【推荐1】Four best thrift stores (旧货店) in New York

Address: 2123 2nd Ave, NY

Opening Hours: 10:30am-5:30pm, Mon.-Fri.; 12:30pm-5:30pm, Sat.; Closed, Sun.

If you’re looking for furniture or items to decorate your home, this is absolutely the place for you. It’s a great thrift shop to stop in while you’re hunting for vintage (复古的) treasures. You will always be surprised at some of the amazing things it offers, so make sure you stop by to have a look!

Address: Multiple Locations

Opening Hours: 12:00pm-7:00pm: every day

This is a cool family-owned vintage brand popular with vintage shoppers since its opening in 1999. You can always find well-priced outerwear and sweaters, so it’s a good choice to visit the store when winter is approaching. You can usually find all sizes there, which makes it the perfect place for anyone to check out!

Address: 91 3rd Ave, NY

Opening Hours: 11:00am-9:00pm, every day

This is one of those great thrift stores in New York for a good cause — profits benefit diabetes (糖尿病) research. It’s a surprising place to shop for secondhand clothing, household items, and even furniture. Prices can be a bit higher than those in some other thrift stores, but there are lots of deals if you know what you’re looking for!

Address: Multiple Locations

Opening Hours: 11:00am-8:00pm, every day

Beacon’s Closet is an amazing establishment with locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is another one that supports charities and gives back. You can buy, sell, and even exchange cool vintage pieces. It has everything you can imagine, including some famous brand names, so you’ll definitely find something that you fall in love with.

【推荐2】Having a vegetable garden offers many health benefits. Here are reasons why a home vegetable garden beats even the farmers’ market when it comes to your health and well-being.

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Gardening is very physical. What makes gardening better than a gym workout is that it happens outdoors with fresh air and sunshine. Whether you are weeding in the down- ward dog position, or digging bags of soil, a garden delivers the full gym experience, from cardio right down to yoga.

Your garden provides you with a raw diet. Most homegrown crops taste better than store-bought, but no vegetable takes this to the next level like sweet peas.     2    , but most gardeners find that even a few vines (藤) are worth the space. A handful of freshly-shelled, raw sweet peas bursting into your mouth on a summer morning have few rivals in the food kingdom.

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The average consumer remains at the mercy of the produce buyer at the local market, but once the home gardener discovers the diversity of colors and tastes that can be homegrown, a nutrient-rich vegetable choice opens up. Heirloom (原种的) tomatoes range in color from deep purple and nearly black to golden yellow and pale white. Besides the color, there is another benefit.     4     .

Your garden allows you to give.     5    , but nothing feels as great as when you share food. Imagine how it feels for others to receive fresh homegrown vegetables. A basket of heir- loom cherry tomatoes can disappear faster than a box of donuts deep fried in fat.

【推荐1】Bai Chay Beach is a large and beautiful beach. It lies close to the coast of Halong Bay.The 100­meter­wide sandy beach is over 500 meters long. In summer, the beach is a popular tourist attraction not only for local people, but also for tourists.

There are many legends about Bai Chay. According to local people, legend has it that when a group of ships carrying food for the Yuan­Mongolian invaders (入侵者) came there, the Vietnamese soldiers and the local people led by Tran Khanh Du set fire to the ships. All the ships caught fire. The fire was so big that all the ships were burnt down. All the invaders had to leave and then the name Bai Chay became popular. Another legend has it that the western side of the beach used to be a wharf (码头) for seagoing boats. A special plant was harmful to the boats. The local people had to use leaves to burn this plant. From Hon Gai and other neighboring places, people always saw fires from there, so they called it Bai Chay.

Having received much investment (投资), the Bai Chay tourist site has rapidly transformed into one of the most fascinating beaches in Halong City. It has restaurants, traditional music theaters, parks, water­skiing, and sea motorcycling. Today, Bai Chay is a well­known attraction with good services, which can meet the increasing needs of visitors. From Bai Chay, it is also convenient to Halong Bay cruise tours to visit other tourist attractions nearby such as Halong Bay, Bai Tu Long Bay, and Quan Lan island.

【推荐2】Be a Better Traveler in the Over-tourism Era

Travel has become as accessible as McDonald’s, reaching a new high as global tourist arrivals reached 1.4 billion last year. In 1995, global arrivals numbered only 525 million.

As a father of two kids, I am the first to celebrate the drop in costs brought on by air-travel market liberalization, the rise of discount airlines, a revolution in accommodations thanks to the likes of Books.com and Airbnb, and mobile devices installed with the best maps and travel guides the world has ever known. I’m also happy for the retailers, hoteliers, museum keepers and others who have benefited financially from the tourism boom.

I can’t help but wonder, though, what we are actually seeing as we travel these days. More people are travelling, but many are visiting the same places. Is a forest of selfie sticks what I wanted to show my daughter at the Louvre? When was the last time I set food on Prague’s main square without being elbowed a dozen times? Is a trip to Barcelona complete if you have to avoid every famous location for fear of being trampled (踩踏)?

Cities can not do much about this — they can’t very well close airports, force airlines to fly less frequently or increase their prices. Raising the cost of air travel, overall or to specific destination, will never be popular. Many will object it on the grounds that travel shouldn’t be just for the rich, and it’ll hurt the residents of cities troubled with over-tourism.

So what should travelers do? Stay home? That’s unlikely. But if you are heading for some of the world’s most popular destinations, rethink your bucket list (愿望清单). You should be open to venturing beyond the obvious. Even if you are set on visiting an iconic site, consider going at an off-peak time.

The biggest thing to keep in mind, no matter where you travel, is to be well-researched, respectful and genuinely curious about the destination. Don’t fall victim to what people call “selfie culture” and “bucket list culture”. Treat the destination as you would do to your own home - not as a “hidden gem” that you throw money at to get certain experience you feel entitled to.

【推荐2】The backfire effect is a very strong, psychological aspect in all of our minds. Due to this effect, whenever you are faced with information and facts that contradict something you believe, instead of changing your view or forming a new opinion, your original beliefs will often be strengthened. Yon will believe in your previously formed opinion even more vigorously (坚定地), despite seeing hard proof.

For example, remember that classmate you formed an opinion about too fast? And even though everything they did suggested otherwise, you didn’t want to believe you were wrong about them, so you convinced yourself that you weren’t wrong.

You found reasons, dwelt on minor things, and ignored the facts that contradicted your opinion. With all of this struggle, you believed that your opinion didn’t have to change. The huge amount of thought you gave it only strengthened your original opinion about your classmate.

The backfire effect is very powerful and a part of the mechanism of our minds as humans. We can’t get rid of it, but we can make ourselves more aware of it. Being aware that you may be straining your logic only to preserve your beliefs will cause you to keep your mind more open, allowing you to definitely change and learn much faster.

Arguments can be approached in better ways when you are aware of the backfire effect. Apart from being aware of it, you can keep your own mind open. You shouldn’t state facts that counter (反驳) the opposing person’s opinion. Instead, you should ask them questions that will make them question what they believe.

The Internet revolution has provided the ability to argue with people across the globe, even if you’ve never met them. Heated arguments you might have witnessed (or participated in) on the Internet between two people going back and forth about a very emotional issue will usually end in very raised tempers and no conclusions. This is because each side is really just strengthening the other side’s original opinion.

In my opinion, it is critically important to be aware of the backfire effect, because of how much it helps us grow. We can change and learn much faster if we allow our ideas of the world to be flexible, and not be so certain that our beliefs are superior.