Guided Walking Week April 2016

    Dates: April 30^th-May 7^th 2016

    Location: Abdet, Costa Blanca

    A week of guided walking in the mountains around Abdet. Highlights include the climbing of Valencia's highest summit (Sierra de Aitana), traveling completely around the impressive Puig Campana, and several explorations in the Sierra de Aitana. Ancient trails lead through spectacular canyons(峡谷) to abandoned settlements situated high in the mountains. You will discover the snow trader routes which lead from the incredible snow holes high in the mountains down to the villages and towns on the coast. These years, golden eagles have made a return to this area, and you may also see other animals—wild goats, foxes, wild pigs and red squirrels.

    As part of the week you are invited to help clear some local walking paths. This involves clearing collapsed （坍塌的） walls and rocks, cutting back fallen trees. This is of course optional and is just for half a day, it's actually great fun!

Price:$499

Includes:

    Accommodation in the beautiful mountain village of Abdet

    All food-good home cooking

    Beer, wine, soft drinks

    Snacks and post walk treats

    Packed lunches & drinks(except café/bar visits)

    Expert guiding

    Photos/Videos of your days in the mountains

    Airport pick-up/return $25 each way(fly to Alicante)

    Single room supplement $75

    To book or get further information, please contact info@abdet.com.

    Inside the Rain Room

    The Rain Room has arrived and local art lovers are taking notice. Is it worth the wait? Yes, I assure you it is. Once inside, visitors find a long, dark room with a high ceiling. A single bright light shines through heavy rain falling around visitors. The mist. The damp air. The noise. It feels like a mighty storm is pouring down. But the storm is inside. And visitors aren't getting wet. Instead, visitors wander in awe, admiring the rain and the artists who created it.

    The Rain Room was created to highlight the connection between humans, nature and technology. With a tracking system that senses movement and stops the rain wherever visitors move, it does just that. Light and sound produce an experience that feels both natural and foreign. The exhibit is moving on to Atlanta next month. I urge you to visit before then. It's time to experience the Rain Room for yourself!

    Welcome to the Rain Room

    The Rain Room features falling water. Please be aware you may get slightly wet. However, visitors wearing raincoat will be turned away.

    This exhibit features advanced technology. To ensure its effectiveness, please avoid wearing dark or reflective clothing.

    Visitors are welcome to take photographs of the exhibit.

    Children must be accompanied by an adult.

    For the convenience of all guests, visits are limited to 10minutes.

    An autonomous vehicle designed for making local commerce deliveries was uncovered by Nuro. The vehicle is about the height of an SW but far narrower than a typical car. The electric car features four outside compartments（暗格）—two on each side -to hold separate deliveries. Each compartment can be tailored to a specific use, such as cooking a pizza or refrigerating a package.

    “We can use self-driving technology to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere for basically all local goods and services,” Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson said. “Consumers used to be okay with two-week paid shipping. It became two-week free delivery, followed by one week, two days, and the same day. Now same-day delivery isn't fast enough for some customers.”

    Nuro isn't alone in building robots for local commerce deliveries. Earlier this month, Toyota, a Japanese car company, uncovered a concept vehicle that could be used for package delivery. A handful of startups—including Starship Technologies, Marble and Dispatch—are testing small robots for deliveries on sidewalks.

    Nuro's vehicle will likely face legal hurdles. Fully autonomous vehicles without a test diver aren't legal in California today, and many companies have shifted testing o states where regulators are more welcoming of autonomous vehicles, such as Arizona.

    Nuro expects to face fewer challenges because it doesn't carry passengers. Nuro's narrow size may also be helpful when navigating streets and avoiding pedestrians. The vehicle isn't equipped with any special features to communicate with pedestrians or other road users. Some companies have tested and patented solutions such as digital screens that signal the car's next move. Ferguson said his team conducted studies and found that such techniques could confuse people. Nuro believes it's better to make sure the car performs predictably, so that human drivers know what to expect from it.

    “We feel by creating this new technology that's going to enable this last mile delivery, we're going to be creating new markets and doing things that previously weren't possible,” Ferguson said. “This is not swapping out jobs with robots. It's creating new markets. There will definitely be new employment opportunities.”

