Hot Air Balloon Championship kicks off

The sky above Haikou city, in South China's Hainan Province, is filled with dozens of multi-coloured balloons these days. The second Haikou Hot Air Balloon Championship is underway.

The curtain lifted on the week-long Championship, last weekend. The competition drew forty teams from across the country. That is four times as many as there were in the first year, when there were only ten.

Cheered on by performances of dragon dancing, the array of balloons, with hot air injectors turned on, soared above city streets.

There are more competition categories in comparison to last year's inaugural event. There's a newly installed low-altitude, free-style competition. Hot air balloons with colourful decorations sailed aloft, to create a spectacle that kept on-lookers heads turned skyward.

In the coming two days, twelve balloons from among the forty, will sail across the Qiongzhou Straits, in South China's Guangdong Province.