BEIJING, Jan. 11 -- Sprawling along the Songhua River, Jilin City is the second largest city in Jilin Province, with an area of 27,000 square kilometers and a population of 4.276 million.

    Jilin was formerly called "Jilin Wula", which means "along the river" in the Manchu language. Jilin is referred to as a river city because of Boat Sailing on the Songhua River, a verse composed by Emperor Kang Xi of the Qing Dynasty during his inspection tour of the east.

    It is surrounded on all sides by the offset of the Changbai Mountains, and the Songhua River that flows in a S-shaped course through the urban area looks like a blue ribbon.

    Though Jilin is not outstanding as a tourist city, its name spreads among travelers nationwide because of the rime. The rime on the Songhua River is one of four natural wonders in China, enjoying equal fame as Guilin Mountains and Streams, Yunnan Stone Forest and the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River do.

    The rime, also called "snow willow", "tree hanging", "ice flowers", "water vaporized flowers", "silver flowers", is a kind of phenomenon, in which winter fog condenses on the branches and leaves of trees to form separate, white ice crystals, according to metrology.

    Besides the banks of the Songhua River, the Songhua Lake, located beyond the Fengman Power Station nearby Jilin City is another good place to enjoy the beautiful rime. In winter, the ice on the lake is over a meter thick, but the water underneath the ice is not below freezing.

    In fact, the turbines of the power station make the water flow fast and this raises its temperature to 5 C degree even if the outside temperature is 30 C degree below zero and the water within 50 kilometers below the dam is not iced over. This causes fog during the day.

    But when the temperature drops during the night, rime and icicles form on the trees around the lake. When the sun rises the next morning, it turns the area into a crystal fairy world, with trees glistening in every shape. Willow branches become silver bands and pine trees turn into whilte chrysanthemums.

    "A sudden visit by the spring breeze," a poem says, "brings white pear blossoms to thousands of trees." Around noon, the white frost melts away, dropping on the people below. A fairy funland.

    The rime appears from about mid-December to the first half of March and is best seen from the dam and along the shore.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)