    Many of us live with a roommate at some stage. Sometimes, there can be problems. Who hasn't had an argument about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish or who should be the one to clear up after dinner? However, living with another person also comes with many benefits.

    You know that there's always someone else around, which can help you feel safer. There is always someone to talk to, so you never feel lonely. Besides these obvious benefits, there are some you may not notice. For example, we're actually more likely to eat healthier food when living with others.

    To examine the effect of living alone, Australian university researchers did much research and found that people living alone tended to eat less fresh food, which can have a significant negative effect on long-term health. However, those living with others generally benefited from a more varied diet compared to those living alone.

    What could explain these findings? The researchers believe the social and cultural roles played by cooking, food preparation and eating may be important considerations. For example, those living with friends have someone else to go shopping with, and thus are likely to buy higher-quality fresh food regularly.

    Cooking skills may be another factor. If people living alone find they do not have the knowledge required to prepare a particular dish or cook a certain food, they may fall back on ready-made, less healthy food. However, if they live with at least one other person, they may be able to ask for help.

    In addition, people living alone can eat whatever they want at any time of the day or night. However, it's helpful to have someone around who questions your decision to eat frozen pizza at 3 am. In other words, roommates can draw your attention to unhealthy routines.

    So, if you now live alone and find yourself fighting a losing battle against poor eating habits, why not consider sharing a home with someone else? You could encourage one another on to greater health and well-being.

    I've come back to check on a baby. Just after dusk I'm in a car down a muddy road in the rain, past rows of shackled (戴镣的) elephants, their trunks swinging. I was here five hours before, when the sun was high and hot and tourists were on elephants' backs.

    Walking now, I can hardly see the path with my phone's flashlight. When the wooden fence post stops me short, I point my light down and follow a current of rainwater across the floor until it washes up against three large, gray feet. A fourth foot twisted above the surface, tied tightly by a short chain and choked by ring of metal spikes (尖刺). When the elephant gets tired and puts her foot down, the spikes press deeper into her ankle.

    Meena is four years and two months old, still a child as elephants go. Khammon Kongkhaw, her caretaker, told me earlier that Meena wears the spiked chain because she tends to kick. Kongkhaw has been responsible for Meena here at Maetaman Elephant Adventure, near Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, since she was 11 months old. He said he keeps her on the spiked chain only during the day and takes it off at night. But it's night now.

    I ask Jin Laoshen, the Maetaman worker, why her chain is still on. He says he doesn't know.

    Maetaman is one of many animal attractions in and around tourist-crowded Chiang Mai. Meena's life is set to follow the same track as many of the roughly 3,800 captive (被捕获的) elephants in Thailand. When Meena is too old or sick to give rides—maybe at 55, maybe at 75, she'll die. If she's lucky, she'll get a few years of retirement. She'll spend most of her life on a chain.

    As a young boy, I knew what people said was not always what they meant or were feeling. And I knew it was possible to get others to do what I wanted if I read their real feelings and responded(回应) suitably to their needs. At the age of eleven, I sold sponge rubber(泡沫橡胶) door-to-door after school and quickly worked out how to tell if someone was likely to buy from me. When I knocked on a door, if someone told me to go away but their hands were open and they showed their palms (the inside surfaces of their hands), I knew it was safe to continue with my presentation(展示) because they weren't angry or threatening although they may have a dismissive(不屑 ) attitude. If someone told me to go away in a soft voice but used a pointed finger or closed hand, I knew it was time to leave.

    As a teenager, I became a pots and pans(炊具)salesperson, and my ability to read people earned me enough money to buy my first house. Selling gave me the chance to meet people and study them close and to know whether they would buy or not, simply by watching their body language.

    I joined the life insurance business at the age of twenty. And I went on to break several sales records for my company, becoming the youngest person to sell over a million dollars' worth of business in my first year. This achievement allowed me to become a member of the well-known Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT, which recognizes the world's top achievers in life insurance). I was lucky that the skills I'd learned as a boy in watching body language while selling pots and pans could be used in this new area, and were directly related to the success I could have in any business closely connected with people.