1 . Floating Markets in Bangkok, Thailand

One might feel as though they are entering a different world upon visiting a Thai floating market. While some countries in Asia have their own floating markets, none compare to Thailand’s, and the special experience is one you cannot miss while visiting the country.

Long-tail boats, ancient and traditional houses, and shouting vendors (商贩) are the major elements of floating markets in Bangkok. They are excellent options for experiencing the unusual culture and life of Thailand. Here are the top 8 floating markets in Bangkok, where you can experience the chaotic and charming atmosphere.

2 . Where do you expect to see graffiti (涂鸦)? Probably not in a museum. Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, in the south-west of England, was the kind of place you went to see classical statues and stuffed animals in cases until the arrivals of the ‘Banksy Versus the Bristol Museum’ exhibition in 2009. The exhibition hosted more than 100 works by Banksy, one of the world’s most famous graffiti artists.

Banksy is a man of mystery (神秘). He hardly ever gives interviews and likes to be anonymous (匿名的). Nobody knows much about his life or his background but many people believe that his real name is either Robin Cunningham, Robert Banks or Robin Banks and that he was born in 1973 near Bristol.

Banksy’s questioned ‘street art’ includes paintings on live sheep and cows and graffiti on the huge wall put up to divide two areas. Brand Pitt spent over 82 million on a Bansky original. Banksy designed an album cover for the Britpop group Blur in 2003 but he has refused requests to do adverts for Nike. A year after the Bristol exhibition, Banksy made a film called Exit Through the Gift Shop. The film tells the story of a French street artist in America. Exit Through the Gift Shop received many positive reviews. Nobody knows if it was about a real artist or an invented character from Banksy’s imagination.

Bristol isn’t the only place in Britain to welcome graffiti. The DPM Park in Dundee, Scotland has the longest legal graffiti wall (almost 110m long) in the UK. Anyone can paint on the council-owned wall any time they like. Mike Crilley, the graffiti wall project organiser, promotes the positive side of graffiti and runs workshops for local children.

Is everyone doing graffiti? Can we do graffiti where we want these days? Not exactly. It’s illegal to paint on somebody else’s possessions, so make sure you find a legal graffiti wall like the one in Dundee if you want to have a go.

3 . Hawaii lawmakers are considering legislation (立法) that would require visitors to pay for a year-long license or pass to visit state parks. Josh Green is the state’s governor. He said, “We get between 9 and 10 million visitors a year, but we only have 1.4 million people living here.” He added, “Those 10 million travellers should be helping us sustain our environment.” Lawmakers still debating how much they would charge.

The governor campaigned in 2022 on the idea of having all tourists pay a $50 fee to enter the state. Legislators think this would violate US constitutional protections for free travel. They instead think visitors should pay to enter parks and trails. Either policy would be a first of its kind for any US state. Hawaii’s leaders are following the example of other popular tourist areas with similar fees or taxes. They include Venice, Italy, and Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands.

Hawaii State Representative Sean Quinlan is the leader of the House Tourism Committee. He said changes in the activities of travellers are part of Hawaii’s push. He said golf rounds per visitor per day have dropped 30 percent over the past 10 years while hiking has increased50 percent. People are also seeking out isolated places they have seen on social media. The state does not have the money to oversee and protect all these places, he said.

Most state parks and trails are currently free. Some of the most popular ones already charge, like Diamond Head State Monument. That trail leads hikers from the floor of a 300,000-year-old volcano up to the top. It gets 1 million visitors each year and costs $5for each traveller.

A bill currently before the legislature would require visitors over the age of 15to buy a yearly pass to visit forests, parks, trails or “other natural area on state land”. People who live in Hawaii would not need to pay.

4 . If something’s standing in your way to greatness, these top books on motivation can help you overcome roadblocks so you can realize your dreams. Here’s a look at some of the best books on motivation.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff ... and It’s All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson

Learn how to turn problems into opportunities and stay calm in stressful situations with this handy guide focused on helping readers find happiness and peace of mind. Discover how to master your thoughts and fully live in the moment to appreciate what you have and get the most out of life.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Highlighting the habits that distinguish those people who deal particularly well with the world from everyone else, this popular motivation book explains how you can become a better person by adopting the attitude of the highly effective and aligning (使……一致) your life with universal principles.

How to Win Friends &Influence People by Dale Carnegie

A favorite presenting basic rules for how to make a good first impression and effortlessly win people over, this bestselling motivational book offers timeless advice backed by engaging anecdotes (轶事). Carnegie explains the easy techniques to help anyone become more popular and persuasive, and he shares simple guidelines to instantly make yourself more likable.

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg

Being productive isn’t just about managing your to-do list; it’s also about making the right choices and maintaining the proper mindset. Staying motivated means sticking to your goals even when the world throws a challenge of bother at you. And by adopting a few easy methods to stay on track, nothing will stand between you and your dreams.

5 . All three of my children were subject-matter experts before they even left primary school. My eldest son memorized every statistic on every football trading card he got his hands on. His brother knew hundreds of car makes and models by heart. And I’m sure that my daughter — a huge One Direction fan — remembered more facts about the band than they did! The experience of becoming an expert can bring long-term benefits for learning — and it’s never too late. “Having a specialist subject helps you learn anything,” says our memory expert, Jonathan Hancock, “There are good reasons for all of us to do a spot of specialist learning.”

It schools our observation: a vital first step to remembering. Children are particularly good at seeing slight differences — like my younger son and his cars — then using them to organize information and inspire recall. But focused learning like this can push anyone to start noticing key details — ready to remember them.

It gives us a mental framework (框架), to which we can attach unrelated ideas. Even when his trading-card period was over, my son often linked new numbers with stored-away sports statistics. Your own area of interest might help you by suggesting soundalike words for people’s names, or letting you “map” travel directions.

