Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival (also called Yuanxiao Festival) is on the 15th day of the first Chinese lunar month. It is closely related to Spring Festival.In the old days, people began preparing for the Spring Festival about 20 days before. However, the Lantern Festival,everything returns to normal. Yuan literally means first, while Xiao refers to night. yuanxiao is the first time when we see the full moon in the new year. It is traditionally a time for family reunion.

There are many different beliefs about the origin of the Lantern Festival. But one thing for sure is that it had something to do with religious worship.One legend tells us that it was a time to worship Taiyi, the God of Heaven in ancient times. The belief was that the God of Heaven controlled the destiny of the human world. He had sixteen dragons at his beck and call and he decided when to inflict drought,storms, farmine or pestilence upon human beings. Beginning with Qinshihuang, the first emperor to unite the country, all subsequent emperors ordered splendid ceremonies each year. The emperor would ask Taiyi to bring favorable weather and good health to him and his people. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty directed special attention to this event. In 104 BC,he proclaimed it one of the most important celebrations and the ceremony would last throughout the night.

Another legend associates the Lantern Festival with Taoism. Tianguan is the Taoist god responsible for good fortune. His birthday falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. It is said that Tianguan likes all types of entertainment. So followers prepare various kinds of activities during which they pray for good fortune.

The third story about the origin of the festival goes like this. Buddhism first entered China during the reign of Emperor Mingdi of the Eastern Han Dynasty. That was in the first century. However, it did not exert any great influence among the Chinese people. One day, Emperor Mingdi had a dream about a gold man in his palace. At the very moment when he was about to ask the mysterious figure who he was, the gold man suddenly rose to the sky and disappeared in the west. The next day, Emperor Mingdi sent a scholar to India on a pilgrimage to locate Buddhist scriptures. After joumeying thousands of miles,the scholar finally returned with the scriptures. Emperor Mingdi ordered that a temple be built to house a statue of Buddha and serve as a repository for the scriptures. Followers believe that the power of Buddha can dispel darkness.So Emperor Mingdi ordered his subjects to display lighted lanterns during what was to become the Lantern Festival.The custom of lighting lanterns continued. However, the lanterns would develop from small simple ones to those of various color and shape. The scale of the celebration would also increase greatly.


Until the Sui Dynasty in the sixth century, Emperor Yangdi invited envoys from other countries to China to see the colorful lighted lanterns and enjoy the gala performances.By the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century, the lantern displays would last three days. The emperor also lifted the curfew, allowing the people to enjoy the festive lanterns day and night. It is not difficult to find Chinese poems which describe this happy scene.In the Song Dynasty, the festival was celebrated for five days and the activities began to spread to many of the big cities in China.Colorful glass and even jade were used to make lanterns, with figures from folk tales painted on the lanterns.However, the largest Lantern Festival celebration took place in the early part of the 15th century. The festivities continued for ten days. Emperor Chengzu had the downtown area set aside as a center for displaying the lanterns. Even today,there is a place in Beijing called Dengshikou.In Chinese,Deng means lantern and Shi is market.The area became a market where lanterns were sold during the day.In the evening, the local people would go there to see the beautiful lighted lanterns on display.


Today, the displaying of lanterns is still a big event on the 15th day of the first lunar month throughout China. People enjoy the brightly lit night. Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, for example, holds a lantern fair each year in the Cultural Park. During the Lantern Festival,the park is literally an ocean of lanterns! Many new designs attract countless visitors. The most eye-catching lantern is th

