Discover China

The China Daily article Hefei well worth a visit introduces the capital of eastern China’s Anhui province. Hefei is at the junction of Dongfei and Nanfei rivers, and is known as a garden city because of its many parks, which include Belt Park, a “green necklace” that circles the old town.

Hefei has many historical and cultural sites, such as the Memorial Temple of Lord Bao (999-1062) and the former residence of Li Hongzhang (1823-1901), a leading statesman during the late Qing Dynasty. It is also a great base for exploring the many other attractions of Anhui Province such as the beautiful Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), the ancient villages of Hongcun and Xidi, and the Yangtze River city of Wuhu.

I was fortunate to be able to visit Hefei and other Anhui attractions during my trip to Henan, Anhui and Zhejiang Provinces in 2009.

In the first week of August I returned for my sixth visit to China, this time returning to Shenzhen. My work commitments at home meant that I could unfortunately only stay for a week, which is never going to be enough time to enjoy all that Shenzhen has to offer, and that I could not stay for the spectacular Shenzhen Universiade 2011 which commences today. However, it was a great week catching up with friends and again enjoying the friendly hospitality of the Chinese people, and of course taking in Shenzhen’s outstanding dining and shopping. This time I travelled directly to and from Shenzhen Airport on Hainan Airlines new direct service from Sydney to Shenzhen and Hangzhou, and it was excellent value for money with great service.

In August I will return for another trip to Shenzhen – it will be great to be back! This time I will fly direct to Shenzhen Airport on one of Hainan Airlines new international flights to Shenzhen. As well as enjoying the hospitality of the five-star Hainan Airlines, traveling directly to Shenzhen saves time over my previous visits where I have had to fly to Hong Kong airport and then travel across the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) boundary to Shenzhen. From Shenzhen Airport there is then easy access to locations across Shenzhen following the opening of the extension of Metro Line 1 to Shenzhen Airport and other new lines and line extensions.

On 19 May China celebrated it’s first National Tourism Day to promote tourism and tourist initiatives throughout the country. This is a great initiative, with China having so much to offer tourists – after my five trips to China I have many wonderful experiences and seen many outstanding sights, but I have only really seen a tiny proportion of China’s endless attractions. The date of 19 May was chosen for National Tourism Day as it commemorates the day when China´s ancient travel book writer Xu Xiake began writing his masterpiece “Travel Notes of Xu Xiake” in the Ming Dynasty.

From the end of December 2010 we returned for my fifth trip to China, spending three amazing weeks visiting China’s capital Beijing as well as Tianjin, located south of Beijing, and Zhengzhou in central China. You can now read the story of my trip and see the pictures.