. Protecting yourself against possible lightening strikes is very important; lightening kills an average of 62 people in the US each year. If you keep all of the windows and doors closed in your car, you'll be able to return to your campsite safely.

    Of course, if you're backpacking(背包旅行), not car camping, and you're deep in the woods, your car won't be a good choice. So, what should you do if your car is far away and there's no other safe shelter nearby? First, you'll have to make sure that tree limbs or other objects don't fall on you or your campsite. Then you'll have to get in a safe position to avoid lightening, or flash flood conditions. What else should you do?

    One recent night, while I was leafing through its pages of an old journal, my eyes met a quote by the British writer Graham Greene that I had marked. “A prejudice had something in common with an ideal.” In other words, ideals general descriptions of people's expectations of themselves and others can often lead us to unreasonable ideas. It got me thinking about how we often allow ourselves to generalize about groups of people. We like to stereotype people by the color of their skin, the year of their birth or any other related factors.

    I grew up in a multi-racial corner of America. The different groups were often subject to narrow stereotypes: Jewish people were “greedy,” Mexicans were “poorly educated,” and Asians were “good at math.” These labels were taught to us from a young age. They wormed their way into our belief systems, harming how we came to see others. It made me sad growing up to see people repeat these stereotypes as if they were true. The rush-to-judgment of people breeds a culture of discrimination (歧视).

    You can also see these over-generalized description being made against today's Chinese people. Whether it be a lack of interest or worry among millennials (千禧一代) being described as “monkish,” or “dad-fashion (复古作风)” which has given the “greasy middle-aged men” tag, stereotypes always seem to gain a foothold in the consciousness of our society. But these generalizations do real harm as these myths may become part of the wider population.

    It's about time that we, as a society, walked away from generalizations and stereotypes. I leave you with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” By reserving judgment and really getting to know the individual, you might just find your irrational ideas have no foundation.

    As the weather gets colder, we start wearing jackets, and most of us stop thinking about the sun. But the sun's rays can be just as harmful when it's cold and cloudy outside. "Any exposed area of your body can still get sunburned," Dr. Apple Bodemer, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Live Science.

    Whether you spend a day on the slopes, skating on a pond or clearing snow out of your driveway, your face is still getting exposed to the sun's radiation in the form of ultraviolet (紫外线) (UV) light, which can go deep into your skin cells causing DNA damage, according to Bodemer.

    The sun's long ultraviolet A (UVA) waves can cause earlier aging, sunspots and wrinkles, while its short ultraviolet B (UVB) rays are known for causing skin reddening and burns.

    Skin damage caused by UV exposure increases over time. More exposure to radiation contributes to more severe damage, even skin cancer. In addition, snow and ice can also make sun damage worse. They reflect up to 80 percent of UV rays reaching the ground. That means you get hit from both the sky and the ground. And skiers and snowboarders increase their risk of getting sunburned even more because UV exposure increases at higher altitudes.

    "Generally, the biggest factor for sun-sensitivity is how pale your skin is," he said. "But, the reality is that even the darkest individual can get sun damage."

    Luckily, the solution for protecting your skin is simple: Wear sunscreen every day. Rigel recommended using sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30, and going higher at high altitudes. As a rule of thumb, SPF 30 will block 97 percent of UVB rays, SPF 50 blocking 98 percent, and SPF 100 blocking 99 percent. Whatever kind of sunscreen you use, it's important to apply SPF about once every 2 hours.

    Rigel also suggested sunscreens with "broad spectrum (光谱)"—to protect against both UVB and UVA rays—as well as sunscreens that are water resistant for up to 80 minutes. That way, you can go about your day without it wearing off too quickly.

    Children are starting on digital devices at ever younger ages, and opinions on the effects of children's digital-media habits are deeply polarised.(两极分化的).

    Jean Twenge, a psychology professor, thinks excessive use of the internet and social media makes children lonely and depressed and poses serious risks to their physical and particularly their mental health, sometimes to the point of driving them to suicide.

    However, Daniel Kardefelt-Winther of the Innocenti research office of Unicef examined various evidence and found less cause for alarm than is often suggested. Most of the studies he examined seem to show that the technology helps children stay in touch with their friends and make new ones.

    The relationship between the use of digital technology and children's mental health, broadly speaking, appears to be u-shaped. Researchers have found that moderate use is beneficial, whereas either no use at all or extreme use could be harmful.

    What worries some experts more is that screens are becoming part of the middle-class armoury(武器) for perpetuating(巩固) social advantage. Children from well-off homes are enrolled in private classes to learn skills like "How to be a YouTuber", which poorer parents cannot afford.

As the Chinese saying goes,"Roads lead to riches. "And this is{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Somxay Laolion,a Laotian driver on the China-Laos Railway,has observed over the past two-and-a-half years. 

As a driver travelling{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Vientiane and Boten (border town),he can see more and more houses and factories{#blank#}3{#/blank#}(build)along the route. The 1,035-kilometer railway,{#blank#}4{#/blank#} is a flagship project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative,connects Kunming,the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province,with the Laotian capital,Vientiane.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (adopt)Chinese technical standards,the China-Laos Railway is China's first international railway project{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(primary)funded and built by Chinese companies and{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(connect)to China's railway network. 

Since June 2020,the Laos-China Railway Co has recruited and trained Lao trainees and more than 800 Lao employees,or over 90 percent of the trainees,{#blank#}8{#/blank#} (assign)specific positions. 

The China-Laos Railway has opened "a new phase of development"for Laos to transform{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(it)from a landlocked country to a land-linked one. The railway has maintained a positive trend of increasing volume and{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(efficient),as well as thriving passenger and freight businesses. The China-Laos Railway has become a road of development, happiness,and friendship for the Lao and Chinese people.