With the summer holiday just around the corner, it seems like everybody is busy planning their vacations. Here are some tips that can help you enjoy your holiday without empting your pocket:

    Travel off-season

    Go to your desired destination while the demand is low and take advantage of huge discounts. During the peak season, the hotel and flight prices increase quickly, and you'll likely spend more of your vacation time standing in line due to the rush of tourists. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

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    Websites can help you find discount hotel rooms. Look for places that do not charge extra for children if they use the existing bedding. Stay with the locals. If you and your family are going to stay for a longer period, renting a small apartment is a good choice.

    Eat like a local

    Why eat at big chain restaurants when you can experience something new? {#blank#}3{#/blank#} During your family trip, try new food where the locals eat. This will not just save money, but also provide you with a new and different experience. For smaller meals and snacks, avoid restaurants and try street food or other takeout. 

    Don't hesitate to bargain

    Tourist- heavy places are known for overcharging for just about everything. Clothes, travel goodies, souvenirs, etc. are very expensive at these places. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Bargain hard to get the best price.

    Choose local transportation

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Instead, take buses, railways or subways, which are always cheaper. If you are planning to stay for a while, you can consider renting a car. Hiring a car is much easier than carrying your bags everywhere if you are moving around a lot.

A. Save on hotels.

B. Surf the Internet while traveling.

C. Therefore, avoid buying anything there.

D. So it's best to find out when the off-season starts.

E. Planning your meals is another way to reduce your travel costs.

F. For this reason, you shouldn't feel ashamed to ask for bargains.

G .As a tourist, avoid taking taxis whenever possible, since they are expensive.

    Kids undergo a large amount of pressure and stress during their school exams, which can often become quite overwhelming (to much) for them. It may be the first experience of stress, at this level, they have ever experienced and therefore quite frightening. Yes, you may say that it's all a part of growing up and therefore good lessons for them to learn, and to an extent I agree with you. However, it's important to learn how to prepare for life's challenges so that they aren't overwhelming or scary and so that we are able to manage them the best we can.

    Here are some tips you can use during your kids exam time.

    Break their revision plan down into small parts. Doing this will help transform what once seemed like a huge impossible task into a more manageable one.

    Help them arrange properly so that the subjects they like the least (perhaps ones that require more time and effort) are worked on first; once they are out of the way, it will help reduce the worry.

    Plan week on week to make sure they are on track. Ticking items of a list each week will help them to feel good about themselves and their progress.

    Create rewards for all the ticks - a favourite TV programme, a delicious snack, an hour's surfing the Internet, computer games or whatever it was that they enjoy the most. This will encourage them to carry on and make them feel good.

    Think of strategies on how to deal with exams calmly so their anxieties don't get the better of them.

    Talk about times in their lives when they had been successful at something and look at the qualities they used to get them there - determination, persistence, hard work, patience, positivity, dedication - discuss how they can apply these skills to their exams.

    Acknowledge that if they do their best that is good enough.

    Ensure they realize that this period in their lives will pass and that exams are only a temporary time in their lives; nothing can and does last forever.

    Ensure they keep their eye on the prize: enjoying their long summer holiday when the exams are finished; giving them something to look forward to will help to motivate them and provide a positive end in sight.

C

    While famous foreign architects are invited to lead the designs of landmark buildings in China such as the new CCTV tower and the National Center for the Performing Arts, many excellent Chinese architects are making great efforts to take the center stage.

    Their efforts have been proven fruitful. Wang Shu, a 49-year-old Chinese architect, won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize — which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize in architecture — on February 28. He is the first Chinese citizen to win this award.

    Wang serves as head of the Architecture Department at the China Academy of Art (CAA). His office is located at the Xiangshan campus(校园) of the university in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Many buildings on the campus are his original creations.

    The style of the campus is quite different from that of most Chinese universities. Many visitors were amazed by the complex architectural space and abundant building types. The curves(曲线) of the buildings perfectly match the rise and fall of hills, forming a unique view.

    Wang collected more than 7 million abandoned bricks of different ages. He asked the workers to use traditional techniques to make the bricks into walls, roofs and corridors. This creation attracted a lot of attention thanks to its mixture of modern and traditional Chinese elements(元素).

    Wang's works show a deep understanding of modern architecture and a good knowledge of traditions. Through such a balance, he had created a new type of Chinese architecture, said Tadao Ando, the winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize.

    Wang believes traditions should not be sealed in glass boxes at museums. "That is only evidence that traditions once existed," he said.

"Many Chinese people have a misunderstanding of traditions. They think tradition means old things from the past. In fact, tradition also refers to the things that have been developing and that are still being created," he said.

    "Today, many Chinese people are learning Western styles and theories rather than focusing on Chinese traditions. Many people tend to talk about traditions without knowing what they really are, "said Wang.

    The study of traditions should be combined with practice. Otherwise, the recreation of traditions would be artificial and empty, he said.

    America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while - then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

    Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

    Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet n friend. We may take days off to net as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homos, but truly can not manage the lime to do n great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, worm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.

    For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly lo invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

    The Earth is facing a climate crisis, but it's also getting greener and leafier. According to new research, the rise is largely due to China and India.

    A study by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), based on extensive satellite photographs and published in the journal Nature Sustainability, has revealed that the two countries with the world's biggest populations are also responsible for the largest increase in greenness.

    Since 2000, the planet's green leaf area has increased by 5 percent, or over 2 million square miles. That's an area equivalent to the sum total of the Amazon rainforests, NASA says. But researchers stressed that the new greenery does not neutralize deforestation and its negative impacts on ecosystems elsewhere.

    A third of the leaf increase is thanks to China and India, due to the implementation of major tree-planting projects alongside a vast increase in agriculture.

    Using the data from a NASA sensor, researchers discovered that China is the source of a quarter of the increase in green leaf area, despite possessing only 6.6 percent of the world's vegetated area (植被区). Forests account for 42 percent of that increase, while croplands make up a further 32 percent. China's increase in forest area is the result of forest preservation and expansion programs, NASA said, established to fight against the impacts of climate change, air pollution and soil erosion (水土流失). India has contributed a further 6.8 percent rise in green leaf area, with 82 percent from croplands and 4.4 percent from forests.

    Rama Nemani, a co-author of the study and a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, said in a statement, "When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance." "Now, with the data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing," Nemani said. "This will help scientists make better predictions about the behavior of different Earth systems, which will help countries make better decisions about how and when to take action."

    Thomas Pugh, a professor at the University of Birmingham's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the NASA report expands scientists' understanding of the causes behind global greening. But he also cautioned that a direct line cannot be drawn between an increase in global greening and a decrease in negative impacts of climate change.

    English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world's books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary — perhaps as many as two million words.

    However, let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

    We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes (探讨它的矛盾), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.

    And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese — so one moose, two meese?

    How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

    English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects (反映) the creativity of human beings. That's why, when stars are out, they are visible (能看见的); but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.