It gets us learning in a variety of ways, often with the help of all our senses. My daughter’s pop knowledge was a rich mix of music, dances and colourful costumes, with precise facts. Burying yourself in a subject boosts your brain to work at its best.

It restores our confidence to remember. We get to see what a difference it makes to be interested in something, to build up information in layers (层次), and to keep refreshing, testing and showing off what we know. It can give all our learning a boost.

Why not pick a topic that interests you, find some books, take a course, join a club... and enjoy becoming at least an entry-level expert? Even a short spell of specialist study can reawaken learning skills that used to feel like child’s play.

6 . Health, as the old saying goes, is over wealth, so it’s of great significance to keep fit. You can take away our money, our house, or our clothes and we can survive.     1     That is why I eat healthfully, exercise regularly, and keep up my social life.

Eating healthfully is important to maintain one’s health. I try to avoid foods high in fat like French fries or cookies. I also try to limit the amount of animal protein I consume.     2     So, it is important to know how to cook these foods so that the nutrients are not lost in the cooking process.

Our muscles must continue to be strong to support our body as we age. Exercise helps the bones build density and helps us maintain our posture.     3     A regular exercise program of cardiovascular training and weight training is an important part of keeping us healthy.

    4     Studies have shown that people with a wide range of social contacts get fewer colds and recover faster from diseases than those who aren’t socially active. For the sake of health, I like to play and interact with my friends and I always feel better when I am with them than when I am alone.

By eating properly and exercising regularly, I can keep my body at an appropriate weight and can maintain my health. By spending time with my friends, I can keep my mind as well as my body happy.     5    

7 . Being a plastic-free gardener is an important step for having an eco-conscious garden. Here’s how to garden by using alternatives to plastic plant pots.

Lots of pots

    1    . Most are made of plastic, and come in a variety of colours. None of these plastics are readily recyclable. Half a billion plastic pots ended up in landfill or being burned each year.

Plastic-free plant pot alternatives

The great news is that, the choice of alternative plastic-free pots is fantastic.     2    .

Ceramic (陶瓷) pots

Though expensive, when it comes to plant pots, there is not much that compares to the appeal of hand-made ceramic pots. Ceramic pots are made from the firing of clay.     3    . Therefore, if collected steadily over the years, they become the backbone of any working garden, offering a ready pot for a month or two of growing on;a permanent home for repeat-flowering flowers lasting for seasons; or a decorative feature for a greenhouse.

Wool pots

Made from raw washed wool pots, these cute little pots are a very attractive natural alternative to plastic.       4    , but they also make a perfect pot for decorative plants that will sit in a striking position while they are growing larger — a great talking point for plastic-free gardening.

Hemp (麻) pots

Hemp pots are a great alternative to the plastic pots used to grow tomato and potato plants.     5    . They come in a range of sizes, from around five to forty litres (公升). Hemp pots develop from a sustainable source, are fully broken down and can be reused for several seasons.

9 . International Day of Education

24 January

Education is a human right, a public good and a public responsibility. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed (宣布) 24 January as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. Today, 250 million children and youth are out of school, and 763 million adults are illiterate (文盲的). Their right to education is being violated (侵犯) and it is unacceptable. It’s time to transform education.

International Day of Clean Energy

26 January

The International Day of Clean Energy on 26 January was declared by the General Assembly as a call to raise awareness and mobilize action for a just and inclusive transition (过渡) to clean energy for the benefit of people and the planet. 26 January is also the founding date of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a global intergovernmental agency established in 2009 to support countries in their energy transitions.

World Health Day

7 April

It is celebrated annually and each year draws attention to a specific health topic of concern to people all over the world. The date of 7 April marks the anniversary of the founding of WHO in 1948.

The theme for World Health Day 2024 is “My health, my right”, which was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions.

World Environment Day

5 June

World Environment Day, held annually on 5 June, brings together millions of people from across the globe, engaging them in the effort to protect and restore the Earth. People from more than 150 countries participate in this United Nations international day, which celebrates environmental action and the power of governments, businesses and individuals to create a more sustainable world. The event has been led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since its start in 1973.

10 . Pindar Van Arman is a painter, but he’s also a software designer. He has built some machines and worked on a DARPA challenge team in California to build a self-driving car. His latest project? A robot painter, BitPaintr.

BitPaintr is Van Arman’s fifth robot in 10 years. Earlier versions included devices that produced simpler paintings with algorithms (算法). But the idea for BitPaintr is simple: A user just uploads a picture, and it can paint totally on its own and develop its own style.

Although his friends joke that he has invented a really expensive, slow, bad painter, Van Arman says teaching a machine how to be creative has helped him get to the bottom of what creativity is — and appreciate it.

“When you’re trying to teach a machine to do something that’s easy for humans, it really makes you sit back and see what humans are doing,” he says.

So what is creativity, then, if a robot with a paintbrush can be — or appear to be — just as creative as a human with a paintbrush?

Mark Riedl, a professor at the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, says it depends on how you define creativity. “There is creativity and Creativity,” Riedl says. “Being ‘creative’ usually has something to do with the little things that we do hundreds of times in our daily lives. They could be creative, but usually aren’t. To be ‘Creative’ is to have an imagination that will have a huge impact on a social level — the Picassos and the Mozarts of the world; the people who have produced something that’s taken on this additional level of meaning.”

Riedl admits what robots create is far from human-level quality art, but he sees robots entering the creative process as a positive thing.

“We want the computers to keep up with us,” he says. “And thanks to researchers like Van Arman, it seems like they will, although they will not replace us, but to help us to be more creative.”