Finance & Economy

An amazing trip

My five-year-relationship ended when my boyfriend admitted he was having an affair. I packed my things and left the apartment without saying a word.

I decided to go to Nepal. I needed to find a quiet place to recover. I wanted to forget all the unhappiness.

I arrived at Pohkara, a small city in Nepal. It is very beautiful and quiet. There was nobody who knew me there and I could be by myself.

I decided to go on a four-day-trek. After having asked the manager to arrange a guide, I left the hotel office and entered the lobby. A guy came up to me and asked politely in Englsih,"Excuse me, do you live in this hotel?"

"Yes, I do." I looked up at him. To my surprise, I saw a Chinese guy smiling at me. He wore a sports cap, and his eyes were sparkling.

"How do you like it here? I am looking for a hotel."

"Oh, it's good. The services are good."

"That's great. i'll look at the rooms. Thanks for the advice."

"My pleasure." But I was curious why a Chinese guy should be speaking English to me. So I asked,"Where do you come from?"

"Oh, I come from Canada.But I was born in South Korea and emigrated to Canada when I was six. How about you?"

"I come from China."

"Your English is very good. Nice to meet you."

"Thank you. Nice to meet you too." I smiled back at him, and left.

The trek began the next day. It was an amazing trip and while walking through the mountains, I almost forgot about my troubles. At the end of the first day, we arrived at a small valley hotel. When I was opening the door to my room, the door the the next room opened, and I saw a familiar smile. It was him, the Korean guy I had met in our hotel the day before.

I found out that his name was Jacob. He had gone to do some volunteer job in India. Now the job was over and he was taking a trip around Nepal.

We found we had so much in common. I was happy whenever I saw him. He was an attractive guy, smart adn gentle. Yet when he hinted that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, I hesitated. I had been hurt deeply and it wasn't the right time to begin a new relationship. I refused his invitation of a trek together.

However, I found I was always running into him, sometimes in restaurants, sometimes in hotels. At these times, we would smile and talk to each other. When I saw him I felt warmth in my heart.

After the trek, I went back tothe hotel I had stayed. I ran into a guy and saw the familiar, bright smile again. It was him."Hey! Thank God I've find you at last."

"Have you been trying to find me here?" I was curious.

"Yes. Your guide said that you would come back to this hotel. So I moved in here too."

We both felt happy to meet again. I came to know that actually Jacob had been trying to catch me up every day of the trek. Sometimes he had walked too fast and had to stay in a restaurant for a long time, weiting for me. I was moved. He seemed to be a person I could trust.

Pohkara suddenly became a paradise for me. We went out together. I felt happy and comfortable with him. Maybe it was God's idea that Jacob and I should meet in Nepal.

However, I knew that he would go back to Canada to build up his business and I would have to go back to China. What would the future hold? I didn't want to think about it.

It was time to say goodbye. On the last day, I left the hotel without saying goodbye to him. It was too hard for me to face him.

When I got back to Zhuhai, there were several e-mails from him in my inbox. He told me that he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. He would visit me in China soon. I hope he will. I hope that our love in Nepal can have a happy ending.

Singapore (Singapore)

According to Malay legend, a Sumatran prince encountered a lion - considered a good omen - on Temasek, prompting him to found Singapura, or Lion City. It mattered little that lions had never inhabited Singapore (more likely the prince had seen a tiger); what did matter was the establishment of the region as a minor trading post for the powerful Sumatran Srivijaya empire and as a subsequent vassal state of the Javanese Majapahit empire in the mid-13th century.

Singapore might have remained a quiet backwater if not for Sir Stamford Raffles' intervention in 1819. The British had first established a presence in the Straits of Malacca (now called Melaka) in the 18th century when the East India Company set out to secure and protect its line of trade from China to the colonies in India. Fearing another resurgence of expansionism in the Dutch - which had been the dominant European trading power in the region for nearly 200 years - Raffles argued for an increased British presence, which he was promptly given. Under his tutelage, Singapore's forlorn reputation as a fetid , disease-ridden  colony was soon forgotten. Migrants attracted by a tariff-free port poured in by the thousands, and a flourishing colony with a military and naval base was established.

