4-Day Classic Beijing Tour

The 4-day classic Beijing tour is designed for tourists who come to visit China for the first time. It covers the most popular and typical places in Beijing, fully displaying the scenery, culture, history, local lifestyles and features, food and drinks, business, etc. for you.

Day 1:Arrival in Beijing

Your guide meets you at Capital Airport, and helps you check in at your hotel

Enjoy Beijing Duck as welcome dinner.

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 2:The Great Wall & the Summer Palace

Start your day at the most famous part of the Great Wall, the Badaling Great Wall. Leave the downtown for the Great Wall at 8 am. Since it is a long drive to the Great Wall (about 2 hours' riding) have a break at the Jade Museum on the way. Lunch will be enjoyed in a local restaurant. In the early afternoon come back to the city and have a sightseeing tour of the Summer Palace.

Recommended Activity: Beijing Opera Show (Liyuan Theatre,19:30-21:10 every evening)

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 3: Beijing city sightseeing & Local experience

Your guide meets you at the hotel at 8 am and set out for the day's touring: Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

After visiting the two sites, have a break and get ready forlunch.

Hutong visit: see some traditional arts of the old Beijing, suchas paper cutting and kite making, and visit a local family.

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 4: Beijing Olympic sites

Visit the Olympic sites: Bird's Nest, Water Cube and OlympicPark, witnessing the fast developing modern China. Enjoy some free time after visiting the sites.

After lunch, it is shopping time and then the tour is over.

How to improve your vocabulary

    Vocabulary is a key part of learning a new language. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}  Maybe you can't learn a hundred new words a day, but you can learn one or two a day, totaling thousands of new words over the years. Here are some tips for building up your vocabulary.

    Make a plan to learn new words. If you want to improve your vocabulary more quickly, you have to make at least a small promise. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

Make you vocabulary practical（实用的）. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, learn more of your trade language—- the words that are commonly used in your business or hobby or vocation(职业). Find better, fresher, clearer words to express what your friends are talking about.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} As you read, if you come across a new word that you don't understand. Don't miss it. Take the time to look it up in a dictionary. Write it down and use it later.

    When you learn a word, use it immediately and frequently. Put your new word into conversation with as many different people as you can. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Use it in sentences. Write it on a card and practice it while waiting for red lights.

A. Repeat it to yourself.

B. They're highly reusable

C. Start learning where you are.

D. Decide to learn one new word every day or two.

E. When you're writing something, use a dictionary frequently

F. Start by learning the words that can express what's most important to you.

G. The more you read, the more words you'll see, and the more you'll understand.

    Dry Ice is a unique substance which has many uses. Essentially, dry ice is frozen CO2. The first report of what we now call dry ice came from the French chemist Charles Thilorier in 1834. In 1924, the Drylee Corporation of America named the solid form of CO2 as "Dry Ice", which is what it is popularly called today.

    At normal atmospheric pressure, CO2changes directly from solid to gas. It skips the liquid phase（阶段）which makes regular ice wet. Frozen CO2is also much colder than regular ice. But regular ice freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, CO2 changes from gas to solid at -109.3 degrees Fahrenheit. This extremely cold temperature makes it very dangerous to handle with bare hands. It can cause frostbite in a very short period of time.

    Dry ice has been used for a variety of purposes throughout the past century. Its primary use is to refrigerate food when electrical refrigeration isn't available. Through the process of sublimation (when CO2 changes from solid to gas), it can maintain cold food for a long time.

    If you've ever been to a play and seen heavy fog on the ground, it is likely that you have seen dry ice in action. This effect can be achieved because CO2 is heavier than air, so evaporated （挥发的）CO2 will sink and accumulate on the ground.

    Another interesting use for this substance is to bait（诱杀）insects like mosquitoes. These insects have sensors which guide them to CO2. They find the high concentration of CO2 in dry ice quite attractive.

    Mars has long been a mystery for human beings. We have been looking for evidence of life on Mars. In the 1960s scientists guessed that the polar ice cap of Mars was made of frozen CO2. More recent observations have shown that while the topmost layer consists of frozen CO2, the most of it is probably regular frozen water.

