Logistically, it worked out best for me to fly east from Boston Logan to London Heathrow to Tokyo Narita, a trip which involves 26 hours of flight time and another 12 of waiting in airports. The time difference from Eastern Standard Time to Japan Time is 13 hours forward. I arrived at Logan at 3am, the 16th of June, and left Narita at 8am on the 18th. I"m afraid I wasn"t really in the best mental shape once I finally landed; my memories of processing through customs are sketchy reconstructions based on small flashes of recollection.What I remember most about that arrival is my luggage. Terry Pratchett and Neil Stephenson have both written amusingly about unwary travellers carrying too much baggage. I have to say that it"s a lot less amusing when it"s happening to you. I had imagined that the process on arrival would be like arrival at an American airport: I would pull the luggage off the conveyor and put it on a trolley, trundle it 100 yards, and load it into some sort of car. Accordingly, I didn"t really consider space or weight: I had two huge bags, each loaded to the 701b flight luggage limit. I had a giant cardboard box containing a full desktop computer system and two cubic yards of packing peanuts. I had another big box containing my bicycle. I was moving, after all, and this seemed a fairly minimal set of things to take for a stay of at least a year.The gentleman who the company sent to greet me at the airport was cheerful about my situation. A lot of people who he met, he told me, had similar situations. There was a shipping office conveniently located within the airport which could freight whichever items weren"t immediately necessary to the apartment which would become mine. It didn"t matter that the larger box had gone squishy and organic, and was slowly leaking peanuts; the shipping companies were extremely talented here. In fact, he was very nice about everything—but he never once offered to help carry anything.I shipped off my cardboard boxes, but I hadn"t planned for a situation in which it would matter how much luggage I had, so necessary items were scattered between the two bags. We left for the company guest house where I"d be staying: the cheerful semi-retired company man leading, and me following with 701b in each hand. We rode the train toward Chiba, with each of my bags taking up a pair of seats, and the two of us standing between them. We left the train station and started walking to the house. It wasn"t too far, he told me: less than two kilometers. We had the advantage of good weather, too: the temperature wasn"t expected to break 30 degrees, and the humidity was only 70.The company man had it easy: he wasn"t carrying anything. As for me, I"ll just say that when you go to experience a foreign land, attempting a 2km walk while carrying 1401b of stuff in the first humidity of summer while exhausted is not the recommended starting point.It"s kind of funny, but I didn"t immediately feel like I was anywhere new. Yes, the roads were narrow, the people were Asian, and the writing was funny, but I"d seen each of those elements before. It wasn"t until the first time I went to get something to eat that I had a really profound understanding that I was in Japan. The company man told me that I could survive eating prepackaged meals from convenience stores, and showed one to me on the way to the guest house. The first food 1 ate in that country was a strawberry cream sandwich. That sandwich provided my "not in Kansas anymore" moment; it took on a weird significance as my first step in participating in the widespread oddness that is Japanese culture.I slept for 14 hours that night, and woke up at 7am the next morning to a small earthquake. I was now in the Land of the Rising Sun, and those two elements had just cooperated to greet me. It felt good. When the gentleman greeted the author, ______.
A. he took the author"s luggage to the shipping office
B. he told the author he had never expected so much luggage
C. he showed the author to the shipping office
D. he refused to help the author with his luggage
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甲为了能在自己的房子里欣赏远处的风景,便与相邻的乙书面约定:乙不能在自己的土地上建高层建筑;作为补偿,甲每年支付给乙4000元。双方同时对该合同办理了登记。两年后,乙将该建设用地使用权转让给丙。丙在该土地上建了一座高楼。不久,甲为了经营事业向银行贷款20万元,并将房屋抵押给银行,同时丁提供一辆汽车作为甲向银行借款的担保,戊为甲的贷款行为提供连带保证责任。后甲因经营事业失败,到期无法归还银行所欠贷款,银行于是试图实现抵押权,并要求丁和戊承担担保责任。问: 在当事人之间没有约定实现担保顺位的情况下,如何确定银行对担保人的担保顺位
甲、乙、丙、丁四个人。甲向乙借款10万元,将自己的家用电器作为抵押,并与乙订了抵押合同,但没有登记。之后,甲又向丙借款10万元,将已经抵押了的家用电器转移丙占有作为质押。后来甲经营失利,无力偿债。其间,丙把家用电器损坏,交由丁修理,修理费用2万元,丙没有支付2万元修理费,丁留置该家用电器。问: 甲、乙之间抵押合同是否有效为什么
With increasing prosperity, Western European youth is having a fling that is creating distinctive consumer and cultural patterns.The result has been the increasing emergence in Europe of that phenomenon well known in America as the "youth market". This is a market in which enterprising businesses cater to the demands of teenagers and older youths in all their rock mania and pop-art forms.In Western Europe, the youth market may appropriately be said to be in its infancy. In some countries such as Britain, West Germany and France, it is more advanced than in others. Some manifestations of the market, chiefly sociological, have been recorded, but it is only just beginning to be the subject of organized consumer research and promotion.Characteristics of evolving European youth market indicate dissimilarities as well as similarities to the American youth market.The similarities:The market"s basis is essentially