Bern (Swiss)

As the Swiss capital, Bern is an important city of diplomats and the site of many international organizations and meetings. It's one of the oldest and loveliest cities in Europe, with origins going back to the 12th century. Since much of its medieval architecture remains today, Bern evokes the feeling of a large provincial town rather than a city. In 1983, the United Nations declared it a World Cultural Landmark.

Over the years the city landscape has been praised by many famous visitors, including Horace Walpole, who called it "the most Faire city." Dorothy, sister of William Wordsworth, gushed "There is a beautiful order, a solidity, a gravity in this city, which strikes one at first sight and then never loses its effect."

The modern mingles harmoniously with the old in this charming city, and in recent years residents have discreetly added contemporary-style homes and structures to the historic environment. Such coexistence between the old and new is also evident in Bern's university, known equally for traditional studies and pioneering scientific research.

Bern joined the Swiss Confederation in 1353. In 1848, it replaced Zurich as the seat of the federal government. The city stands on a thumb of land that's bordered on three sides by the Aare River, hence the several bridges connecting various sections of the city.

Market days in Bern -- ideal times to visit -- are Tuesday and Saturday. People from the outlying areas come to town to sell their produce and wares. If you're fortunate enough to be in town on the fourth Monday of November, you'll witness the centuries-old Zwiebelmarkt or Onion Market. This is the city's last big event before the onset of winter, and residents traditionally stock up on onions in anticipation of the first snows. In the historic core of Bern, vendors arrive before dawn to set up stalls featuring plaited strings of onions. It is customary to sell some 100 tons of onions in one day during the festival. It's not all salesmanship either -- buffoons disguised as onions run about, barrels of confetti are thrown, and a good time is had by all. Naturally, local restaurants feature all their special dishes made with onions at the time.

Bern is also a popular starting point for many excursions, especially to the lakes and peaks of the Bernese Oberland, a vast recreational area only minutes from the capital.

Stockholm (Sweden)

Stockholm is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful national capitals in the world. The Old Town in summer is particularly spectacular and walking around the city's waterways and parks is a glorious way to spend a week-long stretch of European summer.

Almost two million people live in greater Stockholm, and over 15% of them are immigrants. Just stroll through the quaint streets, and you'll hear everything from Polish to Japanese. The city's royal residences include the largest palace in the world still in use.

This lovely, lively city, with its maritime bent and international flavour, is a magnet for tourists. It is ideally situated for trade connections, with the 24,000 islands protecting the urban islands from the open seas. In fact, the city is best seen from the water.

Stockholm is built on islands, except for the modern centre (Norrmalm), focused on the ugly Sergels Torg. This business and shopping hub is linked by a network of subways to Centralstationen (central train station). The subways link with the metro stations.

Most of Sweden has a cool temperate climate, with precipitation in all seasons, but the southern quarter of the country has a warm temperate climate. Sweden is shielded from rainy Atlantic weather systems and can be influenced by high pressure over Russia, giving fine weather instead. Stockholm has an average of about nine hours of sunshine daily from May to July.

The Summer Music Festival, held from late May through August at the Drottningholms Court Theatre, celebrates opera, classical music and ballets by featuring productions that use historical, original instruments.

Each November, the Stockholm International Film Festival offers new filmmakers a competitive forum in which to strut their stuff. A relative newcomer to the scene and one of the few 24-hour film festivals in existence, this event has become one of Europe's most important film competitions. The Stockholm Jazz Festival blows through town in mid-July.

