Chester is one of the best cities in the UK. As soon as you arrive in Chester you will appreciate the city's unique atmosphere and sense his history. Founded by the Romans over 2,000 years ago, much of the Roman influence remains and Chester's city walls are the most complete in Britain. Combined with history and heritage (遗产), Chester is a lively city full of bars, pubs, clubs, hotels, and restaurants for you to discover, attracting you to visit again and again.

    Travelling to Chester

    Chester is easily accessible by many means of transport—whether you are travelling by rail, car, bus or plane. Please check our route planner below to help you plan your journey to Chester. Once you arrive in the city there are numerous car parks; however, during rush hours the easiest way to travel is by bus.

    Hotel

    From bed & breakfast to the luxury of Chester's only five star hotel, Chester has all covered. Whether your trip is for business or pleasure, your room is just a click away!

    Sightseeing and Tours

    The best way to see Chester is by a guided tour. If you join one, you still have a variety to choose from. Whether you choose the traditional guided walk, to be guided around Chester historical landmarks by bus or to take a boat down the River Dee, you will sure enjoy the delights of Chester.

    Although his 1-year-old smart-phone still works perfectly, Li Jijia already feels the need to replace it.

    "There are many better ones available now. It's time to upgrade(更新）my phone."

    Li's impatience is shared by many. Shortly after the season when new products are released（发布，发售）, many consumers feel the urge to upgrade their electronic equipment, even though the ones they have still work just fine.

    As consumers' minds are occupied by Apple's newly released products and debate whether the Google tablet is better than the new Amazon Kindle, it might be time to take a step back and ask: "Do we really need the latest upgrades?"

    According to Donald Norman, an American author, "planned obsolescence (淘汰）" is the trick behind the upgrading culture of today's consumer electronics industry.

    Electronics producers strategically release new upgrades periodically, both for hardware and software, so that customers on every level feel the need to buy the newest version.

"This is an old-time trick—they're not inventing anything new," Norman said. "This is a wasteful system through which companies--many of them producing personal electronics—— release poor-quality products simply because they know that, in six months or a year, they'll put out a new one."

    But the new psychology of consumers is part of this system, as Norman admitted, "We now want something new, something pretty, the next shiny thing." In its most recent year, Apple's profit margin(利润) was more than 21 percent. At Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest PC maker, it was only 7 percent.

    Apple's annual upgrades of its products create sales of millions of units as owners of one year's MacBook or iPhone line up to buy the newest version, even when the changes are slight.

    As to Li Jijia, the need for upgrading his smart-phone comes mainly from friends and classmates. When they are switching to the latest equipment, he worries about feeling left out.

    "Some games require better hardware to run," said Li. "If you don't join in, you lose part of the connection to your friends."

    It seemed like a typical November day, a month after my grandmother had passed away. I was frustrated by everything that was going on around me.

    I was mad and confused about everyone especially when I saw a young girl walking through the store holding her grandmother's hand. The little girl was begging her grandmother for ice cream just like I used to when I was young. I was jealous of the little girl, because she had something I didn't have anymore — a grandmother by her side.

    I had to force myself to ignore the little girl. She was just too happy for me and that was unacceptable at that time in my world.

    I went to the cash register to pay for my things. It was then that my anger quickly shifted from the little girl to the cashier. She took my things to another register. When the cashier gave me my change I didn't say thank you. I simply took my change and left.

    Feeling tired and hopeless, I began walking to my car. As I stood in a public parking lot a million questions formed in my mind. Why did this happen to me? Aren't we supposed to get signs from the people that passed on? Why didn't I feel her presence anymore?

Suddenly, a woman driving right by my side rolled down her window. "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me," she said loudly. Thinking she was going to ask for my parking spot, I simply pointed to my car. "No, excuse me," she said again.

Then I felt I had no choice but to see what this annoying lady wanted. She reached to the very bottom of her bag and handed me a three-page booklet. "It looks like that you need this," she said calmly with a smile on her face.

I looked down at the used booklet and there were some big bold letters on the front cover reading, "What Hope for Dead Loved Ones?" By the time I looked up she had gone.

