The value-packed, all-inclusive sight-seeing package that combines the best of Sydney's harbor, city, bay and beach highlights.

    A Sydney Pass gives you unlimited and flexible travel on the Explorer Buses: the 'red' Sydney Explorer shows you around our exciting city sights while the 'blue' Bondi Explorer visits Sydney Harbour bays and famous beaches. Take to the water on one of three magnificent daily harbor cruises (游船). You can also travel free on regular Sydney Buses, Sydney Ferries or CityRail services (limited area), so you can go to every corner of this beautiful city.

    Imagine browsing at Darling Harbour, tasting the famous seafood at Watsons Bay or enjoying the city lights on an evening ferry cruise. The possibilities and plans are endless with a Sydney Pass. Wherever you decide to go, remember that bookings are not required on any of our services so tickets are treated on a first in, first seated basis.

    Sydney Passes are available for 3, 5 or 7 days for use over a 7-calendar-day period. With a 3 or 5-day pass you choose on which days out of the 7 you want to use it. All Sydney Passes include a free Airport Express inward trip before starting your 3, 5 or 7 days, and the return trip is valid for 2 months from the first day your ticket was used.

    Sydney Pass Fares

    A child is defined as anyone from the ages of 4 years to under 16 years. Children under 4 years travel free.

    A family is defined as 2 adults and any number of children from 4 to under 16 years of age from the same family.

    It's apparently become a trend in schools around the world to ban students from using the term, “best friends,” according to psychologist Dr. Barbara Greenberg. The movement, which is believed to have started in Prince George's school in South London, isn't intended to discourage close friendships, but rather encourage a wider friend group, Greenberg says.

    “Let's face it. You can't ban somebody from having a close relationship, and you can't really ban somebody from having a best friend but what the schools are trying to do is foster the idea of kids having more than a single friend,” Greenberg said.

    The idea is to increase the number of interactions a student may have with different members of his or her peer group. “I see kids come in all week long who are feeling awful because they are either nobody's best friend or their best friend has moved on,” Greenberg says.

    Jay Jacobs, who operates Timber Lake Camp in New York, stresses the downside of not fostering multiple relationships at a young age, for exactly that reason. “I think that there are problems in just having one friend,” Jacobs says. “Remember as you grow up, interests change, and children go in different directions.” Jacobs adds that teachers at Timber Lake, which changes positions between Glen Cove in winter and Shandake in summer, have made it a point to promote a more inclusive environment for years.

    Jacobs reminds people that, “As you grow up, interests change, and children go in different directions,” so having only one friend can be risky. He holds the belief that children will be better set up for success later in life if they get used to having a wider friend group at a young age. “It's about promoting kindness, looking to children to be kind to one another and to be aware of what it looks like when you're not,” Jacobs says.

    Last year I ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience that was too convenient for my own good: the iPad. Instead of looking at nature, I checked my email. Instead of paddling a small boat, I followed my Twitter feed (推特简讯). Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading four newspapers each morning. I was behaving as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation but my head wasn't.

    So this year I made up my mind to try something different: withdrawal (退出) from the Internet. I knew it wouldn't be easy, since I'm bad at self-control. But I was determined. I started by giving the iPad to my wife.

    The cellphone signal at our house was worse than in the past, making my attempts at cheating a frustrating experience. I was trapped, forced to go through with my plan. Largely cut off from e-mail, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites, I had few ways to connect to the world except for radio and how much radio can one listen to, really? I had to do what I had planned to all along: read books.

    This experience has had a happy ending. With determination and the strong support of my wife, I won in my vacation struggle against the Internet, realizing finally that it was I, not the iPad, that was the problem. I knew I had won when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “I don't need it,” I said.

    However, as we return to post -vacation life, a harder test begins: Can I continue when I'm back at work? There are times when the need to know what's being said right now is great. And I have no intention of giving up my convenience completely. But I hope to resist the temptation (诱惑) to check my e-mail every five minutes, which leads to checking my Twitter feed and a website or two.

    I think a vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive. Here I hope this one worked.

