Top Tips: How to Save Money on UK Travel

I just read the article called "Top Tips: How to Save Money on UK Travel". I think it's extremely useful suggestion for your UK trip.

You can find 9 tips of information about how to save money. For instance, one of them is about the cheap eat in the UK. The author gives us 12 options. They are respectively about going ethnic, dining at a pub, making a Date for lunch, choosing Chinese, trying fish and chips ,grazing at a market, joining caff society, packing a lunch go vegetarian(Part Time), having a Picnic, filling up on breakfast, filling your pockets with the freebies.

I surprisely find that Chinese restaurants can offer excellent value in most parts of the UK. Most of Chinese places offer all you can eat lunches for about £5.99. It seems cheaper than the American Chinese restaurants. Another surprising discover is that your hotel room probably has a "hospitality tray" with the fixings for tea and coffee, a few packets of shortbread or ginger snaps. They're included in the price of your room. So you might take them with you. I think it's a useful information, haha.

Irish Celebrations & Feast Days - Martinmas

I just find the article "Irish Celebrations & Feast Days - Martinmas" on a website which is mainly designed to intruduce the culture of Ireland. When I was checking the list of the culture, "Feast Days" deeply attract my attention. Maybe that's because I feel so hungry right now.

This celebration is on the November 10th,which is the eve before the festival of Martinmas. Because the winter would come, people in the day will estemate how much they would have to feed themselves and their livestock. And then they will sell, slaughter some livestockes which they could not keep during the winter and store their meat for the winter. They usually killed a pig to make it into dishes in the celebration.

Another point worth mentioning is that people use this celebration to dirve off the evil and wish to keep being fortunate. They sprinkle the blood of animal which is used to celebrate to the four corners of their house and the threshold. They also give the big portion of the animal to the unfortunate people to bring lucky to them.

I think it's very funny and interesting. Therefore, you'd better go to Ireland in November so that you can experience the festival.

Please forgive me. My poor laptop can't insert the internet addrress.
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACalend/Martinmas.html

What Is Ecotourism?

I just read the article"What Is Ecotourism?" I first heard this word from Jeonyeon. To be honest, I have never heard about this thing before.

According to this article, the experts define it as "responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the environment and improves the welfare of the local people". They gave us a example that a rafting trip is only eco-tourism if it raises awareness and funds to help protect the watershed.

According to this definition, I am really interesting in this kind of trips. However, I also have some doubt about how could this trip benefit the local people and the difference between this trip and traditional trip. The traditional trips also focus on the protection of environment and the improvement of the local economy.

Nine Chinese oil workers have killede by kidnappers

I just read a news that the kidnappers of nine Chinese oil workers have killed five of the men. Two of them have flee the abductors but two are still captive.

I am very surprised that why they wanted to kidnap Chinese workers. As I know, the workers who went to the Africa for working are actually very poor. Chinese people are not as rich as the reports says. The difference between rich and poverty in China is very very high. I guess that International Media’s reports misunderstand the kidnappers.

Besides, I really feel sad about the death of the workers. How can we stop the chaos in Africa. I think the poverty is the main reason.

The wastes in the produce system

I just watched the video about the wastes in the produce system . The speaker described how the produce system destroyed the environment and wasted the resources. She separated the system into five parts: extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. She mainly emphasized the part of consumption and recognized this part is the main reason which resulted in wasting resources.

I totally agree with the speaker’s opinion and I have the same feeling about the part of consumption. Companies always design many strategies to force us to consume, especially the electronic products and fashion products. For getting the profit as much as they could, they attract and force you to buy it through advertisements and continuing changing the details of the same products.

I think the best way to solve the consumption problems is that governments publicize the facts to people and regulate the companies. However, for their own benefits, governments would impossible be the part of the solution.

"If Women Were More Like Men: Why Females Earn Less"

Today I have read an article "If Women Were More Like Men: Why Females Earn Less". It described the situation of the work of women. And the article analyzed the reasons which caused the situation that women always earn less than men. The article declined that the discrimination in gender was an inevitable reason.
In my opinion, I think the gender discrimination is increasingly narrowed but it still exist. I don't think this problem could be solved at modern times. Regardless, the important position are controlled by men and the fact has lasted for thousands of years. Women gradually lost their interests in these things because of the secondary position in the history. In fact, this caused women have much less interesting in career, power and fame than men are.
Another point worth mentioning is that the article compared MTF( the male transited to female) to FTM (the female transited to male). Through their different situation that MTF want to preserve their identity and FTM want to get rid of their identity quickly. So the speaker concluded that the discrimination still exist in career.

Today I have read the article "Food for Thought". I feel ridiculous and surprising.
The speaker Chris Fair asserts that native cuisine reflect the native people's thinking and how the leaders will act. She thinks there are some strong links between native food and international interaction.
I definitely disagree her opinion. It seems to me that how stupid a person could get such a result. According to Fair's implicit mean, what the food the people prefer is a strong determinant of what the attitude and policy of people is. Don't you think it is "funny"? With the rapid development of globalization, people could eat any food everywhere. Such as Mcdonald and KFC, you can find them anywhere in China.The fast food are very popular in China and almost everyday they drew a lot of people. Does that mean Chinese people agree with Bush's aggressive policy and invading Iraq? Even many American people who eat the same food as Bush eats do not agree with Bush.
I want to ask Fair how she could judge people only by their favourite food.