Hampton Court Motor Cruiser

16 Hampton Court Road        TEL:208-977-1728

    Hampton Court Motor Cruiser is a boat docked on the River Thames. Facilities(设施) include heating, Smart TV and Wi-Fi. The price per stay also includes the free use of a 4-seat electric boat and barbecue facilities. There is no staff at all on board during your stay.

Hilton London Green Park

4-6 Half Moon Street        TEL:207-629-7522

    Hilton London Green Park stays in the heart of London. It features modern rooms with air conditioning. Wi-Fi is available in public areas and is free of charge. There is also a cocktail bar on site. All children are welcome.

Arbor City

12 Osborn Street            TEL:207-247-3313

    Arbor City Hotel is just next to the Whitechapel Art Gallery. It offers free Wi-Fi and 24-hour room service. Air-conditioned rooms feature a TV, a safe and a shower. Parking is available on site and costs GBP 24 per day. For an additional charge, the hotel offers various breakfast options: English breakfast, Continental breakfast, Vegan and Dairy-free breakfast. The hotel is 10 minutes' tube ride from the West End.

Abercorn House Hostel

28-0 Bute Gardens            TEL:203-696-0215

    Abercorn House Hostel is located just a 3-minute walk from Hammersmith Underground Station, with a 24-hour front desk. Guests can stay in rooms or dormitories fitted with a wardrobe. Some come with a shower, while others offer access to a shared bathroom. They can also use a shared kitchen to prepare their meals. Wi-Fi is available and costs GBP 1 per hour. Non-smoking throughout.

    Twelve years ago, I was a 19 -year-old guy living in the French A1ps. In February 2004, while skiing the back - country in Val d'Isere, I fell off the mountain, resulting in a right leg broken in several pieces. I was helicoptered to hospital, operated on immediately—and there started my adult life.

    Before the accident, I was on a path to what I hoped would be a career in rugby. After-wards, and participation in collision sport was gone. I found a replacement in cycling. Unfortunately, by late 2012, I tried to cycle up Mount Ventoux, but it was halfway up when the pain hit me and I gave up.

    A decision needed to be made on a next step. I had to have my lower right leg cut off. Several months later, I had my first proper weight - bearing prosthetic (假肢). I jumped on a train with my bike to Mount Ventoux. Though it certainly wasn't my quickest, I did it.

    Two weeks later, I was lucky enough to be given a running blade; I bounced on it that day and then raced my triathlon (三项全能) on the Monday. So, that was me, up and running - almost 12 years since I had last run.

    Along with my running coach, I complete a “make every kilometre count” programme of four runs per week alongside a busy cycle, swim and gym schedule. So far this year, I have raced a 10k with an unexpected personal best in January of 38:04. I have my first speed triathlon in late March before heading to North Korea to compete in the Pyongyang Marathon on 10 April.

    If my lifetime allows, I will attempt to race in every country in the world. In the meantime, I'll keep on running — and, when it hurts and I'm low on motivation, I'll remember how far I've come and how much further I've got to go.

    Water is very important to living things. Without water there can be no life on the earth. All animals and plants need water. Man also needs water. We need water to drink, to cook our food and to clean ourselves. Water is needed in offices, factories and schools. Water is needed everywhere.

    There is water in seas, rivers and lakes. Water is found almost everywhere. Even in the desert part of the world, there is some water in the air. You can't see or feel it when it is a part of the air. The water in the seas, rivers and lakes is a liquid, the water in the air is a gas, and we call it water vapor (蒸汽).

    Clouds are made of water. They may be made of very small drops of water. They may also be made of snow crystals(结晶体). Snow crystals are very small crystals of ice. Ice is frozen water. It is a solid. There can be snow and ice everywhere in winter.

    Water may be a solid or a liquid or a gas. When it is a solid, it may be as hard as a stone. When it is a liquid, you can drink it. When it is a gas, you can not see or feel it.

