I had just moved to San Antonio, Texas. I worked for the tour bus service taking tourists on a short tour of the city's historic places and would end up at the Alamo.

    I was driving back from my last tour on a cool February day on my way back from the San Femando Catholic church with no one on my bus when I saw a man dressed in rags, thinking this person must be an actor or something walking around. I stopped and asked him, “Need a ride?” Without saying anything he just walked on broad and sat down in seat behind me.

    “Where are you heading?” I asked him. He looked up into the mirror at me and replied. “I've got to get to the fort(要塞)and report to Colonel(上校)Travis that the Mexicans are here!” I laughed to myself thinking that this man was a serious actor.

    “I'm guessing you mean the Alamo?” I said back to him. I looked up and saw he wasn't smiling nor laughing. All throughout the ride he was staring in amazement at all the towering skyscrapers and the buildings along the street.

    “I remember when this town was nothing more than a little trading village!” He finally said to me.

    “So what's your name?” I asked him.

    “Daniel Cloud, yours?”

    “David Zime.” I replied as I turned the corner of the street and laid eyes upon the Alamo.

    I pulled up to the sidewalk and opened the door. Cloud got out of his seat and came up to me.

    “Thanks for the ride.” He said extending his hand. I took his palm and it was freezing cold like he just stepped out of the freezer.

    “Not a problem, Mr. Cloud, and don't worry about the fee. It's on the house.” He nodded his head in gratitude like all us Texans do and walked away.

    It wasn't until then that I noticed that he was soaked(浸；泡)to the bone in dripping water and we had not a single drop of rain in a month or more. I just shook my head and closed the door behind him. When I turned around. Discovered amazingly how fast Cloud had gone away!

    A few days later I was reading a book about the Battle of the Alamo when I discovered the most shocking thing I had ever discovered. The names of the 183 defenders of the Alamo were listed on the roll of honor, including Daniel Cloud, who spotted the Mexicans before they took over the streets of San Antonio in February of 1836, and his post was on top of the San Femando Church where I had picked him up!

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    While most people have the idea that volcano eruptions are one of the most destructive disasters in nature, seeing a volcano erupt is a wonderful experience, and you can really feel the heat by climbing to the summit of Pacaya for a close-up view.

    There are guided tours every day up this highly active volcano from Antigua, giving travelers a chance to see Mother Nature at her most powerful. Pacaya is an easy drive from Antigua, a beautiful city with many colorful houses along its old streets that are turned into art-works during its Holy Week festival. No matter when you come to Antigua, you won't miss the Pacaya-tour companies.

    But climbing Pacaya is no easy job: it is 2,560 meters high, and reaching the summit takes two to three hours of seemingly one-step-forward and two-step-back movements. As you climb you hear the dull sounds of eruptions high above. Steaming, hot remains from recent eruptions begin to line the path as you near the active summit: the Mckenney Cone (火山锥). Just as though you were going to walk over to the edge of the cone, the road turns to the left and up to the relative safety of the old, inactive summit.

    Many tours are timed so that you arrive at the cone of the volcano in plenty of time for sunset and the full contrast between the erupting red lava(岩浆) and the darkening sky. On a good day the view from the summit is extremely exciting. The active mouth boils, sending red lava over its sides, and once in a while shoots hot steams up to 100 meters into the air. There is a strong bad smell in the air even if you take care to be upwind of the cone. As evening turns deeper into the night, the burning lava quietly falls down the side of the volcano. For you, too, it is time to get down.

    Spending money on time-saving services reduces stress and boosts(增进）happiness, according to a new research, but shockingly, few of us do it.

    Whillans, a professor at HBS said, "Buying time helps to protect us from the stress in our lives caused by time pressure, and the feeling that we don't have enough minutes in the day to complete our tasks."

    The effect was clearest in the Canadian experiment, in which 60 working adults were given $40 to spend in two different ways. One weekend, they were told to spend the money on a material purchase—a gift for themselves. The next weekend, they were instructed to spend the $40 on anything that saved them time, from paying the neighbor ' s kid to run errands (跑腿）to taking an Uber instead of a bus.

    〇n the day they made the time-saving purchase, they felt happier, in a better mood, and lower feelings of time stress than on the day they bought a material purchase," said Whillans.

    The biggest surprise to the researchers was how few people would spend money on time-saving services. When they asked 98 working adults how they would spend a "windfall" of $40, only two percent named a purchase that would save them time.

    "One reason," said Whillans, is that we're very bad at remembering how much we hate doing certain tasks once the suffering has passed. That makes us less likely to take active steps to avoid that overburdened feeling in the future. "But another possible cause is good old-fashioned guilt." If you feel guilty about getting someone to clean your house for you, then you might get less happiness from outsourcing (夕卜包）that task," said Whillans, "or you might just be less likely to spend your money in that way."

    Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library, a row of green hikes sits parked in a special stand. Each hike is designed with the logo "Nice Ride" the name of the city's bike-share program.

    Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow. To rent a bike, you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station. Members can rent one of 1, 200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city. People use the Nice Ridebikes to go to work, to go out on business, or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.

    The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving. Skyrocketing gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires, and hit the road.

    Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise, but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tailpipe.

    Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, and Melbourne, Australia. The largest program—with 70, 000 bikes—is in Wuhan, China.

    To make roads friendlier to non-motorists, the U. S. Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years. The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called greenways.

Famous Modern Chinese Buildings

    Beijing International Airport

    The first place most visitors see when they arrive in China is Beijing International Airport. The airport was constructed in the 1950s. It has an indoor garden, a children's playground, and over 70 food businesses in Terminal 3 alone.

    Shanghai World Financial Center

    Completed in 2008, SWFC took over 10 years to complete due to financial shortages and construction delays. Since its completion, it has won countless architectural awards.

    Tourists are welcome at SWFC's viewing platform, which at 474 meters above ground is the world's highest closed viewing platform.

    The Water Cube

    It was constructed for use during the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. Now visitors can express surprise at the architecture of the building. They can enjoy the indoor atmosphere as well.

    Among the offerings of the Water Cube are a restaurant and bar, a shopping area, and Water World, a family water park

    The Bird's Nest, Beijing

    It was designed mainly for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It can hold up to 80,000 people and has been used for a winter theme park. Nowadays, its main income is as a tourist attraction. It draws more than 20,000 tourists every day.

    National Center for the Performing Arts

    It was completed in 2007. The building is surrounded by a man-made lake, requiring guests to enter via an underground hallway. It is home to an Opera Hall, Music Hall, and Theater.

Chinese pastries (糕点) have a rich and divers history that spans thousands of years. Traditional Chinese pastries are popular {#blank#}1{#/blank#} their beautiful shapes, delicate flavors and cultural symbolism.

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During the Tang dynasty, Chinese pastries experienced a significant {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (grow) in popularity. The Tang dynasty emperors were known for their love of desserts and pastries, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} led to the development of numerous delicate and complicated pastry recipes.

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Mooncakes, closely {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (associate) with the Mid-autumn Festival, are among the most famous Chinese pastries. Mooncakes have a history {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (date) back over 1,000 years. They were{#blank#}9{#/blank#} (original) used as an offering {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (honour) the moon goddess during the harvest season. Mooncakes are often imprinted with amazing designs and symbols that represent good luck and prosperity.

Each region in China has its own pastries with distinct flavors, ingredients and making methods. Chinese pastries are an essential part of Chinese cuisine and cultural traditions.