【推荐2】The cost of living in countries like the United States, Britain, Australia or France has increased in recent years. But, if you’re willing to leave your country and explore life in other areas, there are many countries having an extremely cheap and low cost of living. So, if you have the flexibility of living wherever you please, and want to live in a country the cost of living is the cheapest in the world, check out there 3 countries when planning you next move.

Cambodia

Cambodia may not be the first country that comes to mind when you think of a tropical paradise, but it’s pretty close. The added bonus is that living here is insanely cheap, unlike some other tropical getaways. A luxury home with four bedrooms and a pool would only cost about $ 600 a month. A decent three-bedroom vacation home can be purchased here for just $ 20,000. And, for only about $ 2,000 a year, you can also hire a gardener and housekeeper to take care of your property.

Ecuador

Ecuador is similar to the United States in may ways, and a result, it has become a popular American getaway. They even use the US Dollar for their currency. In this country, it’s cheaper to eat out every day than cook for yourself on budget in the U.S. You can even buy a property for around 50,000 and hire someone to tend to it while you’re away.

Mexico

Although the country is known for its poverty ridden streets, there are many wealthier areas that provide every amenity you might need. You can live off a mere $ 700 a month in Mexico, and this includes rent for a nice place, amenities, food, and any sights.

【推荐3】When you think of a national park, you generally picture fresh air and wild animals, right? Well, now you’re going to have to add tea shops and something called “the Underground” to your definition, because London, England has signed up to be the first “National Park City.”

London was founded by the Romans around 2,000 years ago and people have continually lived there since then. In all that time, however, nobody had the idea to replace all the parks with big box stores or high buildings, which means London already has a much lower urban density than most of the world’s cities. Nowadays about a third of the city is green space.

In July 2019, London announced its willingness to become the world’s first National Park City. Now the city is moving toward the goal of achieving 50% green space by the year 2050 by connecting and increasing public parks, greening unused parking lots and the private yards of existing and new houses, and fixing some green roofs on existing buildings.

“Encouraged by the aims and values of our rural national parks, the London National Park City is basically about making life better in the capital through both small everyday things and long-term thinking,” Daniel Raven-Ellison, who began the movement to make London a National Park City six years ago, said. “We’ve been doing that in London for centuries, which is why London is so green.” It’s about going further to make the city greener, healthier and wilder; making the city richer in wildlife.

London will have a much easier job achieving this type of green transformation than more densely-urbanized cities like Paris and New York, which have 10% and 27% green space, respectively. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible — the National Park City Foundation hopes to include 25 more cities in addition to London by the year 2025. Glasgow, Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England are both considering becoming National Park Cities.

【推荐2】Olympic host cities are generally considered to be equipped with advanced technology and expensive facilities. Now, people can just go there for a little Olympic-level entertainment.

Athens, Greece (1896 and 2004)

Home to the first modern Olympic games in 1896, Athens' history of the Olympic tradition dates back several thousand years. Every four years, the Olympic torch is lit at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens before beginning its long journey to the new host city. Visitors can walk through the Olympic Velodrome in the Olympic Sports Complex and step back in time at the 50,000-seat stadium.

Barcelona, Spain(1992)

These days Barcelona is among the world's most visitable cities even without Olympic fame, but that isn't always the case. The telecommunications tower built for the games by Spanish architect Calatrava is also an iconic(图像的） device of the city's skyline, and its Olympics stadium- Montjuic Stadium is regularly used to host A-list musical performances like The Rolling Stones, Madonna, and Beyonce.

St Moritz, Switzerland(1924 and 1948)

Appropriately, the town that invented Alpine tourism has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, and continues to make use of its many sports facilities-if you can afford to get there. Stay at the Kulm Hotel for the easiest access to the Kulm Country Club, where guests can skate on the same lake used by mid-century Olympians, or test your courage on the Olympia Bob Run, one of the few places where you can ride a full-speed Olympic bobsled(双人雪橇） on a run constructed entirely of ice.

Sydney, Australia (2000)

The turn-of-the-century Sydney Summer Olympics were named the "Green Games" by the International Olympic Committee (10C) and were designed to introduce a more environmentally conscious way of hosting the event. The structure that best shows Sydney's efforts to be an example of continuing Olympic development is the ANZ Stadium.

【推荐3】Tayka Hotel De Sal

Where: Tahua, Bolivia

How much: About $95 a night

Why it’s cool: You’ve stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That’s something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt - including the beds (though you’ll sleep on regular mattresses and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake that’s the world’s biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.

Green Magic Nature Resort

Where: Vythiri, India

How much: About $240 a night

Why it’s cool: Riding a pulley (滑轮) -operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window - there is no glass! -you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy. Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don’t even have to come down for breakfast - the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn “elevator”.

Dog Bark Park Inn B&B

Where: Cottonwood, Idaho

How much: $92 a night

Why it’s cool: This doghouse isn’t just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps to the loft in Willy’s head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant outside.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel

Where: Ayvali, Turkey

How much: Between $130 and $475 a night.