Kungliga Slottet is the largest royal castle in the world still used for its original purpose. It was constructed on the site of the 'old' royal castle, Tre Kronor, which burned down in 1697. The walls of the north wing of the castle survived and were incorporated in the new palace, but the medieval designs are now concealed by a baroque exterior.

The new palace, which has 608 rooms, was designed by the court architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, and wasn't completed until 57 years after the fire.

Santorini（Greece）

Santorini is one of the most ruggedly beautiful and dramatic places on earth. Santorini, also known as Thira, is the southern most of the Cyclades islands and one of the most popular destinations in all of Greece, for good reason.

Anyone who travels to Santorini may choose to arrive by boat before sunset and stay on the caldera side of the island for one of the most magnificent and awe-inspiring views on the planet.

The magical island of Santorini is truly one of Greece's "must-sees", right along with the Acropolis. Santorini's wild majesty created out of the apocalyptic event associated with mythical Atlantis, is unforgettable.

The sunsets, seen while sipping local wine high atop the sheer cliffs is very romantic.

Santorini is a crescent shape surrounding the black volcanic islands lying in the bay. What was once the island of Thira sank to the bottom of the caldera in the apocalyptic explosion in 1450 BC. The lagoon-like caldera measures 32 square miles and is 300 to 400 metres deep.

On the western side where the volcano is located, the sheer cliffs, 300 metres high, are multi-coloured strata of black, red, grey, and brown. Perched high atop are the scenes most often adorning a poster for Greece, startling white sugar cube houses and churches with brilliant blue domes set against the deeper blues of the sky and the Aegean Sea

Phoenix (US)

Like the phoenix of ancient mythology, Arizona's capital city of Phoenix rose from its own ashes--in this case, the ruins of an ancient Indian village. The name Phoenix, given to the city by an early settler from Britain, has proven apt. Rising from the dust of the desert, this city has become one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.

Though the city has had its economic ups and downs, the Phoenix metropolitan area, often referred to as the Valley of the Sun, is currently booming. The Camelback Corridor, which leads through north-central Phoenix, has become the heartland of the city and shiny glass office towers keep pushing up toward the desert sky. This burgeoning stretch of road has also become a corridor of upscale restaurants and shopping plazas,anchored by the Biltmore Fashion Park, the city's temple of high-end consumerism. Today Phoenicians are flocking to this area both for work and play.

Even downtown Phoenix, long abandoned as simply a place to work, is taking on a radically new look of late. Two new museums--the Phoenix Museum of History and the Arizona Science Center--have been built adjacent to historic Heritage Square, and the Phoenix Museum of Art has undergone a major renovation and expansion. However, the biggest project in downtown Phoenix in recent years was the construction of the Bank One Ballpark, a covered baseball stadium with a retractable roof.

Throughout the metropolitan area the population is growing at such a rapid pace that an alarm has been raised: Slow down before we become another Los Angeles! Why the phenomenal growth? In large part it's due to the climate. More than 300 days of sunshine a year is a powerful attraction. Sure, summers are hot, but the mountains--and cooler air--are only 2 hours away. And it's in the winter that the Valley of the Sun truly shines. While most of the country is frozen solid, the valley is sunny and warm. This great winter climate has helped make this area the resort capital of the United States.

Golf and tennis are only the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). With the cooler winter weather comes the cultural season, and between Phoenix and the neighboring cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa, there's an impressive array of music, dance, and theater to be enjoyed. Scottsdale is also well known as a center of the visual arts, ranking only behind New York and Santa Fe in its concentration of art galleries.

Over the years, Phoenix has both enjoyed the benefits and suffered the problems of rapid urban growth. It has gone from tiny agricultural village to sprawling cosmopolitan metropolis in little more than a century. Along the way it has lost its past amid urban sprawl and unchecked development; at the same time, it has forged a city that's quintessentially 20th-century American. Shopping malls, the gathering places of America, are raised to an art form in Phoenix. Luxurious resorts create fantasy worlds of waterfalls and swimming pools. Wide boulevards stretch for miles across land that was once desert but has been made green through irrigation. Perhaps it's this willingness to create a new world on top of an old one that attracts people to Phoenix. Then again, maybe it's just all that sunshine.