    I felt a sense of relaxation as I read the first page. It explained how people pass on and that their spirit remains with us. It was the first time since my grandmother passed away that I had felt her with me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I knew that I finally felt happiness from a stranger.

Language requirements for all programmes, except Creative Writing

    All teaching for the programmes is in English. We require all applicants whose first language is not English to have one of the following test results:

    Academic IELTS details can be obtained from local British Council offices. The minimum requirement is an overall band score of 6.5 with no less than 6.5 in each of the four elements.

    Applicant's Academic IELTS and Cambridge CAE test results will be directly accessed by our office.

    In order for us to do this, applicants should supply the following information on their application form: Academic IELTS:

    Test Report Form (TRF) number Cambridge CAE/CPE:

    Candidate ID number (this is 3 letters and 6 numbers) and secret number (4 numbers)

    These results should have been achieved in the same sitting, and no more than 2 years before the date of application.

    Language requirements for Creative Writing

    The minimum requirement is an overall Academic IELTS band score of 7.0, with no less than 7.0 in each of the four elements. Applicants with Cambridge CAE require grade A. These results should have been achieved in the same sitting, and no more than 2 years before the date of application.

    In addition to meeting the above language requirements for Creative Writing, all applicants are required to submit a 300-400 word written piece, explaining their reasons for applying.

    All programmes: notice concerning TOEFL test scores

    Please note: Due to UK Government restrictions, we are no longer able to accept TOEFL test scores.

Both humans and animals have enemies. 11 is easy for us to know the difference between our friends and our enemies. But can other animals do the same? Elephants can! They can use their sense of vision and smell to tell the difference between people who mean a threat and those who do not. In Kenya, researchers find that elephants react differently to clothing worn by men of the Maasai and Kamba ethnic groups. Young Maasai men hunt animals and thus mean a threat to elephants; Kamba men are mainly farmers and are not a danger to elephants.

In an experiment conducted by animal scientists, elephants were first presented with clean clothing or clothing that had been worn for five days by either a Maasai or a Kamba man. When the elephants noticed the smell of clothing worn by a Maasai man, they moved away from the smell faster and took longer to relax than when they noticed the smells of either clean clothing or clothing worn by a Kamba man.

Clothing color also plays a role. In the same study, when the elephants saw red clothing not worn before, they reacted angrily, as red is typically worn by Maasai men. Rather than running away as they did with the smell, the elephants acted angrily toward the red clothing.

The researchers believe that the elephants' emotional reactions arc due to their different senses of smell and sight. Smelling a possible danger means that a threat is nearby and the best thing to do is run away and hide. Seeing a potential threat without its smell means that risk is low. Therefore, instead of showing fear and running away, the elephants express their anger and become aggressive.

    We tend to think of our dreams as being uniquely personal­nighttime stories built from our own experiences that help us process our day-to-day lives. While dreams can give us a look into our personal selves, scientists have collected data that suggests dreams make their way into our cultural fabric(结构), showing themselves in ways that shape beliefs and expose collective anxieties.

    Roger Ivar Lohmann of Trent University conducted research with the Asabano people of the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, a unique group who didn't have outside contact until 1963. His studies looked at how dreams shape their beliefs and actions.

    According to Lohmann's research, dreams act as a sort of motivator or determinant of Asabano behavior. For instance, a dream may affect the way a person hunts or goes about treating medical conditions. The way dreams determine behavior is due to what Lohmann calls the "night residue" effect. This means that specific memories of dreams can affect the way a person acts when awake and inform their belief system.

    Dreams also seem to have an effect on the way many define themselves within their own cultures, and how sometimes reaching a distinct definition can cause anxiety.

    Matt Newsom of Washington State University spoke with college students in Berlin, and found many students had dreams surrounding conflicting views about their own identities(身份) in relation to what they saw as a return of German nationalism, which is a sensitive subject especially when we think of German identity as it's defined even many years after World War Ⅱ.

    Many students had dreams that centered around anxieties like "Where do I belong?" Many students never talked with one another about identity struggles in their dreams, yet many reported having such dreams. Newsom noted that dreams can be helpful "for identifying (识别) unspoken social and historical anxieties present in a given society."

    All of this research suggests that dreams can do more than help explain the thought of a person; we can learn about entire cultures and collective attitudes as well.