Welcome to Austria!

Soll is a village in the mountains in western Austria, and the Hotel Post, opened by a local family, is clean and cheap. From the hotel you can see the whole village, the forest and the mountains. The temperatures in summer are usually 20℃ to 25℃ in the daytime, but much cooler by evening.

Have a good trip to Thailand!

When you visit Bangkok in Thailand, don’t miss the early morning river boat trip to the Floating(漂浮的) Market just outside the city. There you will find many kinds of fruits and vegetables, and you can pay for them when you sit in your boat. Don’t forget your hat—the sun can be strong and it may be as hot as 40℃ about midday!

Welcome to Guangzhou!

Guangzhou is a wonderful place for traveling and there are a lot of things to do. You will find many large department stores in the city. You will also find small shops near the train station. In the evening, you can take a boat trip to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Guangzhou from the river. At night, travelers can enjoy eating at food stalls(货摊) on the streets because the food there is cheap and delicious.

Terry from Kenya, 62 years old, has spent 20 years in the city he now calls home. Having lived in Beijing for more than 20 years, Terry has finally made his Chinese dream come true—becoming a volunteer.

He is often seen giving tourists directions, getting water for a baby and even helping a neighbor sell cold drinks.

“I like helping other people.” he said,“This is where I live, where my friends are and where I call home.”

Terry became interested in Chinese culture as a teenager when he read the Tao Te Ching by Laozi.

In 1981, he went to Shanghai. His first visit to Beijing was six years later on business. Terry and his family moved to Beijing in 1997, since then he has lived and worked in Beijing. Now Terry can make traditional Beijing bean-paste noodles, and when he goes to a restaurant, he usually orders dumplings and some traditional Beijing dishes.

He likes chatting with local people, especially taxi drivers.

“I am more familiar with the lives of taxi drivers than most Beijingers,” he said,“when I see their license numbers, I can tell how many years they have worked.”

“They are so knowledgeable,” he said, “I learned many Chinese from them.”Terry does not want to leave Beijing. He said. “Your home is where your things are. In this sense, Beijing is my home. Now I just enjoy living here.”

Chopsticks originated from(起源于) China.Though simple and little, they are a great invention in the history of humans. There are many legends about Chopsticks, Da Yu and Chopsticks is one of them.

It is said that during Yao and Shun times, Shun ordered Yu to control the flood. One day, Yu took a boat to an island, he was so hungry that he used an earth pot to cook meat. After the meat was well-done in boiled water, he didn’t want to waste time to wait for it to cool, so he took two branches to pick up the meat from the soup. After, to save time, he always took small branches to take out food from the hot pot. For a long time, he was skilled at picking up food with small sticks. In this way, the first types of chopsticks were born.

The chopsticks are made of different kinds of materials including bamboo, wood, animal bone, beautiful stone, and some other materials. There are more than 200 types of chopsticks now, among them, the bamboo chopsticks are most widely used.

“A chopstick can be broken easily, ten pairs of chopsticks hold each other tightly(紧紧地)...”The song is popular with many people, and it always encourages people to work together.

We all know that rice, wheat and corn are staples, but do you know there is another kind of staple food—potatoes? Potatoes have many advantages. They are a good source of vitamin C and potassium(钾). A potato’s vitamin C is as rich as 10 apples. What’s more,potatoes are low in calories(卡路里)-only three fourths of the same amount of wheat and corn, according to People’s Daily. Potatoes are easy to grow. It can be grown in both the north and the south during winter, spring and autumn. The plant is also able to bear drought(干旱). Some areas of China are facing water shortages, so the potato is safe to grow.

With these advantages, having potatoes as a staple food will make our menu more balanced. Now, many Chinese people treat potatoes more like vegetables, and eat them in the form of potatoes cooked with beef. But being a staple food, potatoes can be cooked differently. Scientists have succeeded in making potato flour(粉), noodles and other staple foods similar to those made of rice or wheat.

Every year there are endless talks and suggestions on how to protect the environment. As for students, what should we do?
16．

Plant Trees

The most important method to protect the environment is to plant trees. Trees may take longer to grow, but they serve the next generation(一代).
17．

Save water

Water is life. What we should do is to save water.
18． The more time we take, the more water we are likely to use. As we brush our teeth, turn off the tap.