Las Vegas (U.S.)

Las Vegas is in the southern part of the state of Nevada, about 50 miles east of the California border and 30 miles west of the Arizona border. The city is divided into two main parts: a compact downtown called Glitter Gulch and the Strip, a corridor of hotels and casinos.

The only natural feature to account for the location of Las Vegas is a spring north of downtown. Once used by Paiute Indians on their seasonal visits to the area, it was re-discovered by Mexican scout Rafael Rivera in 1829. The area became known to overland travelers as las vegas - 'the meadows' - a place with reliable water and feed for horses. Las Vegas became a regular stop on the southern emigrant route to California, the Spanish Trail. In the 1850s, Mormons built the town's first structures, a small mission and fort; the fort became a ranch house, but there was little development until 1902, when much of the land was sold to a railroad company. The area that is now downtown was subdivided when the tracks came through, with 1200 lots sold on 15 May 1905 alone - a date now celebrated as the city's birthday.

As a railroad town, Las Vegas had machine shops, a good number of hotels, saloons and gambling houses. The railroad laid off hundreds in the mid 1920s, but one Depression-era development gave the city a new life. The huge Hoover Dam project commenced in 1931, providing jobs and growth in the short term and water and power for the city's long-term growth.

Also in 1931, Nevada legalized gambling and simplified its divorce laws, paving the way for the first big casino, El Rancho, which was built by Los Angeles developers and opened in 1941. The next wave of investors, also from out of town, were mobsters like Bugsy Siegel, who built the Flamingo in 1946 and set the tone for the new casinos - big and flashy, with lavish entertainment laid on to attract high rollers.

The glitter that brought in the high rollers also attracted smaller spenders, but in larger numbers. Southern California provided a growing market for Las Vegas entertainment, and improvements in transport made it accessible to the rest of the country. Thanks to air conditioning and reliable water supplies, Vegas became one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. In recent years, Vegas has bent over backwards to remake itself into a family resort destination, building theme parks inside its hotels. Hotels have outdone each other with working volcanoes, million-gallon fishtanks and miniature Manhattans. All of which - along with dozens of artificial lakes in the suburbs - has put a huge strain on the city's water supply, but it hasn't slowed the development juggernaut.

Today Las Vegas boasts 19 of the world's 20 largest hotels, attracts 33 million visitors per year, earns over US.25 billion in annual gaming revenue, and marries over 100,000 people each year. There are other cities witih terrific entertainment and gaming opportunities, but there is no place in the world like Las Vegas, and no city even pretending to be.

Seattle (U.S.)

Ever wondered whether caffeine is a viable substitute for sunshine? If so, Seattle is your kind of town. More than any other city in the region, Seattle epitomizes what people know of the Pacific Northwest. Nevermind that its sunshiny days can be suicidally few - its residents are among the nation's most outgoing and outdoorsy. Sure, it had everybody wearing flannel shirts and whistling Nirvana for a while, but consider also the good things it's given us: the city's chilly mornings had the espresso generation brewing long before Starbucks sold its first cup. If you're looking for lifestyle, Seattle has it in spades

Seattle is situated in the west of Washington, the northwesternmost state. The largest city in the state, Seattle sits on a skinny slip of land between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Lake Union and the Lake Washington Ship Canal divide the city into northern and southern halves; downtown and the Capitol Hill and Queen Anne neighborhoods lie south of the canal, the U District is to the northeast.

Compared to the rest of the city, downtown orientation is pretty straightforward. Historic Pioneer Square contains most of the must-see sites. Seattle Center, home to many of the city's cultural and sport facilities, is just northwest of downtown.