the same—more spending power and freedom to use it in the hands of teenagers and older youth. Young consumers also make up an increasingly high proportion of the population.As in the United States, youthful tastes in Europe extend over a similar range of products—records and record players, transistor radios, leather jackets and "way-out", extravagantly styled clothing, cosmetics and soft drinks. Generally it now is difficult to tell in which direction trans-Atlantic teenage influences are flowing.Also, a pattern of conformity dominates Europe youth as in this country, though in Britain the object is to wear clothes that "make the wearer stand out," but also make him "in," such as tight trousers and precisely tailored jackets.Worship and emulation of "idols" in the entertainment field, especially the "pop" singers and other performers is pervasive. There"s also the same exuberance and unpredictability in sudden fad switches. In Paris, buyers of stores catering to the youth market carefully watch what dress is being worn by a popular television teenage singer to be ready for a sudden demand for copies. In Stockholm other followers of teenage fads call the youth market "attractive but irrational."The most obvious differences between the youth market in Europe and that in the United States is in size. In terms of volume and variety sales, the market in Europe is only a shadow of its American counterpart, but it is a growing shadow. What does the author think about the youth market in Britain, West Germany and France
A. It is more developed than that in Western Europe.
B. It is still in its preliminary stage of development.
C. More sociological phenomena of the market should be recorded.
D. Consumer research and promotion should be based on the market.
The HMS Ontario is one of the most famous shipwrecks and was discovered by two Rochester engineers Jim Kennard, 64, who has spent more than half his life pursuing The HMS Ontario, along with Dan Scoville, 35, a shipwreck diver. They discovered The HMS Ontario deep off the southern shore of Lake Ontario when side-scanning sonar system that Mr. Kennard, a retired Kodak engineer, designed and built himself, showed a picture of something deep in Lake Ontario. The location of the shipwreck had been unknown for 228 years.Experienced shipwreck divers Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville have discovered seven of Lake Ontario"s estimated 500 shipwrecks in the last six years alone. Jim Kennard also designed a microwave-sized remote submersible that they deployed to go down and take the shipwreck"s video. The shipwreck is quite deep in Lake Ontario, so the remote machine with video was very useful."Right away we saw the quarter gallery, the windows in the stem, the cannons," said Jim Kennard. "There was no mistaking. That"s when we started getting excited." The discovery of the ship wreck was confirmed by the HMS Ontario expert Canadian Arthur Britton Smith, who authored the definitive book on the HMS Ontario.The loss of the HMS Ontario, is one of the worst-ever disasters recorded on Lake Ontario. In her time the HMS Ontario was the most-feared ship on the Great Lakes. It was 1780 and the Yankees were threatening to storm across Lake Ontario and seize Montreal from the British. But the intimidating 226-ton Ontario--22 cannons, two 80-foot masts, a beamy hull with cargo space for 1000 barrels, was intimidating. On Oct. 31, 1780, she sailed into a storm with around 120 passengers on board and was never seen again. The British tried to keep the news of the ship wreck hush.The HMS Ontario appears to be in perfect shape and the HMS Ontario has aged remarkably well though zebra mussels cover much of the woodwork. Leaning on a 45-degree angle, her masts still jut straight up from her decks where several guns lie upside-down and a brass bell, brass cleats and the stem lantern are perfectly visible. The Seven windows across her stem still have glass. Shipwrecks in cold freshwater are well preserved, that is why great lakes shipwrecks are prized. At 500 feet deep, where the HMS Ontario lies, there is no light and no oxygen to speed up the decomposition, and little marine life to feed on the wood.There was no evidence of the roughly 113 Canadian men, women, children and American prisoners who went down with the ship—the passengers—mostly Canadian soldiers from the 34th regiment—were never found. Nobody knows for sure how many passengers perished on the Ontario; the British kept their prisoner counts secret.Out of worries over looting, Mr. Jim Kennard and Mr. Dan Scoville are not revealing the HMS Ontario"s location. The vessel sits in water up to 500 feet deep and cannot be reached by anyone other than experienced divers. It is not believed to have any shipwreck treasure on it as was reported other than a few shipwreck coins that belonged to the passengers.Kennard said he and his partner have gathered enough ship wreck video of the ship that it will not be necessary to return to the site. He added that they hope to make a documentary about the discovery with the video of the shipwreck.The Great Lakes host many shipwreck locations and there are an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks in total, of which 500 are in Lake Ontario. Freshwater shipwrecks are famous for their preservation of the vessels and make popular diving spots. The HMS Ontario was most probably a ______.
A. cruise liner
B. fishing boat
C. war ship
D. cargo ship