For fans of chocolate, (maybe the world majority!), there’s a new Willy-Wonka style theme park in Beijing. It’s the Chocolate Wonderland Park which is next to the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium and features five pavilions: the World’s Chocolate Hall, World’s Candy Hall, Wonderland Theme Hall, Sweet Experience Hall and the Sweet Gift Hall.

The 215,000 square foot park uses about 80,000 kilograms of chocolate (imported from Belgium) and also apparently includes a Sweet Stage and Sweet Shopping Street where chocolate makers are on hand to teach children how to make their own chocolate.

The chocolate park showcases artifacts including miniatures of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, as well as life-size chocolate replicas of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

The park will stay open until April 2010 when the weather will be too warm for the chocolate. By January 2011, it is planned to reopen with all new displays.

More photos on The Telegraph

Technorati Tags: Beijing, China, chocolate exhibition, Chocolate Wonderland Park, chocolates

This kid is going to have a cool future…

Technorati Tags: China, Chinese, hip hop, music

If we’re honest, we don’t understand all the fuss made about Lady Gaga, but this guy seems to. He’s gone so far as to apparently mash up one of her tunes to Chinese New Year lyics according virtual China site 88 Bar. Net meme in the making?

Via 88 Bar

Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year, Lady Gaga, mash up

Whilst we’re no stranger to the migration rush that Chinese New Year brings to Chinese communities around the world, this photo caught our eyes with its depiction of a woman running to catch her train.

A passenger with her hands full hurries to catch her train at the railway station in Nanchang, east China, at the weekend. She was one of millions travelling home to celebrate the start of the year of the tiger on February 14th.

Let’s hope Chinese travelers all over the world make it to their families safely this year.

More on the Irish Times Via Irish Born Chinese

Technorati Tags: China, Chinese New Year, photography, Year of the Tiger

Hubei-born artist Li Xiaofeng created an artistic line of “clothing items” out of Porcelain fragments from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Via LostAtEMinor

Technorati Tags: art, China, Li Xiaofeng, porcelain

The northern hemisphere in the West might not want to see anymore of the freeze, but its undeniable that the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival shows the climate in a beautiful light. The Big Picture does it again with a fantastic series of photos from the event, the 26th of its kind. Opening on January 5th 2010, the festival will remain open until some time in February.

See more of the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

Technorati Tags: China, Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, photography, Harbin

Stunned farmer Zheng Dexun in Langzhong, China, dug up a crop of Fleeceflower, or Chinese Knotweed, and found one shaped like a person!

Measuring 62cm tall, the root has clearly defined body parts and Zheng put it back in the earth in case it was a bad thing to dig it up.

Via The Telegraph

Technorati Tags: China, Chinese knotweed, fleeceflower, strange shaped plants

CNN’s Asia travel guide, CNNGo, published their lists for the top hot people in Asia to watch. There are a total of 135 mentioned for you to pore over with all coming from East Asia and also some from India.

The list is a mixture of creative personalities and business people and anything in between so there’s likely to be an entry that will spark your interests. CNNGo starts with a selection of 39 people across the region and then provide separate lists for each country as follows:

39 Hot People in Asia

Tokyo Hot List: 20 People to Watch
Hong Kong: 20 People to Watch
Shanghai: 20 People to Watch
Singapore: 20 People to Watch
Bangkok: 20 People to Watch

Found via 88 Bar, they also posted a link to an entertaining listing of the HOTTEST people on the internet in China.

Technorati Tags: CNN, CNNGo, hot list, people list, hot people in Asia

Whilst we hate to call anyone ugly, you’ll know what we mean when you see the photos below for before and after an amazing transformation with make-up. Girls, this probably won’t surprise you but the change will probably always surprise us.

See all photos for the Transformation from Ugly Duckling to Beauty

Technorati Tags: beauty, beauty tranformation, China, make-up

Cute as they are, these pandas are devious as hell. One rolls over and distracts the keeper whilst another escapes out the back door, only for his accomplice to follow him!

Via Marilyn_Res

Technorati Tags: China, pandas, zoo