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Seattle area was home to the Duwamish, a generally peaceable tribe that fished the bays and rivers of the Puget Sound and befriended early white settlers. In 1851, a native New Yorker named David Denny led the first group of settlers across the Oregon Trail with the intention of settling along the Puget Sound. Recognizing the area's seaport possibilities, Denny's band staked a claim on Alki Point in present-day West Seattle. After a winter of wind and rain, the group moved the settlement to Elliott Bay , renaming it Seattle for the Duwamish chief Sealth, a friend of an early merchant.

Hardly a boomtown, early Seattle was peopled mainly by bachelors until one of the founding fathers went back east on a mission to induce young unmarried women to come to Seattle. On two different trips, a total of 57 women made the journey and married into the frontier stock, in the process setting a more civilized tone for the city. A spur from the Northern Pacific Railroad's terminus in Portland reached Seattle in 1893, linking the town by rail with the rest of the country. The lumber, shipping and general commerce derived from immigration soon swelled the town's ranks so much that even the Great Fire of 1889 barely slowed the advance. After 50 blocks of the old wooden downtown burned in a single day, the city was reborn in brick and iron, centered on today's Pioneer Square.

Seattle's first boom came when the ship Portland docked in 1897 with its now-famous cargo: two tons of Yukon gold. Within weeks, thousands of fortune hunters from across the country passed through on their way to the northern gold fields. Local business blossomed as Seattle became the banking center for the nouveau riche , and the bars, brothels and honky-tonks of Pioneer Square overflowed with pleasure-starved miners.

The boom continued through WWI, when Northwest lumber was greatly in demand and shipyards along the Puget Sound 'harvested' the surrounding forests. WWII furthered the shipbuilding boom, and aircraft and atomic energy industries added to the region's pattern of profit. Today, international trade and tech firms (such as Microsoft and Amazon) make up the backbone of Seattle's booming economy. And although Boeing, for decades as synonymous with Seattle as rain, announced in 2001 that it was up and leaving for windier pastures in Chicago, the city's progressive politics, inventive culture and ready access to outdoor recreation continue to lure restless people like no place else on the West Coast.

Houston (U.S.)

The fourth-largest city in the US is a sprawling metropolis of highrises, malls and parking lots. Hot, humid and flat, Houston may not be Texas' premier destination, but it has much to offer, including great museums, beautiful parks, a hip young population and a variety of excellent excursions.

The days when cows and oilmen roamed the streets of Houston are long gone. Houston dominates southeastern Texas, thanks to a historic commitment to growth typical of the Lone Star state, characterized by a lack of zoning and other planning restrictions, resulting in a sprawling, confusing city.

Downtown Houston, the original business center, is a thicket of highrises interspersed with parking lots, ringed by elevated freeways. The streets can seem surprisingly empty during the day, with nary a pedestrian to be found braving the hot and shimmering sidewalks. But the people are there. In a variation of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, most downtown buildings are linked by air-conditioned underground pedestrian tunnels lined with shops and restaurants. After dark, the area is sparsely populated above and below ground, though some life can be found around the new baseball stadium and in the north end's nightclub district. Major neighborhoods include Houston Heights, an affluent, quiet residential area north of downtown, overlooking the Buffalo Bayou Montrose, the center of Houston's gay scene, with a funky mix of shops, restaurants, galleries and tattoo parlors a few blocks southwest of downtown.

Houston got its start in 1836, when brothers Augustus and John Allen set up a trading post on the Buffalo Bayou, a river that now meanders through the heart of the city. The Allens named their new holding Houston in honor of General Sam Houston, who had just defeated the Mexican Army at San Jacinto. The coming of the railroad boosted the economy in the 1860s and 1870s, but the real prosperity was still around the corner.

It was the 1901 discovery of oil at nearby Spindletop that put Houston on the road to riches. The city's only obstacle to growth was its sweltering summer heat, but beginning in the 1930s, the widespread availability of air conditioning made massive downtown development a reality.

