Penglai Pavilion on Danya Hill offers visitors beautiful views of the Yellow Sea. [Photos provided to China Daily]

Penglai, sitting on the northeastern Bohai Sea coast of Shandong province, is believed to be the place that immortals once lived.

It is a port, county-level city and an administrative subdivision of the prefecture-level city Yantai in Shandong Province.

It is said that both the Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), the first Chinese emperor, and Han Dynasty (206 BC-Ad 220) Emperor Wudi (156-87 BC) came here to seek elixirs. Qin Shihuang sent off five hundred boys and five hundred girls on ships to the east, to look for the islands of immortality.

The legendary eight immortals, that are well known to every Chinese, were said to cross the sea here by using their own magic instruments, instead of taking a boat.

Today Penglai is still a fairyland, not for immortals, but for human beings.

The mystique of Penglai is helped by the large number of mirages, a natural phenomenon that makes distant landscapes seem to appear because of tricks of the light. The mirages and the splendid scenery of Penglai attracts millions of tourists every year.