Dragon Pole, This is a lantern in the shape of a golden dragon, spiraling up a 27-meter -high pole, spewing fireworks from its mouth. It is quite an impressive sight!Besides entertainment and beautiful lanterns, another important part of the Lantern Festival,or Yuanxiao Festival is eating small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour. We call these balls Yuanxiao. Obviously, they get the name from the festival itself. It is said that the custom of eating Yuanxiao originated during the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the fourth centuty, then became popular during the Tang and Song periods.The fillings inside the dumplings or Yuanxiao are either sweet or salty. Sweet fillings are made of sugar, Walnuts, sesame, osmanthus flowers, rose petals, sweetened tangerine peel, bean paste, or jujube paste. A single ingredient or any combination can be used as the filling . The salty variety is filled with minced meat, vegetables or a mixture.The way to make Yuanxiao also varies between northern and southern China. The usual method followed in southern provinceds is to shape the dough of rice flour into balls, make a hole, insert the filling, then close the hole and smooth out the dumpling by rolling it between your hands.In North China,sweeet or nonmeat stuffing is the usual ingredient. The fillings are pressed into hardened cores, dipped lightly in water and rolled in a flat basket containing dry glutinous rice flour. A layer of the flour sticks to the filling, which is then again dipped in water and rolled a second time in the rice flour. And so it goes, like rolling a snowball, until the dumpling is the desired size.The custom of eating Yuanxiao dumplings remains. This tradition encourages both old and new stores to promote their Yuanxiao products. They all try their best to improve the taste and quality of the dumplings to attract more customers.

China Festivals...

Adventure Tour to South Africa

South Africa is surrounded side by side by breathtaking mountains. South Africa offers world-class climbing, surfing, diving, hiking, horseback safaris, mountain biking, river rafting etc. There are over a hundred listed paragliding or hang gliding launch sites were you can enjoy.Thousands of kilometres of hiking trails around the country in desert, forest,you can see. South Africa is the most scenic and beautiful place for tourists to participate in adventure activities.South Africa offers a large variety of adventure activities,sports etc.On the border of the Eastern and Western Cape has the highest commercial bungee jump in the world. South Africa is home of the highest bungi jump, biggest sand dunes and tallest mountain.

Some of the famous adventure activities are :-

Abseiling table mountain - The world famous Table Mountain soars above Cape Town at 1000 metres above sea level. The "long drop" is 112m high - and about a kilometre above the city - making it the world's highest commercial abseil. The views from here are breathtaking.

Bungee jumping - The highest commercial Bungy Jump in the world stands at 216m high and is at the Bloukrans Bridge up the Garden Route of South Africa.

Canoeing, rafting & kayaking - The most popular is the Orange,it's a long, green-fringed oasis running through the mountainous desert area. Incredibly scenic, it also has a few fun rapids.The trail of approximately 75km is suitable for the complete novice and specially designed, stable, 2-man, Indian-type canoes makes it safe for the whole family, both young and old. There is some fun canoeing in the lakes area of the Garden Route, especially Wilderness and Knysna Lagoon.

Fishing - Shore angling is the most popular form of fishing - perhaps because it is the most accessible.

Horseback safaris – If you're comfortable on a horse you can take a ride through magnificent mountain scenery and also through vineyards.

Kloofing - Jumps range from 3 meters high to 22 meters high and it might seem crazy but it will give you an xtreme adventure xperience.

Rock climbing - South Africa offers some of the best, and most diverse, rock climbing in the world. Outside Durban, there are also a lot of sport climbs. The Cedarberg, two-and-a-half hours drive north of Cape Town, is a world-class bouldering area - and boasts some of the best rock climbing routes in the country.Cape Town is built around Table Mountain, a national park consisting of two great, hard rock types - Table Mountain sandstone, and Cape granite, which offers fantastic friction climbing.

Scuba diving - South Africa has an enormously long coastline, which isn't quite within the usual range for tropical diving. Mozambique Current flows down our east coast and at Sodwana Bay we have the most southerly coral reefs in the world.You can see pretty colourful fish and some great nudibranchs, including the outrageous Spanish dancer. Whale sharks, turtles, dolphins and ragged tooth sharks are often seen in specific areas.

Whale Watching - During the correct seasons, Southern Right Whales make the coastline their home and often come here to give birth. Hermanus, a beautiful fishing village up the coast from Cape Town, is a destination for some of the world's best land based and boat whale watching.

