【推荐1】Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brief Introduction

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) was acquired by the city of Brooklyn in 1854 along with the land that is Prospect Park.

There are so many gardens on display at the BBG that is honestly hard to keep count of them. There’s the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, the Osborne Garden, the Shakespeare Garden... you get the point. Each garden that is displayed will be showing off a different group of amazing plants that come m all sorts of colors and sizes. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden offers something for the entire family. They even have a Children’s Garden for the little ones.

Attractions

Japanese Hill and Pond Garden

One of the most frequency visited gardens at BBG, the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden is certainly a favorite among visitors. This garden features a variety of styles as well as beautiful scenery with a viewing pavilion (亭子) and a waterfall. The Shogun Lantern featured in the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden is over 500 years old. It was given to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as a gift from the city of Tokyo.

Children’s Garden

Children have been planting plants at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden since 1914 and continue their efforts today. Currently, there are over a thousand children contributing to the Children’s Garden.

Shakespeare Garden

For those who have fallen in love with the works of Shakespeare, this will be a garden that they can truly appreciate. Over 80 plants that have been mentioned in the writing of Shakespeare currently grow in the Shakespeare Garden.

Getting to Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Botanic Garden: 900 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225

Closest Subway: Prospect Park/ Eastern Parkway/ Franklin Avenue

Bus Tour Stops: Stop 34 or 35 Brooklyn route

Opening Times

15 March— 6 November：

Tuesday— Friday: 8:00 am—6:00 pm; Saturday—Sunday: 10:00 am—6:00 pm

8 November —11 March

Monday—Friday: 8:00 am—4:30 pm; Saturday —Sunday: 10:00 am—4:30 pm

【推荐3】A. Human feet will become just one big toe.

In a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1911, a surgeon named Richard Clement Lucas made a curious prediction that the “useless outer toes” will become used less and less, so that “man might become a one-toed race” in the next century. Look and check your toes.

B. Our houses will be cleaned by hoses.

In a 1950 article titled “Miracles You’ll See in the Next 50 Years,” the New York Times’ longtime science editor Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that by the 21st century, all you’ll have to do to get your house clean is “simply turn the hose on everything.”

That’s because he imagined furniture would be made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. “After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor” all you’d have to do is “turn on a blast of hot air” to dry everything. A mercy for housewife, right?

C. We’ll live in flying houses.

Inventor, science writer, and futurist Arthur C. Clark—who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey—believed that the boring houses of 1966 would be extremely different by the time we reached the 21st century. Evidently, the houses of the future would have nothing keeping them on the ground and they would be able to move to anywhere on the earth on a whim (异想天开). So easy to travel abroad!

D. We’ll eat candy made of underwear.

In Popular Mechanics, Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that all food would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks by the 21st century. “Cooking as an art is only a memory in the minds of old people,” he wrote. And, thanks to advances in cooking technology, Kaempffert predicted it would even be possible to take ordinary objects like old table cloth and “silk-like underwear” and bring them to “chemical factories to be made into candy.” No, thanks! Not at all!

【推荐1】Are you a tea drinker? If so, you’re not alone. Every day around the world millions of cups of this popular brew (沏茶) are drunk. The oldest discovered tea is from the Han Dynasty. But the tea trend really took off during the Tang Dynasty, when it became China’s national drink.

Tea is the second most consumed drink in the world. Most of us can’t resist a cup of tea sometimes. They’re a perfect pick-me-up and comforter. For many, having a “cuppa” is a daily routine. And according to some scientists, habitual tea consumption can have some health benefits. Drinking black tea may speed up recovery from the daily stresses in life, though we do not know what ingredients of tea take effect. Also, drinking seven or more cups of green tea was associated with a lower risk of death among both heart attack and stroke survivors. So, if we turn to tea for its taste, its image or as a lifestyle choice, it could be a lifesaver!

Tea is consumed in many ways — slurped, sipped or glugged (大口喝). It can be poured from pots, infused or brewed in the cup using tea bags — and it’s this latter process that is causing concern. Scientists from McGill University in Montreal found that some ‘plastic’ tea bags shed high levels of microplastics into water. However, The World Health Organization says such particles in drinking water do not appear to pose a risk.

Most tea bags are made from paper, with a small amount of plastic used to seal them shut. This has led to debate about whether they can be recycled. However, gardener Mike Armitage has said that the plastic contained in the soil could be washed into streams and rivers and ultimately out to sea.

Unilever, the owners of the tea brand PG Tips, said their tea bags are made with a small amount of plastic-used to seal them-and that they are suitable for composting. And the brand Yorkshire Tea said their bags do contain plastic, but they were actively developing recyclable things to replace the plastic.

【推荐2】Is there a need to rebuild the Old Summer Palace? In reply to such a proposal from a national lawmaker, the National Cultural Heritage Administration said there was no such need.

The Summer palace on the outskirts of China’s capital is a tranquil park with canals, bridges, pagodas, ginkgo tone ruins, and a few traditional buildings. Despite still covering a large area, the site today represents only a shadow of what stood before.The ruins have long been a potent symbol of China's"humiliation"at the hands of foreign powers.

In 1860, British and French troops looted and burned the Summer Palace in response to the killings of 20 European emissaries during the Second Opium War: Forty years later, it was further damaged by a coalition of foreign nations. Historian Bernard Brizay described these acts of cultural destruction as equivalent to invaders blowing up the Palace of Versaille (凡尔赛宫), looting thousands' of priceless artworks from the Louvre((卢浮宫), and burning France's national library to the ground。

Since rebuilding the Old Summer Palace was first proposed in 1980, there has been an ongoing public debate about whether its ruins should be left to stand as a permanent reminder of China's dark history. The state-run newspaper Guangming Daily called the remains of the Summer Palace "the most realistic teaching materials" for instilling a patriotic education. "Though humiliating, they cause people to think, "an author wrote. “They use a cruei reality to tell all Chinese people: Those who fall behind are struck down, while the strong rise and prosper.”

Those in the rebuild camp want to recapture old glory, but they don't understand the importance of cultural relics. A ruin like Yuan Ming Yuan is a historical record. In this case the history includes its destruction by fire. If you rebuild, you erase the record.