Did you know that, in 2016, over 18 million people attended classical concerts in Germany? That's more people than those who went to main league football matches! Earlier this year, Germany continued its celebration of classical music with the opening of a new concert hall in the heart of Hamburg. Germans are incredibly proud of it  and it's the first thing I show to my friends when they come to visit.

    Known as the ‘Elphi' by the locals, the Elbphilharmonie is a beautiful tower of glittering glass sitting atop an old warehouse by the banks of the river Elbe. The plaza(露天广场)is open to the public and from the middle of he city's tallest building, you can gaze across the harbour, miles of rooftops and passing ships below.

    The main concert hall seats over 2000 people and is one of the most advanced music venues in the world. Two smaller concert halls are used for jazz, world and contemporary music. In addition, if you're unbelievably rich, you can buy one of the 45 luxurious apartments lying within the building.

    Construction began in 2007 with a budget of € 241 million and a two-year period. Fast forward ten years, the building eventually opened with a final price tag of over 800 million!

    I consider myself very lucky that the Elbphilharmonie opened during my time living in Hamburg, but unfortunately I haven't yet been able to attend a concert. Everything is sold out for six months! For now, I'm content to visit the plaza to enjoy the impressive views over the  docks and see the innovative architecture up close. Hopefully one day soon. I'll be lucky enough to grab a last-minute concert ticket!

    Pakistan should be everyone's tourist destination for 2018, but what if you already live there? Then perhaps you should consider visiting these five must-visit places for this year.

    Lake Saiful Muluk

    At an altitude of 3, 224m, surrounded by snowy mountains, the lake rewards those that make the three-hour uphill walk from Naran. You will find the pathway just above the free market, but the best choice is to get a jeep and share the costs with some other tourists; expect to pay about 700 rupees, worth it to view this natural beauty.

    Deosai National Park

    As another high point in Pakistan, it has an average altitude of 4,114m－the Deosai Plains are one of the highest plateaus (高原) in the world. If you make it to the park, you expect to find rich plants and wild animals. The breathtaking scenery on show at the plains is enough to make 2018 a memorable year.

    Naltar Valley

    Accessible via a 2.5-hour drive from Gilgit, well worth visiting. Covered with pine trees and other plants, it has a dreamlike feel about it. Various colors all year around make you fall in love.

    Shangrila Resort

    Right in the north of Pakistan in the central valley of Gilgit Baltistan. Locals call this a paradise (乐园), and that's what it feels like. No visit is complete without checking out the restaurant which is built in the structure of an aircraft.

    Rama Meadow (牧场)

    Doesn't feel like Pakistan at all, more like somewhere in Minnesota. Watch the sheep and cows feeding while clear water flows in streams from high in the mountains. Against Chongra's ice-covered peak, this little meadow is a piece of art.

    These are instructions for making invisible ink using baking soda.

An Invisible Smile

    Mr Dawson was an old man who always complained a lot, and everyone in town knew it. Kids ever went into his yard to pick a delicious apple. Old Dawson, they said, would come after them with his gun.

    One Friday, 12-year-old Janet was going to stay all night with her friend Amy. They had to walk by Dawson's house on the way to Amy's house, but as they got close, Janet saw him sitting on his front porch and suggested they cross over to the other side of the street. Like most of the children，Janet was scared of the old man.

    Amy said not to worry, Mr Dawson wouldn't hurt anyone. Still, Janet was growing more nervous with each step closer to the old man's house. When they got close enough, Dawson looked up with his usual frown, but when he saw it was Amy, a broad smile changed his entire face as he said, “Hello, Miss Amy. I see you've got a little friend with you today. ”

    Amy smiled back and told him Janet was staying overnight and they were going to listen to music and play games. Mr Dawson said that sounded fun and offered them each a fresh picked apple off his tree. They gladly accepted. Mr Dawson had the best apples in the whole town.

    When they left, Janet asked Amy, “Everyone says he's the meanest man in town. How come he was so nice to us?”

    Amy explained that when she first started walking past his house he wasn't very friendly and she was afraid of him, but she pretended he was wearing an invisible smile and so she always smiled back at him. It took a while, but one day he half-smiled back at her.

    After some more time, he started smiling real smiles and then started talking to her. Just a “hello” at first, then more. She said he always offered her an apple and was always very kind.

    “An invisible smile? ”questioned Janet.

    “Yes,”answered Amy, “my grandma told me that if I pretended I wasn't afraid and pretended he was smiling an invisible smile at me and I smiled back at him, sooner or later he would really smile. Grandma says smiles are contagious.”

If we remember what Amy's grandma said — everyone wears an invisible smile, we too will find that we're always on the go trying to accomplish so much, aren't we? It's so easy to get caught up in everyday life that we forget how simple it can be to bring cheer to ourselves and others. Giving a smile away takes so little effort and time. Let's make sure that we're not the ones that others have to pretend to be wearing an invisible smile.

    One of the most famous buildings in the United States is Carnegie Hall, the home of classical and popular music concerts in New York. Carnegie Hall is known not just for its beauty and history, but also for its amazing sound. It has been said that the hall itself is an instrument. It takes the music and makes it larger than life.

    Carnegie Hall is named after Andrew Carnegie, who paid for its construction. Construction on Carnegie Hall began in 1890 and the official opening night was on May 5, 1891.

    The hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1924 when it was sold to Robert E. Simon. The building became very old and in 1960, the new owner made plans to destroy it and build an office block. Isaac Stem led a group of people who fought to save Carnegie Hall and finally, the city of New York bought it for $5 million. It was then fixed up between 1983 and 1995.

    Advertisements and stories in newspapers about how Carnegie Hall needed help to recover its history led people to send in old concert programmes and information from all over the world. Over 12,000 concert programmes were received and with these it was possible to make a proper record of Carnegie Hall's concert history.

Carnegie Hall is actually made up of several different halls, but the Main Hall, now called the Isaac Stern Hall, is the most famous. The hall itself can hold an audience of 2,804 in five levels of seating.

    Because the best and most famous musicians of all time have played at Carnegie Hall, it is the dream of most musicians who want to be great to play there. This has led to a very old joke which is now part of Carnegie Hall's history. Question: "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Answer: "Practise, practise, practise."

Elizabeth Bishop is considered one of the best American poets of the 20th century. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911. Her dad died when she was just a baby and her mom never recovered from the loss; she went to live with her grandparents in Nova Scotia, Canada when she was five. Eventually Bishop attended Vassar College, where she began to write poetry.

At Vassar she discovered Marianne Moore's poetry and met "Ms. Moore" and began their life-long friendship. She later met poet Robert Lowell. She wrote tons and tons of letters to both of them, which is good for us because we would otherwise know very little of her personal life. Bishop's poetry is sometimes considered objective and cold because it shows almost nothing about the poet or her life.

Bishop published her first book of poetry in 1946 and wrote until her death in 1979. She would spend years working on a single poem. Her poems are not the result of hasty scribbling (匆忙乱写) on paper while eating breakfast. Over a lifetime of writing, she only published about 275 pages of poetry, and about 40 of those are translations. She would look through drafts of poems again and again and improve them until they were as close to perfect as she could get them.

Reading Elizabeth Bishop is like being transported to the very place, the very moment she's writing about. She leads us to a microscope so we can see every smallest part of the scene. It seems she's always asking us to notice more, and more until the poem is so clear in our minds that it's almost painful — like a light that's too bright. It might take your eyes a while to get used to it, but once they do, you'll like what you see.