    My wife and I went to this vegan(严格的素食主义的)restaurant to give it a try.As we were eating our pepper and salt tofu, a young lady named Debra walked in. She wasn't aware that the place is vegan and was looking for some meat. My wife and I talked up the place and invited her over to try some of our tofu. Debra tried it, nodded and went out.

    After a few minutes, she and her mother both walked back in. We were having the rest of our meal at that time, so we told her what we had ordered. Debra then asked the waitress to just repeat our order for them. Next, Debra said, "And we want to pay for their meal", pointing to my wife and me. We tried to say no, but Debra wouldn't listen.

    That was not the end of it. Hugs were in order. Debra came over to our table and my wife got up to hug her. Debra hugged my wife and put $100 into her hand. My wife firmly said NO, but Debra insisted. Debra kept talking about our kindness, and we did the same about hers and her mother's. With tears in the eyes, the workers were blown away by this whole exchange between four strangers. I left the waiters a tip that would cover all of our meals and we were on our way.

    I've been witnessing so much kindness, especially over the last few years, as I began to pay more attention. We now have a new favorite restaurant and every time we go there my plan is to pay for someone else's meal.

    Charity is simple in theory：A heart warms, a hand reaches out. In practice, though, charity can become a troubled mix of motives and consequences. Giving can be driven by guilt, duty, praise, or perhaps the hope that giving will somehow make up for past cruelty or ignorance. Too little charity is far less than valuable. Too much can cause dependence which makes the receiver continuously ask for more.

    Giving from the heart is good. But critics have long worried about misdirected charity that does more harm than good. In his 2012 book, "Harmful Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help（And How to Solve the Problem）, "Robert Lupton, an experienced social worker of 40 years of community work in inner-city Atlanta, argues that charity must not do for the poor what they can do for themselves.

    Due to emergencies such as natural disasters, the afterward financial aid is greatly welcome. Mr. Lupton advocates it should focus on the development of self-supporting. The task can be carried out via, for instance, offering microloans, hiring local builders and suppliers, and trying to found self-supported, locally owned and operated enterprises. What seldom works, he argues, are untargeted handouts from far-off providers and the sudden arrival of inexperienced volunteer-tourists hoping to earn personal reputation by digging wells or mending roofs that locals are perfectly able to take care of themselves.

    Getting charity right isn't easy. But from money raising to the boom in volunteering among Millennials（千禧一代）, from the increasing worldwide willingness to give to the efforts by charity organizations to become more effective and fruitful, there is strong evidence that human beings' ability of taking care of others is growing along with their ability to help without harming.

    Charity can be as simple as holding the door for a stranger and as complex as a global campaign to get rid of malaria（疟疾）.Charity works best when it returns the weak to strength, when it helps a small town shaken by a heavy earthquake get back on its feet. A successful charity is one that eventually is no longer needed.

Three Feet From Gold

    Darby's uncle was caught by the "gold fever" in the gold—rush days, and went west to dig and grow rich. After months of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore (矿石). He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. So, with the "strike", he returned home. And with the help of Darby, he borrowed a lot of money. After buying the machinery and having it shipped, Uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

    The first car of ore was mined. And the returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Uncle and Darby!

    Then something happened! The vein (矿脉) of gold ore disappeared! They drilled on, but all in vain. Finally, they decided to quit and sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars. The junk man called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer's calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling! The junk man took millions of dollars in the vein, because he knew enough to seek experts' advice before giving up.

    Most of the money which went into the machinery was borrowed through the efforts of Darby, who was then a very young man. The money came from his relatives because of their faith in him. He paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.

    Long afterwards, Mr. Darby made another discovery that desire can be changed into gold. This discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance. Remembering that he lost a huge fortune, for he stopped three feet from gold, Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, saying to himself, "I stopped three feet from gold, but I never stop because men say 'no' when I ask them to buy insurance."

    Darby sold more than million dollars in life insurance annually. He owes his "stick-ability" to the lesson he learned from his "quit-ability" in the gold mining business.