Chinese New Year 2012 (Shanghai)
Boom!
Lunar new year in Beijing on Jan. 23, 2012
Fireworks in the center of Beijing city. It was really surprising.
Shanghai Feb 2011 Year of the Rabbit Anul Iepurelui Lantern Festival
Taoist on Lao Mountain is holding a ceremony by the sea to communicate with Gods
Qingdao is a beautiful coastal city. You can enjoy the fresh air and the leisure time here. Walking to the beach, you can see the clear sea water and distant coast-line. The seafood is quite cheap in Qingdao. What an amazing idea to taste some seafood while feeling the cool wind from the sea. LaoMountain in Qingdao is also a great choice for sightseeing.
Nine Days in Japan
I traveled to Japan in October 2016.
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With the exception of the first day (Shibuya District and Edo-Tokyo Museum), I traveled with Trafalgar’s “Splendours of Japan” tour that provided an excellent experience.
Our guide, Yukako Yuka Hashizume, was among the best that I have toured with. She was friendly and always made the extra effort to make our trip the best it could be. She was very knowledgeable about Japanese culture, history, lifestyle, economics and more. She is among an elite group of outstanding travel guides.
I booked the trip through Desirae Fuentes of AAA Travel. The service was first rate and I can highly recommend both Desirae and AAA.
Note that there are numerous sites that are not shown in my video. The video was getting too long and for some sites, I didn't have adequate video or photos (some sites don't allow cameras). Also, I make no mention of the many included meals that are a big part of the experience.
The accommodations were all first rate. The only downside was that our stay in Takayama at the Takayama Green Hotel found many of us in smoking rooms which was unpleasant for non-smokers. The transportation was prompt and the drivers efficient and courteous.
Tours such as this offer the advantage that you don't have to worry about transportation – navigating a train system in a foreign country and language, and all of the accommodations and entrance fees are already paid. The locations are already chosen for you by experts to give you a broad experience. All you have to do is go along for the ride. Furthermore, a lot of meals are included.
On the downside, you often find yourself without enough time to fully explore a location. There's a justifiable need to stay on schedule. For example, at Kenrokuen Gardens, the Kanegawa Castle, with it's compelling moat and outer walls, beckoned us from across the street. If you're on you're own, you can simply cross the street and check out the destination. And sometimes, you encounter memorable experiences and locales. In our case, we could only wish and had to get on the bus.
Of note, there's a longer version of the trip that includes a ride on the Shinkansen “bullet” Train and Hiroshima. Based on my experience, I can easily recommend Trafalgar's Splendours of Japan to anyone who wants to experience Japan.
This trip includes visits to: Tokyo, Mount Fuji, Hakone, Takayama, Shirakawago Valley, Kanazawa, and Kyoto.
Eastminster by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (
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Shenzhen | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:02:33 1 Etymology
00:03:35 2 History
00:04:22 2.1 Nantou
00:06:59 2.2 Market town
00:07:44 2.3 Special Economic Zone
00:10:33 3 Geography
00:12:45 3.1 Climate
00:14:55 4 Cityscape
00:15:04 5 Politics
00:15:43 6 Administrative divisions
00:18:58 7 Economy
00:24:00 7.1 Technology industry
00:25:26 7.1.1 Industrial zones
00:26:47 7.2 Economic cooperation with Hong Kong
00:31:21 7.2.1 Qianhai
00:33:05 8 Demographics
00:36:04 8.1 Historic
00:36:47 8.2 Other Statistics
00:39:14 8.3 Metropolitan area
00:39:40 8.4 Ethnic groups
00:39:49 8.4.1 Koreans
00:42:38 8.5 Languages
00:45:09 8.6 Religion
00:46:17 8.7 Crime
00:48:08 9 Education
00:49:21 9.1 Colleges and universities
00:51:01 10 Transport
00:51:10 10.1 Public transport
00:55:36 10.2 Roads
00:57:55 10.3 Railway
01:00:48 10.4 Air
01:02:00 10.5 Ferries
01:03:36 10.6 Connection with Hong Kong
01:05:27 11 Architecture
01:10:59 12 Parks and recreation
01:11:09 12.1 Parks and gardens
01:14:54 12.2 Theme parks
01:18:23 12.3 Beaches
01:18:59 13 Culture
01:20:51 13.1 Cuisine
01:21:55 13.2 Museums and exhibition centers
01:22:56 13.3 Theaters and concert halls
01:23:21 14 Media
01:24:54 15 Sports
01:27:14 16 Sister cities
01:27:57 17 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
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Speaking Rate: 0.8136272377662801
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-D
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
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Shenzhen (, Mandarin: [ʂə́n.ʈʂə̂n] (listen)) is a major city in Guangdong Province, China; it forms part of the Pearl River Delta megalopolis, bordering Hong Kong to the south, Huizhou to the northeast, and Dongguan to the northwest. It holds sub-provincial administrative status, with powers slightly less than those of a province.
Shenzhen, which roughly follows the administrative boundaries of Bao'an County, officially became a city in 1979, taking its name from the former county town, whose train station was the last stop on the Mainland Chinese section of the railway between Canton and Kowloon. In 1980, Shenzhen was established as China's first special economic zone. Shenzhen's registered population as of 2017 was estimated at 12,905,000. However, local police and authorities estimate the actual population to be about 20 million, due to large populations of short-term residents, unregistered floating migrants, part-time residents, commuters, visitors, as well as other temporary residents. Shenzhen was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world in the 1990s and the 2000s and has been ranked second on the list of ‘top 10 cities to visit in 2019 by Lonely Planet.Shenzhen's cityscape results from its vibrant economy - made possible by rapid foreign investment following the institution of the policy of reform and opening-up in 1979. The city is a leading global technology hub, dubbed by media as the next Silicon Valley.Shenzhen hosts the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous multinational companies such as JXD, Vanke, Hytera, CIMC, SF Express, Shenzhen Airlines, Nepstar, Hasee, Ping An Bank, Ping An Insurance, China Merchants Bank, Tencent, ZTE, Huawei, DJI and BYD. Shenzhen ranks 14th in the 2019 Global Financial Centres Index. It has one of the busiest container ports in the world.
Auburn Coach Wife Kristi Malzahn Agrees with Match & eHarmony: Men are Jerks
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling Bravo! in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Obviously, I wasn't always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry's Kids aren't going to walk, even if you send them money. It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.
And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It's equally questionable whether Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)