Zhangjiajie

So I have been writing this blog post in my head for the last few weeks now and haven't got down to actually writing it until today. I find things always sound so much better in my head as I write them and them comes out somewhat disappointing on 'paper'. And today I do not feel like writing much at all! So here are some pics from my travels and some short explanations; that will have to do for now! 
I went to Zhangjiajie with my friends Chelsey and Sunny at the beginning of May; Sunny is Chinese and works at CIS with us, she was great to travel with. This is the place that inspired some of the landscapes in the movie Avatar.

We left on a Wednesday night after work and were there Thurs, Fri, and Sat, and flew home Sunday morning. The first day we took a bus to the Wulingyuan Scenic area where our hostel was and was closer to the Forest Park entry. We got our bearings, figured out our plan for the next three days and explored the area around our hostel. The people at our hostel were so helpful and told us the best places in the park to see and where to go to get away from the crowds.

We arrived in Zhangjiajie at the end of a Chinese holiday which meant we just missed all of the huge crowds and long lines, although there were still a lot of people on some of the main trails and view points. The second day and fourth we spent the day touring around part of the park. There were free busses inside the park, you just needed to be able figure out where to get off to do some of the hiking. Having Sunny made things a million times easier because she could speak chinese and translate for us.

The park was like nothing I have ever seen before! Mountains rising out of the ground, huge pillars of rock, it was absolutely breath taking. The route we did over the two days in the park allowed us to see the gorgeous scenery from many perspectives. We looked out at the vast mountains from beautiful view points, hiked to the top of one, and walked along a beautiful stream at the base of the mountains.

In between our two days in the park, Chelsey and I went back into Zhangjiajie to go to Tianmen Mountain. We road the worlds longest cable car up to the top and hiked on the cliff faces and walked on a glass walkway! This was one of the many highlights!