    If your life were a book and you were the author, how would you want your story to go? That's the question that changed my life forever.

    At the age of 19, I became a massage therapist(治疗师). For the first time in my life, I felt free, independent and completely in control of my life. That is, until my life took a detour. I was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. Over the course of two months, I lost my spleen(脾), my kidneys, and both of my legs below the knees.

    One day, I went home. I crawled into bed and this is what my life looked like for the next few months me passed out, escaping from reality, with my legs resting by my side. I was completely physically and emotionally broken. But I knew that in order to move forward, I had to let go of the old Amy and learn to embrace the new Amy. And that is when I began to realize that I didn't have to be small any more. I could be as tall as I wanted or as short as I wanted depending on whom I was dating. And if I snowboard again, my feet aren't going to get cold. And the best of all, I thought, I can make my feet the size of all the shoes that are on the sales shelf. And I did!

    I started snowboarding. Then I went back to work. And then I co-founded a non-profit organization for physical disabilities so that they could get involved in action sports. And just this past February, I won two World Cup gold medals, making me the highest-ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world.

    Eleven years ago, when I lost my legs, I had no idea what to expect. But if you ask me today, if I would ever want to change my situation, I would have to say no, because my legs haven't disabled me. They've forced me to rely on my imagination and to believe in possibilities, and that's why I believe that our imaginations can be used as tools for breaking through borders, because in our minds, we can do anything and we can be anything. It's belief in those dreams and facing our fears directly that allow us to live our lives beyond our limits.

POETRY CHALLENGE

    Write a poem about how courage, determination, and strength have helped you face challenges in your life.

Prizes

    3 Grand Prizes: Trip to Washington, D.C. for each of three winners, a parent and one other person of the winner's choice. Trip includes round-trip air tickets, hotel stay for two nights, and tours of the National Air and Space Museum and the office of National Geographic World.

    6 First Prizes: The book Sky Pioneer:A Photobiography of Amelia Earhart signed by author Corinne Szabo and pilot Linda Finch.

    50 Honorable Mentions:Judges will choose up to 50 honorable mention winners, who will each receive a T-shirt in memory of Earhart's final flight.

Rules

    Follow all rules carefully to prevent disqualification.

    ■Write a poem using 100 words or fewer. Your poem can be any format, any number of lines.

    ■Write by hand or type on a single sheet of paper. You may use both the front and back of the paper.

    ■On the same sheet of paper, write or type your name, address, telephone number, and birth date.

    ■Mail your entry to us by October 31 this year.

Brilliant Ways to Deliver Secret Messages

Many effective ways are used now to deliver secret messages. But in the past when the science and technology was not developing, especially during the war, how did people send secret and important messages?

Shoelaces

In the 1950s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency created a book of tips to teach spies ways to communicate in public. One tip: Lace up your shoes. Tied one way, the laces might mean "I have information": tied another, "Follow me". The spies could communicate while everyone else probably thought, "That guy can't tie his shoes correctly!"

Tattooed (刺文身) Head

Around 513 B.C., Histiaeus was forced out as the ruler of an ancient city. So he wanted to send a message to his supporters: Rebel against the king who took away his power.

Histiaeus called in a slave, shaved his head and tattooed the message onto the man's skin on the top of head. After the slave's hair grew back, he travelled to Greece with orders to shave his head again. Message received!

Orange Juice

In 1597, John Gerard was imprisoned in the Tower of London in England. He asked the prison guard to let him send letters written in charcoal (木炭). But then he wrote another message on top using the juice from an orange-which was only visible when the juice was dry and the page heated. With his invisible ink, he escaped successfully.

Songs

In the 1800s, African American slaves couldn't talk openly about their plans to escape to freedom—so they secretly sang about it.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot might sound like a religious song. But for slaves, the "sweet chariot" was the code for the Underground Railroad, the network of people who helped slaves head to northern states and Canada. The song Wade in the Water warned escaped slaves to get in the water so dogs wouldn't smell them. With these songs, hundreds of people escaped slavery.