House glows with exotic ambience

Southeast Asia is theinspiration for the house of an IT couple A home befitting the tropics of Southeast Asia is just the ticket for some residents of cold weather-mired Beijing. Yang Jun and Xuan Xiaoqi, a married couple who both work in the IT industry, redecorated their flat six times before they were satisfied with their dream home.     Their apartment of 129 square...

Escape life to call nature

With an increasing number of travelers keen to escape life in the city for a breath of fresh air, tourism industry professionals and outdoor recreation companies are building new camping facilities that are accessible by car, in a bid to lure tourists to the great outdoors. Yantai Tourism Bureau in Shandong Province recently announced the construction of Xingfuhai, Happy Sea Car Campsite, by Ya...

Horse racing

Riding the Lucky Horse City (LHC) straightaway in Wuhan at 60 km/hr, horse racing junior Qin Yong was the first of his class this semester to experience the thrill of his major. "I had been waiting for that moment a long time, but when I actually got on the horse, I told myself to calm down and take advantage of every second to practice," said Qin Qin is one of 22 student-jockeys learning to g...

Being in the Sun Can Keep Infections at Bay

Vitamin D is vital in activating human defenses and low levels suffered by around half the world's population may mean their immune systems' killer T cells are poor at fighting infection, scientists say. The findings by Danish researchers could help the fight against infectious diseases and global epidemics, they say, and could be particularly useful in the search for new vaccines. The resea...

In China's animal kingdom there are the haves and have nots

Meng Meng enjoys one of the most expensive luxury apartments in Beijing, with maintenance costs alone running over a million yuan each year. She has her own kitchen staff, VIP valet service, air conditioning and an ornamental garden where she is often seen frolicking with her friends and nibbling on bamboo shoots for lunch, with oranges and honey for dessert. Meng Meng is pampered at government...

'Little Young People' gets much attention

Fighting for jobs, looking for love and keeping awake during class are just some of the slice of student life comics created by Huang Jiajia, whose simple pen and ink pieces are attracting lots of attention. As of yesterday, the 24-year-old industrial design senior's comic series We Are ALL Little Young People garnered more than 820,000 clicks within a month, according to China news portal qq.c...

The great walk

How long would it take to walk across the most populous and third largest country in the world? Graham Earnshaw, a long time China-based reporter, answers the question and illustrates it with interviews, conversations and experiences in his brand new book The Great Walk of China. Hitting the shelves earlier this month, The Great Walk of China tells the story of Earnshaw's journey on foot from c...

World tourism players vow to promote cooperation

Leaders of the world tourism industry at the 2010 Boao International Tourism Forum Sunday vowed to promote cooperation to deal with incidents with negative impacts on tourism. Given the industry's sensitive characteristics, the world's tourism industry should establish cooperation and development mechanisms to jointly respond to natural disasters, disease outbreaks, as well as economic crises ...

Riding mules

 More than 1,000 years ago, horse caravans along the Southern Silk Road carried tea and salt. Today's mule caravans carry construction materials. Riding mules for most of the year may not be everyone's idea of making a living. But for 27-year-old Ying Chengjun, it has opened up a fascinating world and brought romance into his life. A native of Dechang county, Sichuan province, Ying has be...

World goes green

All the world from the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building turned Irish, or at least Irish for the day, as revelers marked St. Patrick's Day with bagpipes, dancing, emerald lights and green body paint in a flurry of celebration. New Yorkers and visitors from all over the globe lined Manhattan's Fifth Avenue a dozen deep for the world's oldest and largest St. Patrick's Day parade We...