Beginning in the 1950s, downtown underwent wave after wave of skyscraper construction. Hand in hand with the building boom was a craze to raze: dozens of older commercial and residential buildings were leveled and turned into parking lots for the growing army of office workers. NASA's Mission Control Center opened a few miles from Houston in 1963, and six years later the city's name became the first word ever spoken by a human being on the surface of the moon.

Throughout the 1970s, Houston's fortunes continued skyward. When oil reached a barrel in 1981, Houston was awash in money as scores of happy Texans got rich quick; four years later, the price of oil plummeted to single digits and Houstonians got poor even faster. Glitzy but empty highrises stood next to giant construction holes that had to be filled back in when the financing ran out.

In the 1990s, Houston's economy diversified as the city rode the general economic boom that swept the US. In 1997, Houston elected its first black mayor, Lee Brown. The following year, Houston was drenched by a torrential downpour and menaced by tornadoes. The floodwaters were strong enough to sweep houses off their foundations. Several people were killed and large areas of the city remained under water for days.

Houston (U.S.)

The fourth-largest city in the US is a sprawling metropolis of highrises, malls and parking lots. Hot, humid and flat, Houston may not be Texas' premier destination, but it has much to offer, including great museums, beautiful parks, a hip young population and a variety of excellent excursions.

The days when cows and oilmen roamed the streets of Houston are long gone. Houston dominates southeastern Texas, thanks to a historic commitment to growth typical of the Lone Star state, characterized by a lack of zoning and other planning restrictions, resulting in a sprawling, confusing city.

Downtown Houston, the original business center, is a thicket of highrises interspersed with parking lots, ringed by elevated freeways. The streets can seem surprisingly empty during the day, with nary a pedestrian to be found braving the hot and shimmering sidewalks. But the people are there. In a variation of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, most downtown buildings are linked by air-conditioned underground pedestrian tunnels lined with shops and restaurants. After dark, the area is sparsely populated above and below ground, though some life can be found around the new baseball stadium and in the north end's nightclub district. Major neighborhoods include Houston Heights, an affluent, quiet residential area north of downtown, overlooking the Buffalo Bayou Montrose, the center of Houston's gay scene, with a funky mix of shops, restaurants, galleries and tattoo parlors a few blocks southwest of downtown.

Houston got its start in 1836, when brothers Augustus and John Allen set up a trading post on the Buffalo Bayou, a river that now meanders through the heart of the city. The Allens named their new holding Houston in honor of General Sam Houston, who had just defeated the Mexican Army at San Jacinto. The coming of the railroad boosted the economy in the 1860s and 1870s, but the real prosperity was still around the corner.

It was the 1901 discovery of oil at nearby Spindletop that put Houston on the road to riches. The city's only obstacle to growth was its sweltering summer heat, but beginning in the 1930s, the widespread availability of air conditioning made massive downtown development a reality.

Beginning in the 1950s, downtown underwent wave after wave of skyscraper construction. Hand in hand with the building boom was a craze to raze: dozens of older commercial and residential buildings were leveled and turned into parking lots for the growing army of office workers. NASA's Mission Control Center opened a few miles from Houston in 1963, and six years later the city's name became the first word ever spoken by a human being on the surface of the moon.

Throughout the 1970s, Houston's fortunes continued skyward. When oil reached a barrel in 1981, Houston was awash in money as scores of happy Texans got rich quick; four years later, the price of oil plummeted to single digits and Houstonians got poor even faster. Glitzy but empty highrises stood next to giant construction holes that had to be filled back in when the financing ran out.

In the 1990s, Houston's economy diversified as the city rode the general economic boom that swept the US. In 1997, Houston elected its first black mayor, Lee Brown. The following year, Houston was drenched by a torrential downpour and menaced by tornadoes. The floodwaters were strong enough to sweep houses off their foundations. Several people were killed and large areas of the city remained under water for days.