High-quality route 16: Escaping summer heat in Shenyang

Recommended sites: Qipan Mountain Scenic Area, Shenyang National Forest Park, Shenyang Expo Garden, Shenyang Fantawild Adventure, Qixing Sea World, Bird Island, Paddy Culture Theme Park, Ziyan Lavender Estate.

A national 4A scenic spot, Qipan Mountain Scenic Area contains 76 square kilometers of forest and integrates scenic tourism, leisure, commercial conferences and exhibitions. It is Shenyang’s largest natural scenic spot and is known as the green lung of the city. In the scenic area, visitors can view mountains, winding valleys, lush forests and a bevy of fragrant flowers. Xiuhu Lake is one of the area’s largest scenic spots.

Shenyang National Forest Park brings visitors to mountains, forests, springs, lakes, waterfalls, gorges and caves throughout its 10 sq km, 96 percent of which is covered with forests.

Shenyang Expo Garden sits on 246 hectares in the Qipan Mountain International Scenic Tourism Development Zone and hosts 53 domestic, 23 international and 24 special exhibition parks, each showcasing thousands of flowers.

Shenyang Fantawild Adventure is one of the largest theme parks in Northeast China and offers visitors numerous interactive science fiction experiences. More than 20 ambitious project areas deal with space shuttles, film studios, Mysterious Valley and Joy City. The park boasts a world-class high-altitude flying project, “Fly Over the Limit”, a large-scale dynamic space flight project, “Interplanetary Flight”, and the world’s most advanced large-scale dinosaur revival disaster project, “Dinosaur Crisis”.

A comprehensive leisure resort integrating indoor and outdoor water parks, playgrounds, marine science and technology museums, hot springs, meeting rooms and seafood restaurants, Qixing Sea World is also Asia’s largest indoor water park.

Bird Island is the only natural bird sighting center in Shenyang. An island in the Hunhe River covering 49.26 hectares, Bird Island has rich natural vegetation and, at different times of the day, the island’s forests, shrubs, wetlands and ponds provide vastly different scenes to visitors.

Dao Meng Kong Jian (Paddy Culture Theme Park) is a vast park integrating paddy field painting, fruit and vegetable picking, pastoral fishing, rafting and sightseeing. It is currently the world's largest paddy field painting base, with eye-catching images made from creatively planted paddy fields.

Lavenders at Ziyan Lavender Estate bloom in mid-July, with a flowering period of up to 100 days. Colorful valleys of lavender swaying in the wind offer truly dazzling summer scenes and provide a backdrop to such events and activities as the Huajian Music Festival.