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Festival praises plums aplenty
By Xu Wenwen |
February 18, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
MORE than 50 hectares of plum trees are blossoming all over Chao Mountain, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, as winter turns into spring. The Chao Mountain Plum Blossom Festival opens today and will last through to March 18.
The annual event features a one-month-long plum food activity and a series of plum blossom art exhibitions, including ceramic, painting and photographic works.
The landscape of plum blossom on the hill, one of the three traditional places to appreciate plum blossoms in Jiangnan (the region south of the lower reaches of Yangtze River), is known as the "fragrant snow ocean," and the plum trees on Chao Mountain are famous for their striking shapes. The mountain is the home to two of the five plum trees in ancient China: Tangmei planted in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and Songmei planted in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Since the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed train takes less than 40 minutes from Shanghai to Yuhang, visitors from Shanghai are encouraged to catch the bullet train and visit the city to experience the "fragrant snow ocean."
Date: through March 18, 9am-4pm
Tel: (0571) 8631-1228
Tea sales begin
This year's first crop of green tea picked in a well-known tea garden by the Qiandao Lake was sold at 18,452 yuan (US$2,802) a kilogram at a recent auction.
Tea growers picked a total of 10 kilograms of early spring tea leaves in the lakeside Jade Leaf Tea Garden in Chun'an County. A 168-gram pack fetched the amazing price of 3,100 yuan at the auction which kicked off a new season of green tea sales.
Tourism revenue
Hangzhou's tourism income totaled 102.4 billion yuan (US$15.5 billion) last year, exceeding the 100-billion-yuan mark, Vice Mayor Zhang Jianting said recently.
Foreign exchange earnings from overseas visitors amounted to US$1.69 billion while RMB earnings from domestic travelers grossed 91 billion yuan. In the past five years, the city's tourism revenue in foreign exchanges and RMB rose at an annual rate of 16.8 percent and 17.9 percent respectively.
Hangzhou plans to increase its tourism revenue to 201 billion yuan in 2015, by an average rate of 15 percent a year in the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015).
Mass wedding
The annual Hangzhou Rose Wedding Ceremony will be held by the West Lake on October 6, the organizer announced this week.
The Rose Wedding is now in its 13th year and has become a cultural icon of Hangzhou and a highlight of the West Lake International Expo.
Last year's collective ceremony attracted 100 new couples from 16 Chinese provinces and municipalities, as well as 13 countries such as USA, Canada, Brazil, Russia, France and Switzerland. It was witnessed by 300,000 spectators and was reported by CCTV and many local television channels and newspapers.
Taxi fleet increases
Four hundred more taxis will hit the road in Hangzhou next month to ease the taxi shortage during the evening traffic peak.
One hundred cars among the new fleet are custom-made for elderly and disabled passengers.
Drivers from the new fleet of taxis have promised to change their daily shifts before 3pm.
Most taxis in Hangzhou change drivers from 4pm to 6pm, so cabbies often have to turn down passengers during rush hour to go to the designated place to change shifts.
Festival revived
Xixi National Wetland Park in the western outskirts of Hangzhou will host the first Hangzhou Xixi Flower Festival from April 9 to May 18. The festival is a revival of the city's old tradition that dates back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) when Hangzhou was the capital.
During the festival, flowers of all kinds will bloom in the park and folk art performances will be staged to entertain visitors.
The annual event features a one-month-long plum food activity and a series of plum blossom art exhibitions, including ceramic, painting and photographic works.
The landscape of plum blossom on the hill, one of the three traditional places to appreciate plum blossoms in Jiangnan (the region south of the lower reaches of Yangtze River), is known as the "fragrant snow ocean," and the plum trees on Chao Mountain are famous for their striking shapes. The mountain is the home to two of the five plum trees in ancient China: Tangmei planted in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and Songmei planted in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Since the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed train takes less than 40 minutes from Shanghai to Yuhang, visitors from Shanghai are encouraged to catch the bullet train and visit the city to experience the "fragrant snow ocean."
Date: through March 18, 9am-4pm
Tel: (0571) 8631-1228
Tea sales begin
This year's first crop of green tea picked in a well-known tea garden by the Qiandao Lake was sold at 18,452 yuan (US$2,802) a kilogram at a recent auction.
Tea growers picked a total of 10 kilograms of early spring tea leaves in the lakeside Jade Leaf Tea Garden in Chun'an County. A 168-gram pack fetched the amazing price of 3,100 yuan at the auction which kicked off a new season of green tea sales.
Tourism revenue
Hangzhou's tourism income totaled 102.4 billion yuan (US$15.5 billion) last year, exceeding the 100-billion-yuan mark, Vice Mayor Zhang Jianting said recently.
Foreign exchange earnings from overseas visitors amounted to US$1.69 billion while RMB earnings from domestic travelers grossed 91 billion yuan. In the past five years, the city's tourism revenue in foreign exchanges and RMB rose at an annual rate of 16.8 percent and 17.9 percent respectively.
Hangzhou plans to increase its tourism revenue to 201 billion yuan in 2015, by an average rate of 15 percent a year in the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015).
Mass wedding
The annual Hangzhou Rose Wedding Ceremony will be held by the West Lake on October 6, the organizer announced this week.
The Rose Wedding is now in its 13th year and has become a cultural icon of Hangzhou and a highlight of the West Lake International Expo.
Last year's collective ceremony attracted 100 new couples from 16 Chinese provinces and municipalities, as well as 13 countries such as USA, Canada, Brazil, Russia, France and Switzerland. It was witnessed by 300,000 spectators and was reported by CCTV and many local television channels and newspapers.
Taxi fleet increases
Four hundred more taxis will hit the road in Hangzhou next month to ease the taxi shortage during the evening traffic peak.
One hundred cars among the new fleet are custom-made for elderly and disabled passengers.
Drivers from the new fleet of taxis have promised to change their daily shifts before 3pm.
Most taxis in Hangzhou change drivers from 4pm to 6pm, so cabbies often have to turn down passengers during rush hour to go to the designated place to change shifts.
Festival revived
Xixi National Wetland Park in the western outskirts of Hangzhou will host the first Hangzhou Xixi Flower Festival from April 9 to May 18. The festival is a revival of the city's old tradition that dates back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) when Hangzhou was the capital.
During the festival, flowers of all kinds will bloom in the park and folk art performances will be staged to entertain visitors.
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