Spectacular Scandinavia

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Yu Huayun was dazzled as the northern lights flickered like colorful sparks across the sky.

The 41-year-old photographer from Beijing was so stunned by the picture shifting through the heavens that she forgot to snap shots.

"The aurora's magic is that it's different hues each time. And you need luck to see it at all, which is one of the reasons everyone loves it," Yu says.

She spent three days in Tromso, Norway, in January in hopes of viewing the spectacle.

And she wasn't disappointed.

She's among a growing number of Chinese tourists visiting northern Europe in winter for such experiences as dogsledding and snowmobiling.

Over 380,000 overnight stays by Chinese were recorded in Norway this year as of October. That's a 36 percent increase over the same period of the previous year.

Sweden logged about 380,000 stays as of October 2016.