If you choose a hot tourist spot for your holiday, you are likely to be drowned by a great number of tourists, noise and long lines. At this point you might wonder why you ever left home. Here are some tips to deal with crowds and avoid the trouble that might ruin your trip.

Book Tickets In Advance 

    Buy tickets online before you leave home, and skip the crowds and endless lines at your destination(目的地). Smart travelers can avoid the queue when visiting abroad with online ticket sales.

Talk To People

    You can ask the travel agency and the hotel for help. Ask questions, get maps, ask about taxis, restaurants and the sites you wish to visit. These people are experts and can save you lots of time trying to find things out for yourself.

Sign Up For Special Tours

    If there are any special events or tours being offered for your vacation, buy them in advance. Firstly they are usually cheaper bought in advance and secondly it makes sure you get booked in before they are sold out.

Visit During the Weekdays

    We all know that most sites and events are less crowded during the week than on weekends when people are off work and the kids are out of school. Flights are also usually cheaper on weekdays than they are on weekends.

Watch The Weather

    Mother nature controls a lot of what we do especially for outdoor activities. Check the weather forecasts and plan your indoor and outdoor activities according to the weather ahead of time.

    Going camping is one of the best ways to get in touch with nature and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. However, thorough plans before a camping trip may be boring. Just follow these simple camping suggestions to make your trip safe and rewarding.

     Selecting a suitable tent

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}When determining the size of your tent, you should take into account the number of campers as well as the camping equipment(设备) necessary for your trip. There should be enough room in the tent for the camping equipment.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Importance of food

    While camping, you will need enough food to give you enough energy for your outdoor activities. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}You should use a two-burner stove to do all your cooking. Insist on simple cooking during your trip to reduce cooking time.

    Enough sleep.

    All campers should have enough sleep during the night. Nights are generally cooler than the days so you need to have enough warm clothes to feel comfortable to sleep during the night. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Extra air mattresses(气垫) may be included in your camping equipment to make your bed more comfortable.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Keep these camping suggestions in mind and make sure you are fully prepared to enjoy your camping trip.

A. When buying a sleeping bag, check that you feel comfortable in it.

B. The best camping trips belong to those people who prepare the best.

C. The comfort level in a tent determines the success of a camping trip.

D. Thus you must have an efficient arrangement for your food preparation.

E. If you have a habit to eat in bed, you might train yourself not to do it during camping.

F. The size is the most important thing you should carefully consider when choosing a tent.

G. It will destroy the mood of the entire camping trip if you don't have enough money.

To Live Truly in Today

    Here are some suggestions on how we should truly live in today. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. If we're out in the town, then the shops and other people will surround us. If we're in our kitchen, then our kitchen appliances and the sunlight coming in through our window will surround us.

    Listen to those you meet. When we're with other people and they're talking, how often do we listen? {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. We may be nodding, but our minds may be thinking of financial worries, or we may be waiting for the other person to finish their sentence so that we can jump straight in with what we have to say. None of this is true "listening". In order to truly listen to someone, we must be in the present. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Hang on every word, and give them the freedom to say what they wish without judgment. By truly listening, you remain in the present with each passing word.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Each day, we have a number of things that we need to do, or that we'd like to do, or simply that we could do. Focus on one day's work at a time, rather than a number of days at once. Find all that needs to be done on that day, and nothing else. If something can be put off, then do so and replace it with something else that is more urgent. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. Focus on that, and nothing else.

A. Focus on what has to be done today.

B. To be aware of the past and the future.

C. We may even find ways to avoid it altogether.

D. Unfortunately, we don't seem to listen that much at all.

E. Once you know what work is the most urgent, then do it.

F. We must really hear what they have to say and not be distracted by our worries.

G. No matter where we find ourselves, we are always surrounded by our immediate environment.

    Even plant can run a fever, especially when they're under attack by insects or disease. But unlike human, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away straight up. A decade ago, adopting the infrared（红外线） scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely（精确的） target pesticide（杀虫剂） spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which always includes plants that don't have pest problems.

    Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Fixed on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat sent out by crops. The data were transformed into a color﹣coded map showing where plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot﹣spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide that they otherwise would.

    The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long﹣term supporters were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce and refinements（改进） in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt that the technology works. "This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States," says George Oerther of Texas A&M, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial support which he failed to obtain 10years ago.

    A new study from brain researchers helps explain how the human brain evolved or changed over time, to permit people to speak and write.

    Michael Ullman, the lead researcher, a professor at Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, D.C, has been studying language learning for more than 20 years.

    Ullman says his research shows that the human brain does not have a special area or system for making language. Over time we have simply reused or co-opted (指派) parts of our brain for language. And those parts, he says, are ancient-older even than humans themselves.

    "This study examines the theoretical framework (准则) that language is learned, stored and' processed in two ancient learning and memory systems in the brain."

    Ullman, Hamrick and the rest of the team looked at data from 16 other studies on language. They found that people learn language using two memory systems: declarative and procedural. Memorizing vocabulary, for example, is a declarative memory process. But learning grammar is, mostly, a procedural memory process.

    "Declarative memory, in humans at least, is what we think of as learning memory', such as, 'Oh, remember what you said last night' or things like that. And procedural motor memory is what we often call motor memory' such as how you learn to ride a bicycle." Or, Ullman adds, "These procedural memory skills become so deeply leaned that we are no longer aware that we are doing them."

    However, Ullman explains that the two long-term memory systems can share tasks. And, he adds, the adult brain uses the systems to learn language a bit differently than a child's brain.

    "Adult language learners of a second language may use their declarative memory for using grammar patterns. They think about it purposefully. For a child, the grammar may come more naturally. They don't have to think about the grammar rules before speaking."

    In addition to language learners, Ullman's study could help people who have a brain injury that affects speaking and writing. This knowledge can also help those who have learning disabilities such as dyslexia (阅读障碍). People with dyslexia have difficulty recognizing words and symbols accurately.

    If you have a chance to go to Finland, you will probably be surprised to find how "foolish" the Finnish people are.

    Take the taxi drivers for example. Taxis in Finland are mostly high-class Benz with a fare of two US dollars a kilometer. You can go anywhere in one, tell the driver to drop you at any place, say that you have some business to attend to, and then walk off without paying your fare. The driver would not show the least sign of anxiety.

    The dining rooms in all big hotels not only serve their guests, but also serve outside diners. Hotel guests have their meals free, so they naturally go to the free dining rooms to have their meals. The most they would do to show their good faith is to wave their registration card to the waiter. With such a loose check, you can easily use any old registration card to take a couple of friends to dine free of charge.

The Finnish workers are paid by the hour. They are very much on their own as soon as they have agreed with the boss on the rate. From then on they just say how many hours they have worked and they will be paid accordingly.

    With so many loopholes in everyday life, surely Finland must be a heaven to those who love to take "petty advantages". But the strange thing is, all the taxi passengers would always come back to pay their fare after they have attended to their business; not a single outsider has ever been found in the free hotel dining rooms. And workers always give an honest account of the exact hours they put in. As the Finns always act on good faith in everything they do, living in such a society has turned everyone into a real "gentleman".