I travel a lot, and I find out different styles(风格)of directing the way every time I ask “How can I get to the post office?”

Foreign tourists are often puzzled in Japan because most streets there don’t have names; in Japan, people use landmarks (地标) in their directions instead of street names. For example, the Japanese will answer the travellers, “Go straight down to the corner. Turn left at the big hotel and go past a fruit market. You are seeing that the post office is across from the bus stop.”

In the countryside of the American Midwest, there are not usually many landmarks. There are no mountains, so the land is very flat. In many places there are no towns or buildings within miles. Instead of landmarks, people will tell you directions and distances. In Kansas or Iowa, for example, people will say, “Go north two miles. Turn east, and then go another mile. ”

People in Los Angeles, California, have no idea of distance on the map；they measure (测量) distance in time, not miles. “How far away is the post office?” you ask, “Oh,” they answer, “it’s about five minutes from here.” You say, “Yes, but how many miles away is it?” They don’t know.

It’s true that a person doesn’t know the answer to your question sometimes. What happens in such a situation? A New Yorker might say, “Sorry, I have no idea. ” But in Yucatan, Mexico, no one answers “I don’t know”. People in Yucatan believe that “I don’t know” is impolite. They usually give an answer, often a wrong one. A tourist can get lost in Yucatan!

My name is Wang Kun, Ever since middle school, my sister Wang Wei and I     23    (dream) about taking a great bike trip to some     24    (destination) , one of which is the Lancang River. Two years ago she bought an     25    (extreme) expensive mountain bike and then she persuaded me to buy one.

Last year, she     26    (pack) and visited our cousins Dao Wei and Yu Hang at their college in Kunming. They are Dai(傣族人) and grew up in western Yunnan Province near the Lancang River, the Chinese part of the river that     27    (call) the Mekong River in other countries. Wang Wei soon got them interested     28    bike riding too. After graduating from collge, we finally got the chance to take an     29    (amaze) bike trip. I asked my sister, “Where are we going?” It was my sister     30     first had the idea     31    (hike) or ride along the whole Mekong River from where it begins to where it ends. Now she is planning our schedule for the trip,     32     makes me admire her greatly.