Undersea restaurant Ithaa

    Ithaa is the very first undersea restaurant in the world located 5 meters below sea level in the Republic of Maldives. The 5-by-9-metre restaurant can hold 14 people at a time and has a transparent(透明的) roof offering a 270 panoramic (全景的) underwater view. The restaurant was designed and constructed by M. J. Murphy Ltd., a design consultancy based in New Zealand. It was opened on April 15, 2005. Food served in the restaurant can be described as contemporary （当代的） European with Asian influence.

    Tip: Work on technical designs and drawings for Ithaa started in March 2004. Once constructed, Ithaa would be put into the water. Because of technical challenges, limited resources, and quality control problems in building something underwater, the restaurant can only exist for about 20 years.

Skyline Queenstown Restaurant

    The famous New Zealand restaurant offers delightful fresh seafood, salads, roast meats and delicious desserts, while the panoramic view from the windows will attract you day or night. It' s the ideal place for that special night out and the best place in Queenstown to watch the sun go down! With live music creating a relaxing atmosphere and never ending scenery to admire, you will be entertained as you eat in the restaurant.

    Tip: Unlike other restaurants, the Skyline Queenstown Restaurant has tiered (分层的) seating to guarantee（确保） beautiful lake and mountain views from every table.

Revolving(旋转的) Restaurant Allalin

    Located in the Allalinhom mountain, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Revolving Allalin is the highest revolving restaurant in the world at about 3,500 m. The restaurant offers a rich selection. Valaisian platter, pasta and pizza ... all this and much more is on the menu of the world-famous restaurant. Enjoy the eating delights offered in the world's highest revolving restaurant, while some mountain tops slowly pass by.

    Tip: Known as the ‘Pearl of the Alps', Saas-Fee offers many sports and activities: The popular holiday village features the Metro Alpine, the highest underground railway in the world up to the skiing area and the highest revolving restaurant at 3,500 m.

    When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn't a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to hear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

    He listened to me quietly, then he asked.“Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn't you ever wonder what you're really like? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

    I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I go to fairly clear picture of myself.

    I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it.“That's just for you，” he said.“You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something said about you is true, you'll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don't shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I've never had a better piece of advice.

    Dubai(迪拜)is one of the economically richest places in the world. With its numerous malls, hotels, and beautiful beaches, Dubai has always been a popular holiday destination. This city was visited by around 5 million tourists each year. The government wanted to increase this number to 15 million. However, Dubai has only 45 miles of coastline, which is nowhere enough for so many people. To solve this problem, an island that looked like a palm tree was built in 2006, and named the Palm Jumeirah.

    The plan for the island was extraordinary. It was to host several hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, and homes. Although the initial plan was to build the island from concrete(水泥), a decision was taken to create it from sand and gravel(砾石), so as to give it a natural look.

    To make sure that this project was a success, the best engineers from across the world were employed. Engineers from Holland formed the majority in this group. To begin with, the engineers calculated the strength of storms at sea, and also the expected amount of rise in water levels due to global warming. And then they found that, the proposed location for the island was neither very wide nor deep.

    One of the difficulties the engineers came across was to put sand on the sea bed to create the breakwater(防浪堤).Finding the right sand for the project was also a daunting task, as the sand from Dubai's deserts was too fine. Instead, sand from the sea was used, as it was coarser(粗糙). Once the breakwater was built, construction of the island began.

    The Palm Island are really impressive in terms of engineering. However, these projects are so large that they may have changed the ecology of the region. Also, an immense amount of money and resources go into maintaining the islands, which is a major concern at the moment. Only time will tell if building the Palm Islands was actually a good decision.

    Recently, many e-commerce platforms, including Didi Taxi, Ctrip, Fliggy, JD ad Taobao, have been uncovered that they are cheating their frequent customers. Their ways are pretty clever. When there are new users or conservative old users, they will give a quite appealing price to attract them into registering and buying goods. However, their big data is not that friendly to the stable users and frequent visitors. The system always offers them higher price for the same products or service. How does this happen? According to the data analysis, the system knows clearly that although they feel the price is high, they will finally pay the bill. By collecting and analyzing users' profiles, buying habits and other information, big data recommends the same products to different users with different prices.