Why it’s cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was1 like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool, about 65 ℉ in summer. (Don’t worry - there is heat in winter.)

【推荐1】The Miao Sisters Festival is held every year in Guizhou's Taijiang County, where 97 percent of the 168,000 people there are from the ethnic （民族）Miao group. It is an ancient tradition, which brings men and women together through food, gifts and music.

In the days before the festival, young women gather leaves and wild flowers, which they use to dye （给•••染色）sticky rice with bright colors. This brightly colored rice, known as Sister Rice, gives the festival its name. During the festival, the young women dress in beautiful traditional clothes with large amounts of silver jewelry （首饰）.

The festival includes parades （游行）,horse races and musical performances. But the real focus is the interaction （互动）between the young women and the young men who visit from surrounding villages and sing songs. In one traditional type of song, a man and woman take turns singing to each other, and the first one to make a mistake loses the game. The loser must give the winner a gift, but the winner is expected to give a gift in return too.

After meeting the men, the women send them home with a bamboo basket containing dyed rice and hidden objects with special meanings. For example, a pair of chopsticks means she wants to marry the man, while garlic shows that she is not interested.

One of several stories about the festival’s beginning of a girl and a boy who fell in love. The girl's parents wanted her to marry her uncle's son» as was traditional at the time. She refused, and the boy likewise refused to marry anyone else. For a time, they could only meet in a field and pass hidden messages to each other through rice in a bamboo basket. Finally, the pair overcame their parents' opposition and were allowed to marry.

The Sister Rice Festival is perhaps the oldest festival in Asia that encourages love.

【推荐2】Whenever we talk about holidays, my mother teases my sister and me about how we “make out like robbers.” She is referring to the fact that we are half Jewish and half Indian, so we receive gifts on both the. festivals of lights. Hanukkah and Diwali. Though my mother teases us, I do not mind getting two sets of gifts!

Hanukkah is celebrated on the 25th day of the Jewish month. which is usually sometime in December. On Hanukkah, like most Jewish families. we light a menorah and say a prayer each night. We also say a special prayer on the first night. After that, it is a tradition for my sister and me to do ‘hot and cold’, for our hidden Hanukkah gifts. When we walk towards the gift, our parents say ‘hot’ and when we walk further away, they say ‘cold’. We each receive one present every night of Hanukkah. Another part I like about this holiday is seeing family members who we do not see often. My aunt usually stays for a few days, and we sometimes visit other relatives.

Diwali is celebrated on the 13th day of the dark fortnight of the month of Ashwin(October / November). To celebrate Diwali, my family does a pooja, or prayers, in honor of the goddess Lakshmi. Since she is the goddess of wealth and prosperity, the pooja includes washing silver coins in milk and water. In India, people decorate their houses with lamps, similar to the way you might light up your house for Christmas. My family just places a few candles outside We also set off firecrackers, which is my favorite part. We often do this activity with friends to add to the excitement.

Both holidays have different histories and stories We celebrate them in different ways, yet they both have the same meaning. They both translate into. Festival of Lights, and they both mean family and presents for me!

【推荐3】What comes to mind when you think of kung fu? If your mind is filled with images of Shaolin monks, Bruce Lee, or Kung Fu Panda, you wouldn't be wrong. But for Laurence J. Brahm, an American documentary filmmaker, the first thing that springs to mind is the concept of non-violence.

As Brahm explained, if you break down the character "wu" it consists of two characters: one is "ge" meaning dagger-axe; the other is"zhi" meaning to stop. So, the meaning of martial arts in Chinese is not the art of fighting, a concept that many people take for granted. On the contrary, he said, kung fu is the art of stopping fighting.

Brahm's relationship with kung fu dates back to the 1970s when he was a karate student in Hawaii. "My master always told me that if you want to fully understand karate, you have to go to Shaolin in China. That's where the origin is, "Brahm said. In 1981,he managed to visit the Shaolin Temple, situated at the foot of the Songshan Mountain in Central China, for the very first time. He left the mountain, a little disappointed at not finding the martial-arts spirit he expected. But his passion for kung fu and his desire to find out more were stronger than ever before.

Over the years he trained in many different styles, such as tai chi, Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do to understand all of them. "Martial arts can help us connect our body, connect our neural system, connect our blood flow, and also help connect us into our environment to increase our awareness. Martial arts is moving meditation (冥想)," Brahm said, his eyes bright and intense.

But to him, kung fu's charm and values are far more than that. He combined the knowledge from many masters and scholars with his own experience as a practitioner and tutor to extract 12 key principles and values of the martial arts: perseverance, roots, loyalty, respect, harmony, change, balance, centering, emptiness, flow, pragmatism, non-violence.

"Kung fu, in my eves, is a mirror of Chinese culture.” Brahm said “The traditional values of kung fu, actually, are in the minds of all Chinese people.”