Cold weather during the Spring Festival period did not dampen the enthusiasm of tourists visiting public parks and tourist attractions in Shenzhen.

Lotus Hill Park, Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Minsk World, Window of the World, Happy Valley and others, were visited by a total of 3.76 million people during the first six days, a jump of 9.94 percent over last year's figures, according to tourism authorities. The Happy Valley theme park had 168,000 tourists in the first six days, almost the same as last year.

Many people also visited the Shenzhen Art Museum, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, He Xiangning Art Gallery and the Shenzhen Museum.

The city's library was filled with readers who took advantage of the long holiday to look for and read their favorite books. Since the beginning of the holiday, more than 1,000 readers used the library every day.

The city's checkpoints saw a slight increase in the number of passengers leaving or entering Hong Kong. To Wednesday, a total of 5.41 million people passed through the checkpoints, 1.5 percent more than last year. The major reason for the increase was the introduction of individual travel to Hong Kong.

(Shenzhen Daily January 29, 2004)