Limit Car Use

19． It may not be as comfortable as the car, but we will make a significant contribution to protecting the environment.

Reduce Food Waste

Research shows that food that goes to waste in the world every year, is enough to feed almost a billion hungry people.
20． We can make a list of the food we are going to buy, and never order much more than we need in the restaurant.

We depend on the environment for living, and the environment depends on us for living as well. As long as we keep on doing the simple things, we can protect the environment better.

After the winter vacation,I had to move to a new city with my parents. On the first day to my new school, it was cold and ________. I was walking alone slowly ________ worrying about something in my new school. It was early and there weren’t many people on the road. ________ a girl who was riding a bike in the snow fell down. She was ________ hard to stand up but fell again. ________ thinking, I went over to help her quickly. She said “thank you” with a ________ and then rode away. Her smile warmed me a lot.

After I got to school, the teacher led me to the classroom and ________ me to the class. Then he asked me to ________ down beside a girl. I felt so ________ that I didn’t dare to look at her. Soon the first class, English, started. Their textbooks were________from those in my old school. As I was ________ what to do, an English book appeared in front of me. “Let’s ________ it.” The girl beside me said,   “Hi, I’m Carrie,” I looked up. To ________ surprise, it was the girl I helped this morning. From ________ on, we became good friends.

From that I learned: to help ________ is actually to help ourselves!

Fish for the Moon in the Well(水井)

One evening, a ‘clever’ man, Haojia went to fetch some water from the well. When he
36． into the well, he found the moon shining in the well. “Oh, Good Heavens,
37． a pity! The beautiful moon has
38． into the well!” So he rushed home for a hook(钓钩), and tied it with the
39．, then put it into the well to
40． for the moon.

After some time of hunting for the moon, Haojia was happy to
41． that something was caught by the hook. He thought
42． must be the moon. He pulled hard on the rope. Because of the excessive pulling, the rope broke and Haojia fell on his back. Just then Haojia saw the moon again high in the
43．. He said to himself, “Aha, it finally came back to its place! What a
44． job!” He was proud of what he did. He told everyone about it
45．, but he didn’t know how silly he was.

We all know that reading books builds a bridge between our life and the unknown world. In our country, people read books at any time. They enjoy reading books even when they’re on a break at the beach, or relaxing from a hike. Good reading habits lead you to a lifelong love of books. Here are some tips on how to develop good reading habits.

Choose the books which suit you. In most middle schools, teachers give students a reading list every few weeks. Most books are easy to read, like youth novels. The students themselves can also buy books which they’re interested in or the best-selling books.

Reading in short periods. 15 minutes after getting to school, 15 minutes while waiting for friends, 15 minutes before going to sleep. Then you can read books for about five hours every week in total.

Talk about your reading with your family or friends. This helps you have a better understanding.

Sun Jiarui, a 10-year-old girl from Jiangsu Province, recently went popular for her cooking skills. What makes people surprised is that she can cook more than 50 dishes now.

Jiarui’s father, Sun Yadong is a cook, he runs a farm restaurant in Wuxi. “My daughter just grew up in the kitchen.” says he,“She started helping out with housework when she was around 4 or 5. When she was 8, she asked me to teach her to cook after school. It’s not bad for her to master some life skills, and she can take good care of herself when she grows up.” Sun Yadong adds.

Jiarui is famous for her cooking in her school. “We have set up a cooking studio (工作室) at school and Sun Jiarui is one of the ‘teachers’,” says Li Hua, the headmaster of the school, Jiarui teaches the students who are interested in cooking to make simple dishes.“It’s a great thing for students to experience the joy of cooking and the fruits of their labor.” says Li, “This will finally help develop their love for life.”

近年来中国发生了翻天覆地的变化，取得了很多世界瞩目的成就，例如航空航天技术的一步步突破、杂交水稻的成功培育、两届奥运会的成功举办……

某英文网站正在开展以“厉害了，我的国！” 为主题的征文活动。请你以“China makes me feel surprised”为题目，用英语写一篇80词左右的短文投稿。

China makes me feel surprised