Let me quote a poem by William Blake, the English writer.
Auguries of innocence
To See the World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower.
Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.

Please come with me, my dear friends! I am your tour guide, Jessica.

Set foot on the land and meet the people here!
Your exciting journey is full of fun and it is also a learning course: go sightseeing and embrace Chinese culture and history as well. Enjoy the delicious food and pick up some Chinese language!

Walk through the Long Corridor in the Summer Palace while appreciating 14,000+ traditional Chinese paintings, and get a taste of the aesthetics of imperial gardening!

Hainan airlines arranged flights flew from Shanghai to Brussels in 2010 and 2011. Unfortunately this old exploration was failed. This route was stopped in late 2011 because of its low passenger rate.

The official reveals that Hainan airlines and Brussels airport have been negotiating for many times about the new line. Both two sides are obviously pleased that Brussels and Shanghai would make a further progress. The connection between China and Belgium will be remarkable in the foreseeable future.

The return of the Brussels-Shanghai flight route is a new start for the two sides to have deeper communication and more corporations. By the way, Hainan Airlines already flies from Beijing to Brussels. With this resume route, Hainan Airlines flights landing in Brussels will be added to two.

Hong Kong Ocean Park, one of the tenth most popular theme parks in the world, recently announced its Christmas carnivals plan in December, offering several promotions and celebrations to attract more visitors from all over the world.

The show will be held in the Ocean Park in Hong Kong amid a Christmas setting from Dec 12 to early next year.

A 21-meter Christmas tree will be well decorated and all light up every evening, stuffs and Santa Claus will teach children how to make their own gifts like cards and candies for the festival season in workshops.

The company would encourage tourists to join the “Get Closer to the Animals” programs in the indoor aquarium to learn more about sea endangered animals other than enjoying the outdoor facilities in the park. For example, visitors can see pandas, prepare food for koalas and red-necked wallabies, and feed sharks and rays.

Online users could play games on the park’s official website through Nov.27 to win discounts and coupons on admission tickets to the park on or before Dec.18.

Travel tips:

Admission ticket: HK$320/adult, HK$160/child (3-11 years old)

Location: Ocean Park Avenue, Nanlang Mountain, Huangzhukeng, Hongkong

The Palace Museum in Beijing announced the western part of the Imperial Palace is opened for first time in 90 years. This has increased the sightseeing area available to visitors from 52 percent to 65 percent. The western section of the Palace Museum has been transformed into different exhibition halls, where nearly twelve hundred pieces of relics will be on display to all tourists.

The western part of the Palace Museum includes Buddhist halls, vintage storerooms, and palaces where several empresses and other concubines lived in. The two renowned Cining and Shoukang Palaces are the most famous places in the newly displayed western part of the Palace Museum. After the ban was lifted, tourists could have a taste of the mystery of the western part and luckily enough to catch a glimpse of royal women’s residences after 600 years.

Tourists from all over the world are greatly looking forward to seeing this new exhibition area because of two famous Cining and Shoukang Palaces. Cining and Shoukang Palaces used to be places where two legend empresses Xiaozhuang (Emperor Shunzhi’s mother) and Niuhulu (Emperor Qianlong’s mother) once lived. Visitors to the Forbidden City nowadays can get to know more about the mothers of emperors and their historical stories.

Shoukang Palace is very large, with prettily graved furnishings inside the palace, including the best relics found during the reign of Emperor Qianlong. Tourists can view luxuriously decorated bedrooms and a private Buddhist worship hall among other treasures of the western section there. Professional workers have restored it entirely to what it looked like during that ancient period.

The launching flight of the Airline with Airbus A330 was accorded warm welcome during its landing at Bole Airport by officials and staff members of the Ethiopian Airports Enterprise, the Ethiopian Airlines, Air China and also diplomats among others.

The new route of Air China between Beijing and Addis Ababa came few days after the launch of maiden flight between Beijing and Johannesburg in South Africa few days back.

With the increase of exchanges between the two countries and with the increase of investment by Chinese companies in Africa, more and more Chinese people are coming to Africa. So this flight is regarded as a remarkable sign of the flight-development of China.

Starting on April 4, 2016, the airline will operate the flight five times a week and on a daily basis beginning in May. The flight time will be about 10 hours 20 minutes and cover a distance of more than 8,500 kilometers.

The airline included Shanghai in its flight schedule in 2004 but stopped the service in 2007.

Artists from Pengshui Miao-Tujia Autonomous County perform an opera of Miao ethnic group.

The Yi nationality artists from Yuxi, a city in Yunnan province, perform their traditional opera.

Artists from north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region perform an opera.

In Qufu City, hometown of Confucius in Shandong Province, more than 2,000 people marched toward the Confucius Temple. Participants wearing traditional costumes perform during the ritual.

More than 500 people bowed to the statue of Confucius at Yuelu Academy in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province. They also recited his classics together.

A ceremony was held at the Confucius Temple in Beijing.

For thousands of years, Confucius has been regarded as a symbol of China’s traditional culture, as well as the country’s intellectuals. He was venerated as a great sage in ancient China, and despised as a regressive pedant during the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

Xi’an, the capital city of Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, launched special subway trains themed the Silk Road on 21, Sep.

Focusing on culture of the Silk Road, the pictures painted on the train reflect the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The train is composed of six carriages, the themes of which are exploration, inclusiveness, mutual benefit, mutual correction, co-operation and win-win respectively. All the cultural symbols shown are in the form of hand-drawn pictures. The outside of the train is painted with desert and camels, symbolizing the ancient Silk Road.

