Chiang Mai is proud of the city's 700- year history, which has rich traditional relics and unique culture. It is located 700 km north of Bangkok and is situated among the highest mountains in the country. Chiang Mai means “the new city” in Thai. King Mengrai founded the city as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom on April 12,1296. Therefore, Chiang Mai not only became the capital and cultural center of the Lanna Kingdom, but was also to be the center of Buddhism in northern Thailand. King Mengrai , a very religious leader, founded many of the city's temples (寺庙) that remain important today.

    It is one of the few places in Thailand where it is possible to experience both historical and modern Thai Culture. The city has old temples next to modern stores. It has more than three hundred temples, among which some are the most beautiful and honorable in the entire Buddhist world, giving the city an atmosphere (氛围) of calmness.

    The old city of Chiang Mai has various dialects, architecture, traditional values, festivals, handicraft and classical dances. In addition, it has hill tribes and their wealth of unique culture. Chiang Mai city features old-world beauty and charm as well as modern enjoyment and convenience. It is also filled with natural resources including mountains, waterfalls and rivers. Nowadays there are many activities and attractions both in the city and the surrounding province, including river rafting , elephant riding and golf.

    The quality of living is excellent. Accommodation and food are of the highest standard at a very low cost. Entertainment is plentiful with numerous festivals, outdoor activities and great nightlife. A number of elephant camps, numerous outdoor activities, a variety of handicraft workshops, various cultural performances, and breathtaking scenery make Chiang Mai one of Asia's most attractive tourist destinations.

    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.

    A music festival is a community event focusing on live performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme. On the list are the music festivals for fans around the world. Find your favorite now!

    Field Day

    January 1, 2018. Sydney

    Field Pay means New Year's Day for young people in Sydney. Seen as the city's original multi－stage party,, it's a gathering of friends coming together for a great fun - filled first day of the year. There's an air of hope and positive energy on a perfect summer's day.

    The Envision Festival

    February 22 – 25, 2018, Uvita

    The Envision Festival is an annual gathering in Costa Rica that aims to provide an

opportunity for different cultures to work with one another to create a better community. The festival encourages people to practice art, music, dance performances, and education. Meanwhile, our connection with nature is expected to be strengthened.

    The McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    March 2 - 4, 2018, Phoenix

    The McDowell Mountain Music Festival is Phoenix、musical celera ,on of community culture. Since its founding in 2004 f it is the only 100% non – profit music festival designed to support, entertain and educate the community. The festival attracts thousands of visitors each year from around the country, and it is an opportunity to experience true culture.

    The Old Settler's Music Festival

    April 19 - 22, 2018, Dale

    The Old Settler's Music Festival is a nationally known music festival for American music. The festival is held in the country of Texas at the height of the wild flower season. The Old Settler's Music Festival offers great music and activities for the whole family.

    Antarctica(南极洲)'s melting ice, which has caused global sea levels to rise by at least 13.8 millimeters over the past 40 years, was thought to primarily come from the unstable West Antarctic Ice Sheet(WAIS). Now, scientists have found that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS)—considered largely unaffected by climate change—may also be melting at an unexpectedly rapid speed.

    The WAIS, whose base is below sea level, has long been considered the most likely to break down. Besides gravity, a deep current of warm water slips beneath the sheet, melting it from below until it becomes a floating shelf at risk of breaking away. In contrast, extreme cold and a base mostly above sea level are thought to keep the EAIS relatively safe from warm waters.

    But as greenhouse gases warm much of the planet, driving stronger polar winds, some scientists think warm water carried by a circular current will start to invade East Antarctica's once unassailable ice. A cooperation of more than 60 scientists last year, published in Nature, estimated that the EAIS actually added about 5 billion tons of ice each year from 1992 to 2017.

    Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues combined 40 years of satellite imagery and climate modeling and found that overall Antarctica now sends six times more ice into the sea each year than it did in 1979, with the majority coming from West Antarctica. But East Antarctica was responsible for more than 30% of Antarctica's contribution to the 13.8-millimeter sea level rise over the past 40 years. “The more we look at this system the more we realize this is fragile,” Rignot says. “Once these glaciers become unstable there is no red button to press to stop it.”

    Rignot hopes the study brings greater attention to a part of Antarctica that has traditionally been understudied. Helen Fricker, a glaciologist (冰川学家) in California, agrees. “We need to monitor the entire Antarctica and we just can't do that without international cooperation.”

    It is irrefutable: Parents, who talk to, read and engage with their very young children as often as possible, help them build literacy (读写能力) skills at an early age.

    Also certain: Parents of very young children usually have to do a lot of laundry. And low-income families tend to bring their kids with them to public laundromats (洗衣房).

    Those truths appear once a week at select neighborhood laundromats in Chicago. That's when librarians lay down colorful mats and oversized board books beside the industrial washing machines.

    Inside one of about 14 laundromats in the city's low-income neighborhoods, the librarians gather all available children for Laundromats Story Time (LST), a Chicago Public Library (CPL) program.

    With the noise of the washers and dryers, anywhere between a handful to more than a dozen children hear stories, sing songs and play games designed to help their brains develop. The event also aims to instruct parents on how to repeat the experience for their kids, working to raise poor literacy rates in underserved communities.

    "We read books, we sing songs, we do plays," says Becca Ruidl, the CPL's STEAM Team early learning manager, who runs the LST program. "We kind of keep it going so parents can walk in adn join in at any time. But a big part of what we do is model literacy skills for parents so they can do it at home with their kids."

    While a laundromat seems an unlikely place to engage with children, "we really wanted to meet people in the community where they're. "Ruidl says.

    And it clearly meets a need: Library officials say the program is in increasing demand, while Ruidl says families have adjusted their household's laundry day to suit the librarians' laundromat visits. At the same time, LST's co-sponsors—including a laundry industry trade group and Libraries Without Borders, an organization fighting poverty through literacy—have worked with the CPL to draft an instruction handbook to help expand the concept to other U.S. cities.

With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas, Valentine's Day as an imported festival faces a dangerous situation in China, where it's caught between forces of tradition and fashion. Valentine's Day has a natural enemy in China. And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb. 14. It is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, that will influence the Feast of Saint Valentine.

The real disagreement between East and West probably took place over a century ago, when China's door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese scholars supported westernization as a means to strengthen our nation's ability to compete.

The introduction of the solar calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to be accepted by the world order.

For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel. When it comes to the eventual outcome, practicality usually beats all other concerns. Laws can help, such as the three traditional festivals of Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat and Mid­Autumn gaining legal status in 2008 and giving every Chinese citizen a day off, but laws cannot push what people have no feelings for. So, the celebration or boycott of imported holidays or homegrown ones should be no cause for worry. If they are irrelevant, no social media will change the public's mind; and if they are accepted, there must be a need which they happen to satisfy.

Since we have no global Qin Shihuang to force one system on every country, we can always rely on a dual (双重的) approach by which we share with the outside world on the one hand but preserve our own ways of life on the other.