There was a special wedding on 15 August, 2012 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. The groom (新郎) was Frares Abdullah, a Swiss, and the bride was Li Miao, a Chinese girl.

    Before the wedding. they spent their holidays on a Silk Road tour (丝绸之路旅行), along Kashgar, Turpan, Kanas and finally Lhasa in Tibet.

    During their tour, the couple hoped to have a special wedding in Urumqi with 25 guests, including the groom's family members and friends from Switzerland, Germany, Palestine, the US and the UK.

    On 5 August, the wedding guests flew to Urumqi. After one day's rest in the hotel, the group flew to Kashgar where they enjoyed the scenery(风景) in Dawakun Desert. On the third day, they took a 3.5-hour car ride to Karakuri Lake.

    On 8 August, the wedding group took a tour of Kashgar city. They visited the famous Id Kah Mosque. The next day, they went to Turpan to see the Jiaohe Ruins and Karez Well, two of Turpan's most famous places of interest.

    On 15 August, the special wedding began in Urumqi. All the guests sent their wishes to the groom and the bride. They were so moved and said they would be nice to each other for all their lives.

    Hello. I'm a rabbit. My friends call me Tutu. My clothes are white and clean. I'm a student of the Animal School. My school is very big and beautiful. There are many green tree and mushrooms (蘑菇) in it. My English teacher is Miss Goat. She is kind and like her very much. Today I go to school happily. On the way to school, my good friend Mr. Monkey is playing by the river. And there is an apple tree near the river. There are many big apples on the tee. We pick (摘) some and eat them. Then a bird is singing in the tree sing a song with her. Oh, it's 10:00a.m. I'm late for school.

    Tony Wheeler was born to travel. His father worked for an airline. For the first 16 years of his life, Tony and his family lived in many different countries.

    In the early 1970s, Tony met a young woman named Maureen. They soon married. Before getting jobs, Tony and Maureen wanted to travel. They took a year-long trip from England, through Asia, to Australia. On the trip, they visited places like Iran(伊朗), India, and so on.

    When Tony and Maureen arrived in Australia, people asked many questions about their trip. To answer these questions, Tony wrote a book called Across Asia on the Cheap. The book told people about different countries' weather, customs(风俗)，and places to visit. But unlike other travel books then, Tony Wheeler's book also talked about places most tourists did not go. He also wrote about unusual things to see and do. The book was very popular.

    Tony and Maureen started a company called Lonely Planet… They continued travelling. They wrote books for each place they visited. Today, 800 people work for Lonely Planet. The company has over 650 books. Tony Wheeler, the great traveller, still writes about travels to many places and will bring us more surprises.

Mrs Smith has two daughters. They are learning to help her do some chores and she pays them for their work. The harder they work, the more they get.

Alice started doing chores two years ago. At that time, she did the dishes with her mother together and she had to sweep the floor. She is ten years old now. She is now doing the dishes herself and has to wash the clothes, too.

Amy is four and she started doing chores thisJuly. She cleans the table after dinner, and she also learns to f old her own clothes. She likes to help her sister water the flowers, but she falls down too many times. So her mother asks her to stop it.

Every week, Alice gets $3 and Amy gets $2from their mother. Mrs Smith disagrees with some of her neighbours. She thinks it's a very good idea to provide kids with pocket money by asking them to do chores. "Doing chores can help the children understand the meaning of fairness. And pocket money can keep them from wasting things," she says to her neighbours.

①We usually think that garbage is dirty and useless. However, an art exhibition(展览) in 2022 proves that "useless" things can actually be helpful. 

②Dear Pretty Rubbish, an art event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN) and digital media art company Blackbow, was held in Beijing. It asked questions about the relationship between our lifestyles and our garbage. 

③"We hope that everyone who visited the show can think about how 'useless things' are produced, why they are tossed out and whether 'useless things' are really useless. " said Cao Yujia, the design director at Blackbow. 

④The organizers said that all the raw materials for the exhibition were collected from community garbage cans. 

⑤Artists Zhou Yuxuan and Liu Yifan collected nylon cable ties (尼龙扎带), LED lights and drink bottles from designers' workshops to create a work where plastics, in the shape of cells, "grow" in a corner. There, the lights blink (闪烁) to imitate (模仿) "breathing". When people walk near it, the work forms light patterns, as if communicating with the visitors. Speaking about the work, Zhou said, "It's like some kind of communication between humans and plastics. "

⑥Plastic has a life longer than almost any creature, taking centuries to break down. Though people blame plastics for damage (伤害) to the environment, they are a big part of our daily lives. 

⑦"So we want to ask the question: Although the damage continues, is there a way for humans to reconcile (和解) with plastics?" said Zhou. 

 I left my hometown in London last year and now I have enjoyed working in this small city in China.Learning a foreign language opens your eyes to the culture and history of a country.So in order to know more about China，l started to learn Chinese.

But at times，I found myself in funny situations.When I greeted strangers in China，they began to talk a lot and very fast.They asked me questions about everything.But all I could do was to look at them with a blank face.I had no idea what they were talking about.Were they just being kind

However，the more Chinese I learn，the more similarities I find it has with English.In English， "thickskinned" is to describe a person who doesn't care about criticism （批评）.I was surprised to find that "houlianpi" in Chinese means the same.And both languages share some common idioms （习语）， "look on with folded arms" means "xiushoupangguan"，and "burn the boats" is similar to "pofuchenzhou".

I'm still on my journey to Chinese learning.I believe that sometimes you have the most fun on a journey.