China News

Hangzhou Latest China City to Offer 72-hour Visa-free Stays
Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang province, is the latest city to offer the 72-hour visa-free policy. Under the policy, travelers from the United States, Canada and 49 other countries are able to enter select Chinese cities for up to 72 hours without a visa, as long as they have a booked plane ticket to a third country or region within the 72-hour time period. Hangzhou is the 11th city to adopt this policy, joining Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, Shenyang, Dalian, Guilin and Xi’an.
 
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51 Countries to enjoy the 72 hours visa-free policy:
24 countries signed the European Schengen visa agreement – Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
13 European countries – Russia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania.
6 American countries – United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile.
2 Oceanian Countries – Australia and New Zealand.
6 Asian countries – South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar.
 
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Supercave in China Deemed World’s Most Enormous Cavern
The Miao Room Chamber is a cavern within China’s extensive Gebihe cave system, which lies underneath Ziyun Getu He Chuandong National Park. A recent expedition by the National Geographic Society and China’s Institute of Karst Geology laser-mapped the cavern and discovered that Miao Room is indeed the largest cave chamber in the world. The report states that the Miao Room Chamber measures more than 380 million cubic feet in volume, and is 10 percent larger than the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia, which was previously believed to be the world’s biggest cave by volume.
 
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Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival (January 5-February 25, 2015)
The 31^st Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival will open to visitors in the new year and go through the month of February. The Festival has been named among the top four ice and snow festivals in the world (with Japan, Quebec, and Oslo) and the Snow Sculpture Art Expo is world-famous for the displays from international artists. Festivities include fireworks, performances, lights and more.
 
 
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The Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site is southwest of Beijing and the place of ongoing geological and archaeological research. It was at Zhoukoudian that remains of Sinanthropus pekinensis – or “Peking man,” as the new species was called when it was discovered in 1921 – were found. The Peking man lived in the Middle Pleistocene, approximately 200,000 to 500,000 years ago. The discovery was an exciting one, as the full skull of the “Chinese ape-man” was uncovered, along with other fossils from his residence in the hilltop caves of Zhoukoudian.
 
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