For kids and many adults,a San Diego vacation means theme parks and other attractions.Before heading to a park,call or check its website for updated hours of operation; many parks have seasonal or holiday hours.Ticket prices listed here are for general admission（入场费）,single-day use only.

Sea World San Diego

    A 6-minute ride called Journey to Atlantis,which is to open in late May,tells the legend of the island nation. After the ride of Greek fishing boats,folks can visit a new exhibit of dolphins,which have not been on display at the park since 1998.

    DETAILS: General admission is $46.95 for adults,$37.95 for children aged 3-9,free for children 2 and younger. 1-800-380-3203 or www.seaworld.com.

San Diego Zoo

    There's not much in the way of new attractions.The zoo has a new panda cub（幼兽）,Mei Sheng.Nighttime Zoo, a program popular with families,starts June 26.

    DETAILS: General admission is $21 for adults,$14 for children aged 3-11,free for children 2 and younger. 1-619-234-3153 or www.Sandiegozoo.com

Maritime（海的）Museum of San Diego

    The HMS Surprise,the 18th-century British warship featured in the film Master and Commander,is on exhibit through Nov.30.

    DETAILS: The ship is available for tours from 9 am to 8 pm daily.Admission is $8 for adults,$6 for seniors and children aged 13-17,$5 for kids aged 6-12,and free for kids 5 and younger.1-619-234-9153 or www.sdmaritime.org.

Old Town Trolley Tours

    Visiting relatives or friends in San Diego? They can get a hometown pass and ride for free with your paid admission.

    DETAILS: The main ticket booth（售票亭）is in Old Town at 4010 Twiggs St.Hours are from 9 am to 5 pm, daily $25.www.historictours.com.

    Wearing a red nose for a day may seem like a strange way to raise money for charity. However, it seems to work in Britain

Red Nose Day (RND) is well-known in the UK. The aim of the day is to raise money for a charity called Comic Relief which helps people in need in Africa and in the UK.

    Red nose?

    Comic Relief was started in 1985 by the scriptwriter Richard Curtis. It's called Red Nose Day, as on this day many people buy a plastic red nose to wear! The money made from selling red noses goes to the charity.

    When is RND?

    Red Nose Day takes place every two years in the spring and is now so famous that many people consider it to be an unofficial national holiday. For example, many schools have non-uniform days. This year Red Nose Day was on 13^th March 2015.

    Money

    Across Britain, people are encouraged to “Do Something Funny for Money”. The money that is collected helps children to go to school, and educates the adults with HIV and AIDS. Comic Relief also works closely with disabled and elderly people to make sure they have equal rights and a better life.

    So, if you are ever in the UK on Red Nose Day, now you know why you may find normal people wearing red noses and doing silly things! It's all for a good cause! If you want to find out more about the day, have a look at the official Read Nose Day website.

    My mother loves flowers. As soon as warm weather comes around, you will find her planting, watering and weeding over everything. For many years we lived next door to each other, and she spent as much time in my garden as she did her own. After the flowers became plentiful each summer, she would cut colorful bouquets (花束) to enjoy inside the house－both hers and mine. I would often come home from work and find a beautiful arrangement (布置) of fresh flowers on my coffee table.

    Shortly before Christmas one year, a local flower shop offered a bouquet month special. It seemed to be a great way to thank her for all of the flowers she had given me through the years. After the holidays, in early January, I drove her to the flower shop to pick up her first month's bouquet. The small fresh colorful bouquet would hardly fill a small vase (花瓶).

    I was so embarrassed(尴尬的). However, after we returned home, she began to arrange the flowers she had received. “Mom, I'm sorry,” I told her. “I can't believe how skimpy that bouquet is.” She looked at me and smiled. “It's okay,” she said. “It allows me to better enjoy the beauty of each one.”

    Mom's words helped me to realize something bigger and more important－when we have too many good things, we often fail to enjoy the beauty of each one.

      Thanks, Mom, for helping me understand that less is sometimes more.

    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".

    Steven Stein likes to follow garbage trucks. His strange habit makes sense when you consider that he's an environmental scientist who studies how to reduce litter, including things that fall off garbage trucks as they drive down the road. What is even more interesting is that one of Stein's jobs is defending an industry behind the plastic shopping bags.

    Americans use more than 100 billion thin film plastic bags every year. So many end up in tree branches or along highways that a growing number of cities do not allow them at checkouts(收银台). The bags are prohibited in some 90 cities in California, including Los Angeles. Eyeing these headwinds, plastic-bag makers are hiring scientists like Stein to make the case that their products are not as bad for the planet as most people assume.

    Among the bag makers' argument: many cities with bans still allow shoppers to purchase paper bags, which are easily recycled but require more energy to produce and transport. And while plastic bags may be ugly to look at, they represent a small percentage of all garbage on the ground today

    The industry has also taken aim at the product that has appeared as its replacement: reusable shopping bags. The stronger a reusable bag is, the longer its life and the more plastic-bag use it cancels out. However, longer-lasting reusable bags often require more energy to make. One study found that a cotton bag must be used at least 131 times to be better for the planet than plastic.

    Environmentalists don't dispute(质疑) these points. They hope paper bags will be banned someday too and want shoppers to use the same reusable bags for years.