Australia is a big country, but it is easy to get around. The untouched beaches that go for miles and deserts that touch the horizon(地平线) are just there, waiting to be reached and explored. You can explore the big country in different ways.

Air

    Flying is the best way to cover large distances in a short time. You can spend more time on the Australia's landscapes(陆地风光) and relaxing lifestyle. Moreover, competition among airlines makes great flying fees available for you.

Drive

    Australia has a big network of well-kept roads and some of the most beautiful touring routes in the world. You have no trouble finding car rental companies at major airports, central city and suburbs(怒火).

Bus

    Bus travel in Australia is comfortable, easy and cheap. Buses generally have air conditioning, reading lights, adjustable(可凋) seats and videos. Services are good for everyone, frequent.

Rail

    Train travel is the cheapest and gives you an insight into Australia's size, all from the comfort of your carriage. Scheduled services are a great way to get quickly between our cities and regional centers.

Ferry(轮渡)

    The Spirit of Tasmania runs a passenger and vehicle ferry service between Melbourne and Tasmania nightly. Extra services are running during summer rush hours. Sea-link ferries connect South Australia and Kangaroo Island several times a day. Ferries connect suburbs in our capital cities.

    Besides all of above, you can also experience some of the longest tracks and trails in the world in central Australia-impressive journeys of a thousand kilometers or more that can take several weeks to complete.

    Sometimes I have to admire people's imagination but what I admire most is the businessmen's sense of smell. China's Singles Day, which falls on Nov. 11 every year, has far surpassed its U.S. counterparts of Black Friday and Cyber Monday—combined. Last year, Americans spent a record $12.8 billion online between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. It's impressive until you compare it to the $17.6 billion in sales made by Chinese consumers in a single 24-hour period during 2016's Singles Day.

    Singles Day is known as “Bare Sticks Day” or “Bare Branches Day” in Chinese—because the date “11/11” looks like bare branches and “one” is the loneliest number. Singles Day began in the early 1990s in the dorm rooms of Nanjing University when a group of single friends were sorry about the lack of significant others and decided to mark the day by organizing activities as a group of singles and reducing their loneliness by buying themselves a gift.

    Then in 2009, sensing s break between the sales period of China's National Day on Oct. 1 and Chinese New Year in late January or early February, Alibaba's Jack Ma saw an opening: sell to comfort lonely hearts.

    The first year did only $7.5 million in sales, but just 8 years later, shoppers spent $25.3 billion, or 168.2 billion yuan, this year—a 40 percent jump from last year's $17.6 billion. Foe comparison, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S. only netted $6.79 billion in 2016. Amazon doesn't release sales figures for July's Prime Day, but it's pretty safe to believe the not-quite-national-holiday doesn't come close to $25 billion.

    “More than $25 billion in one day is not just a sales figure,” Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement. “It represents the desire for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully accepted the combination of online and offline sales.”

    There's nothing like a good night's sleep — but what does that really mean? It turns out that the answer depends not only on your age, but also on your lifestyle. Some people are productive and happy with fewer hours of sleep, while others need more. Still, experts can determine guidelines that work for most people. The National Sleep Foundation researched the topic and gave new recommendations this week. The foundation acknowledges that sleep needs will vary — lifestyle and stress should be taken into consideration — but their recommendations offer a general guideline. For example, teenagers (14 —17 years old) need 8—10 hours, sleep every day.

    To create the recommendations, some sleep and medical experts reviewed 312 articles from journals published during the last decade. This is the first time that any professional organization has developed age-specific recommended sleep durations based on a systematic review of the world scientific literature.

    A lack of sleep can be linked to weight gain, because that causes an increase in appetite, according to the foundation. It can also have serious consequences on the brain. People who do not get enough sleep are at increased risk for depression, and can endanger others. Those that become sleepy while driving, for example, risk both their lives and the lives of those around them.

    Researchers also have found in the past that too much sleep can have negative effects. Low socioeconomic status and depression reportedly are significantly associated with longer sleep. However, experts nowadays find that research on oversleeping is still unconvincing and needs more attention. Currently, there is no strong evidence that sleeping too much has health consequences. There is, however, laboratory evidence that short sleep durations of four to five hours have negative consequences. We need similar laboratory studies to determine whether long sleep durations result in physiological changes that could lead to disease before we make any recommendations against sleep extension.

    China will build a comprehensive (综合性的) network to detect (检测) pollution of the land, sea and air by 2020, employing satellites, drones(无人机)and remote sensors to monitor the environment.

    The national leadership agreed to the network plan in July, saying the government will lead the monitoring, share information among departments and regions, and be held accountable (追究责任) if violations (违规行为) are found, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Tuesday.

    Satellites, a major tool for monitoring air pollution, will receive a boost (大力发展)  this year. The ministry said it will accelerate research on two atmospheric environmental monitoring satellites.

    The ministry will improve a remote sensor network, guided by the goals of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), which is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, according to the ministry's Environmental Supervision Department.

    Remote monitoring has played a bigger role in locating pollution sources. Drones helped authorities locate polluted areas in the Tengger Desert in northern China and identify scattered summer straw burnings.

    Hebei province, which has a serious air pollution problem, has cooperated with the ministry's Satellite Environment Center to conduct monitoring from satellites and monitoring stations since January last year.

    "We used the data from the center's satellites to forecast the movement of smog during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in November, "Zhang Feng, an engineer in the Environmental Supervision Department of the provincial environmental watchdog, said on Tuesday.

    Data collected from monitoring stations helped authorities provide accurate forecasts on hazy days during that period, he said.

Benjamin West, the father of American painting, showed his talent for art when he was only six years of age. But he did not know about brushes before a visitor told him he needed one. In those days, a brush was made from camel's hair. There were no camels nearby. Benjamin decided that cat hair would work instead. He cut some fur from the family cat to make a brush.

The brush did not last long. Soon Benjamin needed more fur. Before long, the cat began to look ragged(蓬乱). His father said that the cat must be sick. Benjamin was forced to admit what he had been doing.

The cat's lot was about to improve. That year, one of Benjamin's cousins, Mr. Pennington, came to visit. He was impressed with Benjamin's drawings. When he went home, he sent Benjamin a box of paint and some brushes. He also sent six engravings (版画) by an artist. These were the first pictures and first real paint and brushes Benjamin had ever seen.

In 1747, when Benjamin was nine years old, Mr. Pennington returned for another visit. He was amazed at what Benjamin had done with his gift. He asked Benjamin's parents if he might take the boy back to Philadelphia for a visit.

In the city, Mr. Pennington gave Benjamin materials for creating oil paintings. The boy began a landscape (风景) painting. William Williams, a well-known painter, came to see him work. Williams was impressed with Benjamin and gave him two classic books on painting to take home. The books were long and dull. Benjamin could read only a little, having been a poor student. But he later said, "Those two books were my companions by day, and under my pillow at night." While it is likely that he understood very little of the books, they were his introduction to classical paintings. The nine-year-old boy decided then that he would be an artist.