Companies also try other ways to make money, making online consumption far more worrying. For example, video websites always offer 120 seconds' advertisements, which drives people crazy. And even if you pay for the membership to get rid of the ads, you have to “enjoy” 15-second “private” ads. By broadcasting them, companies make huge profits — second to the membership fees. Also, owning 100Mbps network, you still put up with the slow speed when you are downloading a song. You have no choice but to become a VIP when you seek high quality services. Users seem to be lambs(羊羔) among wolves. Even though they say,” Since you have money, I'll charge you more”, we can't do anything about it.

    It pains us that we haven't figured out a way to deal with the problem. The only thing we can do is replacing our iPhones with Android phones if we want to buy a membership card, and applying for new accounts if we want cheaper hotels. Not finding a way to fight back, we can't do anything but accept them passively.

    The young boy saw me, or rather, he saw the car and quickly ran up to me, eager to sell his bunches (串) of bananas and bags of peanuts. Though he appeared to be about twelve, he seemed to have already known the bitterness of life. "Banana 300 naira. Peanuts 200 naira"

    He said in a low voice. I bargained him down to 200 total for the fruit and nuts. When he agreed, I handed him a 500 naira bill He didn't have change, so I told him not to worry.

    He said thanks and smiled a row of perfect teeth.

    When, two weeks later, I saw the boy again, I was more aware of my position in a society where it's not that uncommon to see a little boy who should be in school standing on the corner selling fruit in the burning sun. My parents had raised me to be aware of the advantage we had been afforded and the responsibility it brought to us.

    I pulled over and rolled down my window. He had a bunch of bananas and a bag of peanuts ready. I waved them away. "What's up?" I asked him. "I… I don't have money to buy books for school." I reached into my pocket and handed him two fresh 500 naira bills.

    "Will this help?" I asked. He looked around nervously before taking the money. One thousand naira was a lot of money to someone whose family probably made about 5,000 naira or less each year. "Thank you, sir," he said. 'Thank you very much."

    When driving home, I wondered if my little friend actually used the money for school-books. What if he's a cheat? And then I wondered why I did it. Did I do it to make myself feel better? Was I using him? Later, I realized that I didn't know his name or the least bit about him, nor did I think to ask.

    Over the next six months, I was busy working in a news agency in northern Nigeria. Sometime after I returned, I went out for a drive. When I was about to pull over, the boy suddenly appeared by my window with a big smile ready on his face

    "Oh, gosh! Long time."

    "Are you in school now?" I asked.

    He nodded.

    "That's good," I said. A silence fell as we looked at each other, and then I realized what he wanted. "Here," I held out a 500 naira bill. "Take this." He shook his head and stepped back as if hurt. "What's wrong?" I asked. "It's a gift"

    He shook his head again and brought his hand from behind his back. His face shone with sweat (汗水). He dropped a bunch of bananas and a bag of peanuts in the front seat before he said, "I've been waiting to give these to you."

    One summer I was driving from my home town of Tahoe City, Calif., to New Orleans. In the middle of the desert, I came upon a young man standing by the roadside. He had his thumb out and held a gas can in his other hand. I drove right by him. There was a time in the country when you'd be considered a jerk if you passed by somebody in need. Now you are a fool for helping. With gangs, drug addicts, murderers, rapists, thieves lurking everywhere, "I don't want to get involved" has become a national motto.

    Several states later I was still thinking about the hitch­hiker. Leaving him standing in the desert did not bother me so much. What bothered me was how easily I had reached the decision. I never even lifted my foot off the accelerator.

    Does anyone stop any more? I wondered. I recalled Blanche DuBois's famous line: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers". Could anyone rely on the kindness of strangers these days? One way to test this would be for a person to journey from coast to coast without any money, relying solely on the good will of his fellow Americans. What kind of Americans would he find? Who would feed him, shelter him, carry him down the road?

    The idea intrigued me.

    The week I turned 37, I realized that I had never taken a gamble in my life. So I decided to travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic without a penny. It would be a cashless journey through the land of the almighty dollar. I would only accept offers of rides, food and a place to rest my head. My final destination would be Cape Fear in North Carolina, a symbol of all the fears I'd have to conquer during the trip.

    I rose early on September 6, 1994, and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge with a 50­pound pack on my back and a sign displaying my destination to passing vehicles: "America".

    For six weeks I hitched 82 rides and covered 4,223 miles across 14 states. As I traveled, folks were always warning me about someplace else. In Montana they told me to watch out for the cowboys in Wyoming; in Nebraska they said people would not be as nice as in Iowa. Yet I was treated with kindness everywhere I went. I was amazed by people's readiness to help a stranger, even when it seemed to run contrary to their own best interests.