1 . Zibo city has unexpectedly become famous overnight on Chinese social media since late February for its local barbecue. The latest promotion gives visitors ______ admission to 10 tourist attractions in the city with their train ticket as long as their final ______ is Zibo.

This measure ______ the previous round-trip “barbecue tour” train between Jinan and Zibo. Passengers on the train are ______ by a banner (横幅) reading “Welcome to the Special BBQ Train”. They also ______ items including leaflets about Zibo’s culture, small gifts and snacks. Many also took videos and posted them on social media, drawing more visitors. “The high-speed trains are ______ with passengers,” wrote one netizen.

Barbecue is popular in China, ______ Zibo’s barbecue is unique. It’s made on a stove, and is ______ with flatbread (薄饼) and dressings (蘸料). The skewers (烤肉串) are 70-80 percent cooked before they are brought to the table, where diners can finish cooking them on their own stoves, which lends a sense of ______.

The barbecue ______ became a hit after a group of college students shot videos of themselves enjoying a meal and ______ them. Since then, many people, mostly the young, have ______ the city to try the dish. On several streets, ______ can be seen outside barbecue restaurants, which stretch for more than 100 meters.

Zibo barbecue is bringing more and more people to the city, and the local government needs to think about how to ______ the city as a whole, and its culture and tourism. The trend will eventually end if the local government doesn’t take ______ follow-up measures.

8 . Today’s modern travelers are journeying further to explore Europe off the beaten track, and bringing home new skills and experience. Here are 4 ideas for an unusual holiday in Europe.

Volunteer in Transylvania

Transylvania is a top choice for an unusual European city break, with wonderfully preserved medieval(中世纪的) towns and castles that inspired the famous novel Dracula. In addition, you can take your unusual holiday experience even further by volunteering in Eastern Europe’s largest bear reserve and working with bears.

Teach skiing in Austria

Austria is one of Europe’s top skiing destinations. If you’re looking for a more unusual way to spend winter holiday, why not consider training to be a ski instructor there? You’ll gain a qualification that is recognized worldwide, and this program includes a guaranteed paid instructor job at a ski resort once you have finished your training.

Go diving in Spain

For a European holiday with a difference, take part in a plastic cleanup project based in Barcelona, help to empty plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea and make a difference as you travel. This volunteer project combines diving with collecting plastic or other waste from the water, alongside giving you the chance to explore the city.

Explore Tuscany on horseback

Tuscany, one of the best places in Europe to explore on horseback, has witnessed a sharp increase in travelers. There are various activities that combine sightseeing with basic horse riding lessons and you can stay in Renaissance villas(文艺复兴风格的别墅)and farmhouses. You don’t need to have any experience for horse riding holidays, and they are a brilliant alternative to your typical guided tour.

9 . Why Can’t People Avoid Touching Museum Objects?

When paying a visit to the British Museum, you can see visitors touch objects even if the museum rules say no touching is permitted.     1     You stop some people from touching while there are more.

Most museum-going is still a chiefly visual (视觉的) experience for visitors to appreciate the works of art.     2     Moreover, in the past few years more and more museums have been trying to involve additional senses, like sounds and smells. But touch, especially, is only allowed in certain areas, like the Louvre’s Touch Gallery, or the British Museum’s Hands On Desks.

    3     When people visited the collection, the objects were passed around. Museums continued with this spirit of openness at first. But with museums growing, the spirit no longer existed. When you’ve got four million visitors a year, you can hardly have everybody touch something. People are difficult to deal with and likely to damage the artworks. So the rule against touching artworks makes great sense. Smaller museums still sometimes encourage visitors to touch their objects.     4    

Why are we so unwilling to keep our hands to ourselves?     5     But there’s a larger truth. You can’t really learn more about exhibits if you don’t touch them. Others say they want to feel how deep an engraving (雕刻) goes, in order to understand the artistic skills better. In this way, touching is part of trying to somehow establish relationship with the past.

10 . There is a huge variety of landscape a few hours away from London, in anyone of Britain’s largest areas of protected countryside, and its national parks.

The biggest is the Cairngorms in northern Scotland, with some of the country’s highest mountains and the best place for skiing. Pony-trekking, climbing and fishing are also popular, along with Scotland’s national game, golf. Wildlife enthusiasts are well rewarded — this is the home of the red deer, red squirrel and golden eagle.

Over the border in England is the Lake District, originally made famous by local Romantic poet William Wordsworth two hundred years ago. People have been traveling here since 1847 when a railway was built to its biggest lake, Windermere. Children’s writes have found inspiration here too, and the mountains make for excellent walking, with breathtaking views.

Wales also has its fair share of impressive landscape — Snowdonia was one of the first national parks to be created, in 1951. You will find the road signs in two languages and hear Welsh spoken in the local shops. If mountain climbing is not your thing, try visiting a castle built by a 13th-century prince, or check out the nearby beaches.

For the strangest coastal scenery of all, cross the Irish Sea to the Giant’s Causeway, a set of basalt(玄武岩) columns formed by volcanic activity sixty million years ago — or, as legend has it, built by warrior giant Finn McCool to walk from Northern Ireland to fight his enemy in Scotland. The stone ‘steps’ are not complete because the giant fell asleep.