According to a press conference held yesterday in Beijing, the 2015 China (Qufu) International Confucius Cultural Festival will open on Sept 26 at the great thinker’s hometown Qufu in Jining city, Shandong province.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, China National Tourism Administration and the Shandong provincial government, jointly hosted by the Jining municipal government and Qufu municipal government, this year’s Confucius festival will commence with a grand opening ceremony, which is also the 10th awarding ceremony of the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy.

The prize, established in 2005, aims to reward those individuals as well as organizations that make outstanding contributions to wiping out illiteracy, especially in rural areas and among out-of-school youth, women and children. It is also worth noting that it is the first international award that is named in honor of a Chinese person.

The core activity of this year’s event is still the ceremony of worshipping Confucius, which consists of various ancient singing and dancing performances at the Temple of Confucius. This part best exemplifies the cultural essence of the festive event.

Academic seminars also make up an integral part of the event. The 7th World Confucianism Conference will be held, at which topics like “Confucianism and modern value system”, and “Confucianism and soft power building” will be discussed by over 150 experts and scholars.

The Confucius Culture Festival is an annual event, and is not only a way to commemorate the great thinker and philosopher, but also a good opportunity to introduce traditional Chinese culture to the world.

Currently, there are about 65 percent of the Forbidden City is accessible to the visitors. According to the plan, 80 percent of the site will be open from 2020, and the long-term goal is 85 percent, compared with 30 percent 13 years ago.

Some administrative and ancillary facilities are being removed and old architecture renovated in preparation for the wider opening.

So far, about 20 stores in Fujian have qualified for the program. The minimum purchase to obtain a tax refund is 500 yuan at any one store in a day.

Five ports have been confirmed as the first batch of ports to offer tax refunds, namely Fuzhou Changle International Airport, Quanzhou Jinjiang Air Harbor, Pingtan Straits High-speed Passenger Terminal, Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport and Xiamen Wutong Port.

According to the policy, overseas tourists (including those from China’s Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) who have stayed on the Chinese mainland for no more than 183 days may receive tax refunds on consumer goods purchased at designated department stores.

This year, the festival that opened on Sept 7 in the capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi province features artists and scholars from 62 countries and regions. In 2014, artists from some 30 countries attended the first edition of the cultural event.

Culture Minister Luo Shugang, who was also present at the opening this year, called the festival a “cultural project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, which will “drive the understanding of both Chinese culture and those of nations on the Silk Road”.

Lou Qinjian, governor of Shaanxi province, says: “The festival aims to boost cultural exchanges among people from various nations along the Silk Road.”

The festival features paintings by artists from 50 countries, including Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Chinese ink painters from China National Academy of Painting are also presenting their works depicting landscapes they sketched during their travels to countries on the ancient Silk Road.

As part of ongoing festival, visitors to Xi’an can enjoy Bollywood dance performances, Latin concerts from Cuba and Mexico, modern dance from Israel and much more.

Drama groups from the Netherlands will stage children’s dramas for one week and performers from different provinces in China will also bring musicals and dramas mainly concentrating on stories from centuries ago along the Silk Road, routes used by Chinese traders to sell silk and porcelain abroad.

Other than performances, the festival also has lots of lectures and cultural seminars by scholars on topics of history, the arts and religion. Many of the scholars will speak in local universities during their stay in Xi’an.

Xi’an has held lots of cultural activities under the Belt and Road Initiative since last year, including a film festival and expo. The arts festival is going to be held annually, according to the provincial government.

As the capital city of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the city is considered the starting point of the ancient Silk Road.

It has for long contributed to China’s interactions with the world, says Zheng Xin-miao, former director of the Palace Museum in Beijing, who attended this year’s festival.

The city should have the confidence and the ability to promote Chinese culture, he adds.

More than 2,000 years ago, Xi’an started frequent trade exchanges with Asian and Arab nations.

“When I stand here and look back at our history, I can hear the ringing of bells around the necks of camels in the desert,” Zheng says.

Nanjing is the 16th city in the Chinese mainland to embrace the policy, following Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shenyang, Dalian, Guilin, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xiamen, Tianjin and Harbin.

The policy covers travelers from 51 countries and regions, including the USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, South Korean and Singapore. They can apply for a transit without visa at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport, providing they have third country visas and onward tickets to leave for a third country or region within 72 hours.

Visitors could enjoy a 72-hour stay in Jiangsu Province, which is one of the most attractive destinations in East China. It is home to many beautiful and historical cities, such as Nanjing, Yangzhou, and Zhenjiang, which feature classical Chinese gardens and the beautiful lakes.

The route will make four round-trip flights each week, on Tue, Thu, Sat, and Sun. From the 1^st, Jan, 2016, the service will rise to seven flights per week. Flights will depart from Shanghai at 00:10 and will arrive in Auckland at 17:15. The return flight departs Auckland at 22:00, and arrives in Shanghai at 05:30 next day.

Currently, Air New Zealand is the only carrier providing a scheduled service between Shanghai and Auckland.

There are two tombs positioned next to each other, in an east-west direction, and they have multiple chambers. Exquisite examples of decorative bricks have been discovered at the dig site. Bricks feature rhomboid patterns, carriages and horses, dragons and clouds, said Lei Jianhong, a researcher with the Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Research Institute.

However, the tombs were pillaged by grave robbers and the west tomb is severely damaged. Still, more than 20 pieces of pottery have been found in the tombs.