    There is a large percentage of Asian people in the US. They're hard working, respectful but strange sometimes. If you don't understand the culture, you will get some problems with them. Asian people are different from any other cultures if you think you know them, you might want to think again.

    How are they different? When it comes to most Asian culture, respect is everything. You can do anything you want but don't disrespect an Asian man. You will get some real consequences afterward and especially if he is your boss. It's something called face saving in the Asian culture. It's ridiculous sometimes but it's their culture. Sometimes their culture can come in between their relationship at work. Asian people might expect a lot of respect from their co-workers when their co-workers just see them as an equal.

    Americans are very different from Asian people. If you're Asian, you might want to understand the American culture and even adapt to their culture if you work with them. It will be easier for you since you're in their countries. Imagine an American working in China, expecting Chinese co-workers to get along with him when he criticizes them straight out on every single matter in front of everyone. I think they will take him outside and take care of him. It just doesn't work that way with Asian people.

    If you're an American boss giving your Asian employee a review, you will see that they will have a problem with your negative remarks. They will think that you don't like them, disrespectful, and want to get rid of them; when in fact, you're just doing your job. You just encourage them to do their work better. Of course, it's not fair for you as an American boss but just expect that it can be something that is on your Asian employee's mind.

Briton Andy Park has probably the rarest addiction in the world. He's addicted to celebrating Christmas.

Park, 45, is known as "Mr Christmas" in Britain. He has been celebrating the December 25 holiday on a daily basis for the past 12 years. He's eaten 4,380 turkeys and 87,600 pies, drunk 4,380 bottles of champagne (香槟酒), and 5,000 bottles of wine, given 21,900 presents, mostly to himself, and spent a fortune on lights and decorations. His festive craze (狂热) has so far cost all estimated (估算) US $427,500.

"I'm going to be doing it for another 12 years. I've never, ever been bored with it. " he said.

The electrician from Wiltshire, southwest England, starts his day with a big breakfast of six pies and a turkey sandwich before heading off to work.

He finishes work by 11:30 am in order to start roasting a turkey—the traditional Christmas dish.

At 3:00 pm he watches a video of the British Queen's annual Christmas speech to the Commonwealth, glass of wine in hand.

Dinner is turkey, wine and a bottle of champagne.

He lays his present to himself under the Christmas tree at 8:00 pm.

He even insists on a full Christmas dinner if he goes to a restaurant or to a friend's house for dinner.

Park is hoping his love of Christmas can translate into SUCCESS in the music charts when he releases a single. It's Christmas Every Day on December 9. "I want to be No. 1," he said. Before now, he has made unsuccessful singles such as The Christmas Man.

The Mona Lisa is the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of a woman with a mysterious smile. This week, the painting gave up a secret.

Scientists used X-rays to examine the chemical organization of an extremely small part of the more than 500-year-old painting. The researchers discovered a technique Leonardo used in the work. A team in France and Britain discovered an oil paint used for the Mona Lisa was a special, new chemical mixture. It suggests that the Italian artist may have been in an experimental mood when he set to work on the painting early in the 16th century.

"He was someone who loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically," said Victor Gonzalez. He is the study's lead writer. "In this case, it's interesting to see that indeed there is a specific technique for the ground layer of the Mona Lisa," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Specifically, the researchers found a rare compound, plumbonacrite (水蛭石), in Leonardo's first layer of paint. The discovery, Gonzalez said, proved that da Vinci most likely used lead oxide to thicken and help dry his paint.

The scientists looked into its atomic structure using X-rays in a synchrotron (同步加速器). The machine moves particles at close to the speed of light, permitting researchers to look deeper into the paint structure. "Plumbonacrite is really a fingerprint of his recipe," Gonzalez said. "It's the first time we can actually chemically prove it."

Dutch artist Rembrandt may have used a similar mixture when he was painting in the 17th century. Gonzalez and other researchers have found plumbonacrite in his work, too. "It also tells us that those recipes were passed on for centuries," Gonzalez said. "It was a very good recipe."

But the Mona Lisa and additional works by Leonardo still have other secrets to tell. "There are plenty, plenty more things to discover," Gonzalez said. "What we are saying is just a little brick more in the knowledge."