Kruger National Park

Kruger National Park is Africa's oldest established wildlife park.Kruger National Park covers 18,989 square km and extends 350 km from north to south and 60 km from east to west.It is situated north of Johannesburg.Kruger National Park atmosphere is so unique. Most of the park is situated in the Lowveld. To the west and south of the Kruger National Park are the two South African provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga.In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique. It is now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, that links Kruger National Park with the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. It is the largest game reserve in South Africa.The park boasts a fabulous variety of game and birdlife in its various habitats.The Kruger National Park is home to number of species: 336 trees, 49 fish, 34 amphibians, 114 reptiles, 507 birds and 147 mammals. The park has 8 main gates that allow entrance to the different camps.The names of these gates are Paul Kruger, Numbi, Malelane, Punda Maria, Crocodile Bridge, Orpen,Phalaborwa , Phabeni and Pafuri.The Kruger National Park is divided into six ecosystems - baobab sandveld, Lebombo knobthorn-marula bushveld, mixed acacia thicket, combretun-silver clusterleaf, woodland on granite, and riverine forest. It boasts the highest variety of wildlife in Africa which inlcudes the "Big Five", hippos, crocodiles, giraffe, cheetah etc.Kruger National Park is divided into 4 regions so visitors could understand easily which region they want to explore first.The regions are :-
The central region :- The central region supports nearly half the park’s lion population as well as numbers of leopard,hyena and cheetah. Possibly the main reason for this is the quantity of sweet grasses and abundant browsing trees found in this area that support a large group of antelope, giraffe, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest.

The northern region :- The Letaba and Olifants rivers contain as much as 60% of the Kruger park’s hippo population, and bird life here abounds. There are plenty of bushpig in the undergrowth of the Luvuvhu River and on most of the river banks you can hope to see sizeable herds of elephant buffalo,bushbuck,and Kudu concentrated near a water supply.

The far north region :-This is a rather fascinating part of the Kruger National Park. Sightings of rare birdlife and major areas of sand formed by river flood plains, combined with sandstone formations of the Mozambique coastal plain, make it attractive to visitors. A picnic site on the river bank provides hours of splendid bird viewing.

The southern region :- The valleys are home to trees rarely found in other parts of the Kruger park, such as the Cape chestnut, coral tree and lavender fever-berry; and granite lies beneath most of the region, producing distinctive smoothed koppies at irregular intervals, which are typically surrounded by rock figs and form ideal locations for rock dassies or hyrax, baboon and klipspringer, not to mention the odd leopard. This is the region where you’re almost sure of seeing a white rhino as most of them occur here.

Safari tours :- You can also enjoy Safari tours.Hence the Kruger National Park is one of South Africa`s premier tourist attractions. Safari tours are mostly common here.During safari you can view Big Five,Elephant,Lion,Rhino,Buffalo and Leopard.You should also see Zebras, Wildebeest,Bush pig,Impala,Giraffes and baboons which are all quite easily spotted. The best time to see game in the Kruger National Park is during the winter months of April to September.November and December are the calving months, this is a fantastic time for a safari.

Water and Bush Birds in the Kruger :- There are over 600 species of water and bush birds in South Africa’s top reserve.Great egrets, reed cormorants and white-faced ducks are found by the water alongside giant kingfishers, grey and green-backed herons,plovers and black-winged stilts.You can spoteasily hornbills as well as eagles, hooded vultures and other birds of prey. Among the most colourful birds are Carmine bee eaters and lilac-breasted rollers.

Bush walks :- It is one of the most incredible ways to learn about the fragility of the ecosystems of the Kruger Park and to see the smaller, animals and insects of the park like termites, spiders, snakes and plants. Bush walks can last up to four hours.

Wilderness trails :- There are many trails offer in the Kruger National Park.Some of them are Metsi-Metsi, Napi, Massingir and the Sweni Wilderness.