Highway rest areas offer delightful surprises for holiday travelers

Hundreds of thousands of travelers on the road who stopped at highway service areas in East China's Jiangsu province were amazed by their diverse beauty and modern amenities.

The service areas made the trending list on social media platform Sina Weibo during the National Day Golden Week holiday after travelers expressed their astonishment on the internet.

One of the areas, Yangcheng Lake Expressway Service Area in Suzhou city, which covers an area of 50,000 sq meters, is equipped with holographic projections, a technology museum and a VR theme park.

Travelers can enjoy live Kunqu opera shows in the area, which recreates the appearance of traditional riverside towns in the Yangtze River Delta. They also can walk across a bridge on a river that runs through buildings in the area or wander in the gardens behind the buildings.

In dinosaur-themed Fangmaoshan Rest Area in Changzhou, travelers can see many dinosaur sculptures, take escalators decorated with reproductions of giant white dinosaur ribs on both sides and even learn about dinosaurs on the bathroom doors in the site's restrooms.

Many netizens said they were impressed by the Gehu Service Area, which looks like a castle, the Maoshan Service Area located next to a picturesque lake and the 10,000-sq meter Meicun Service Area, which resembles a downtown shopping mall.