What will you think of when it comes to “Hong Kong” and “great swimming”? Shopping sure, but swimming pool? Turns out, along with all its other attractions, Hong Kong is loaded with wonderful pools.

    The Ritz－Carlton

    The pool at the Ritz－Carlton is breathtaking, thanks to the view, the altitude and, of course, the swim. On the 118th floor at 484 meters above the street in the tallest building in Hong Kong, it's the world's highest swimming pool. The ceiling and walls are made up of 144 LED screens displaying coral reefs and other natural scenes.

    W Hotel Hong Kong

    If you have only one nice swimsuit, save it for the W Hotel Hong Kong. Only people living in this hotel can enjoy this wonderful pool, which is Hong Kong's highest rooftop pool. The hotel's signature WET deck is famous for stylish and occasionally wild poolside parties in summer. WET also features a good cocktail bar and a Jacuzzi.

    Hotel Indigo

    One of Hong Kong's unique experiences is swimming in Hotel Indigo's glass bottom pool. The pool protrudes from the hotel, allowing people below to see swimmers and the swimmers to do laps while checking out the traffic below. The pool is smaller compared to other local grand hotels and only available to the hotel guests.

    Four Seasons Hotel

    The Four Seasons Hotel gorgeous infinity pool overlooks Victoria Harbor. Even cooler, the hotel pipes in underwater music, making the swim much more wonderful, or annoying, depending on your taste in music. The pool is open only to hotel guests.

    Spending as little as $ 5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia found.

    Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others—even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

    "We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn，" said Elizabeth Dunn，a psychologist at the University of British Columbia. They asked their 600 volunteers first to rate their general happiness，report their annual income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts for themselves, gifts for others and donations to charity.

    "No matter how much income each person made，those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not，" Dunn said in a statement.

    Dunn's team also surveyed 16 employees at a company in Boston before and after they received an annual profit sharing bonus of between $ 3, 000 and $ 8, 000. "Employees who devoted more of their bonus to pro­social spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus, and the manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself，" they wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.

    They gave their volunteers $ 5 or $ 20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.

    "These findings suggest that very minor changes in spending allocations—as little as $ 5—may be enough to produce real gains in happiness on a given day，" Dunn said.

    Although the idea of "zero emission net carbon-positive, sustainable (可持续)" development was promoted worldwide, most cities are at a loss what to do or even some have objected to it. But in Liuzhou, a city in southern China, attitudes could not be more different.

    The Liuzhou Municipality Urban Planning Bureau has signed up Italian architect Stefano Boeri, the father of the forest city movement, to build a self-contained community for up to 30, 000 people. He is the go-to man for such projects thanks to the success of his "vertical forests", two residential (住宅的) towers. Completed in 2014, they remove up to 17.5 tons of soot (煤烟) from the air each year, and a year later one of them was named Best Tall Building Worldwide.

    The Liuzhou project is a much more ambitious undertaking, however. Its homes, hospitals, hotels, schools and offices will be built on a 340-acre site in what Boeri calls the first attempt to create an "urban environment that is really trying to find a balance with nature". Its 100 species of plant life are expected to absorb almost 10, 000 tons of carbon dioxide and 57 tons of pollutants per year, while at the same time producing 900 tons of life-giving oxygen.

    Although the architects haven't published the cost of the forest city, the Milan towers cost only five percent more than traditional skyscrapers.

    The construction of his forest city at Liuzhou is set to begin in 2020, and there is still a great deal of planning and research required before a projected completion date can be set. However, Boeri remains optimistic about the project and has confidence in the soundness of his vision: "I really think that bringing forests into the city is a way to deal with global warming."

No matter which place you decide to visit in Spain, you'll find a beautiful beach waiting just for you. These popular beaches can meet the needs of people from all walks of life.

Cala de Algaiarens, Minorea

With soft golden sand and clear water, this beach is perfect for snorkeling (浅滩潜水) and visiting underwater caves. The beach belongs to a local man, so tourists have to pay a small entry fee. The waves here can sometimes be huge so the beach isn't safe for kids.

Cala Tarida, Ibiza

Besides the big music festivals and the exciting nightlife, Ibiza is home to some of the most beautiful beaches; one of them is Cala Tarida. Just relax on the white sand or go swimming in clear water. It is an ideal location to spend a sunny day if you are in Ibiza.

Beach of La Concha, San Sebastian

It has been called the best city beach not just in Spain, but also in Europe. It's so popular during the holidays that tourists have to struggle to get some space. Even though the beach is a 10- minute walk from the city, the white sand and the amzing clear waters do make the city a new world.

Sotavento, Canary Islands

As an ideal choice for travelers, Sotavento offers 17 miles of white sandy beach. It is blessed with strong water and winds, making it a paradise (天堂) for surfers and kite flyers. The beach also hosts the popular World Kite Surf Championship every August.

Isatou Ceesay was born in 1972 in a small village in Gambia, Africa. As a teenager, Ceesay was forced to drop out of school because of poverty. She carried some goods with many girls like her to sell in the market to raise herself At that time, the plastic bags, being strong and light, became popular in Gambia. The problem was that people did not reuse the bags and simply threw them behind their homes. Over time, the houses were surrounded by trash.

Ceesay lived in such an environment for many years. She kept learning from the surrounding environment and planned to take action to change. In 1997, she started a recycling movement called One Plastic Bag in Gambia. She educated women in Gambia to recycle plastic waste into income for themselves. In the beginning, the movement had a mission to educate their village colleagues about the need to reuse garbage and recycle plastic waste, rather than letting the garbage increase behind their homes.

Over time, the movement became big and able to support and provide income for women around. It was also able to greatly reduce plastic waste in Gambia. But the work of collecting trash turned to be taxing. During the rainy season, plastic waste became wet and difficult to take, and after that it still took patience to dry it before it could be processed.

Ceesay said, "As a habit, people are used to pouring their garbage behind their houses, and because it is not visible, they forget it. But the bad effects again knock on your door very quickly — dirty air, various diseases and so on. Of course, if one man's house is clean but his neighbor's is not, then the man is also not healthy."

For 17 years, Ceesay has contributed to one of the most important problems about the plastic waste. In 2012, she got the TIAW Difference Maker Award in Washington, DC, United States. Her story was written into a book, which inspires many others to join or become makers of change in their own communities.

This year, the Music Educator Award, presented by the Recording Academy and Grammy Museum, went to Annie Ray, the performing arts department chair and orchestra director at Annandale High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. She attended the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and brought home both a $10,000 prize and matching grant （资助） for her school's music program.

Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their children. She got the idea mostly from the Annandale community, which she says represents over 60 countries, including many refugees and immigrants. "There're many cultures that might typically clash, but they come together in this very beautiful harmony," Ray explained. "And that's really uniquely expressed in the orchestra classroom, where we're just all music-ing together."

Ray says the Crescendo Orchestra is focused on teaching students how to play an instrument, through one-on-one instruction tailored to their needs. The orchestra is about much more than just making music, however. "I really push my students to be brave and go outside of their comfort zone. We have to learn how to work together with others," she says.

Ray, who comes from a family of musicians and has played the harp （竖琴） since the age of five, knows firsthand the impact that a great teacher can make on their students. "Why I am where I am is because a teacher changed my life and made me want to be a music educator," she says.

Ray says her warm reception on the awards ceremony is especially meaningful because not many people understand what exactly music educators do in the classroom or how much their work matters. She says that lack of understanding is one of the biggest challenges facing the profession in general. Moreover, she says her school desperately needs new instruments, and adds that she'll use some of her grant money to buy more.