An Ancient Town (凤凰古城)

A 5 hours journey from the city of Zhang Jia Jie lies a thousand years old small town, not entirely sure it worth all the trouble with the travelling, but the night view and allegedly the dawn was totally fascinating!

The Phoenix Ancient Town

All these old buildings had been improvised into bars and shops~~

Together with the Tuo-River(沱江), the night view of the phoenix town gain its fame

It used to be free of charge...but since early this year...a compulsory entrance fees of 148 yuan had been implemented~ Nothing goes free here~ 

The night view was really breathtaking(I heard the dawn was even so)...but a 5 hours journey and an entrance fees of 148 bucks is perhaps alittle too much 

Anyway, walking along the river did gave a very relaxing and tranquilized feeling~

Personally likes this view very much~

Look at how clear and serene the river is~~~

One of the must do is of course cruising the river 

Though the weather is abit coolly~ even reaching early summer

The aborigines singing along the way~

LOL~ No Japanese~~~

Again..I think the place would be a great getaway without the crowd it presented~ Everywhere is packed~ What a waste~

All sorts of local snacks and souvenirs can be bought here~ 

Their ginger sweet is one of the must try~~

A make up artist disguise as a statue~ 

For more illustrations, click here~

Heaven Gate (天门山)

We spend 3 days in the Zhang Jia Jie National Park, collectively known as the Wu-Ling-Yuan(武陵源), which is located about 30KM from Zhang Jia Jie city~~~ After that, we travel by bus to city centre for our next destination, The Heaven's Gate!!

As the name implies, this mountain I am about to introduce has a very peculiar appearance with a big hole in the middle of the mountain~ According to local record, the hole formed on its own accord out of a sudden.... amazing eh?~~ Anyway, the development of this place was tendered to a Korean company~~

In order to reach the top of the mountain, you have to take a cable car within the city centre all the way to the top!

Very high standard bio-metric ticket~~

The cable car actually passed by the city centre with residence area below before getting to more remote area where the mountain is~ Don't know how these people stand all these cable car passing by their head everyday ~~owh~

In fact, this is one of the longest cable service in the world stretches more than 7km and take more than 30minutes to reach the top~

Kinda relaxing to enjoy the view, taking snacks, drinking yogurt drinks(awesome stuff) and chit-chatting~~~
Saw that hole in the middle of the mountain?~

Look at the spiraling road around the mountain~~~ 

First stop, the glass path!!!!

Yeap...the whole pathway was made of glass~~~where you can have the underneath view bearing clearly under your feet!!!

Very exciting as if you are actually stepping on air~~ready to drop any steps any moment

Those with a weaker heart can choose to bypass the glass pathway through another path~ But what a waste~~~

After that, we walk along the mountain and enjoy the scenery from the top of the world!!!!

Imagine having all these encircling you and cool breeze patting you gently on the face~~~

There is even a special platform for you to take a clear view picture of the encircling mountain~ Too many people queuing though~

When passed by a valley, a suspension bridge was welcoming us there!!

The view of the whole valley bear glaringly infront of you!

With cool wind brushing your face~~

Next, cable car to get back to the main cable car station~~~~

But then.......

LOL

It was very exciting in the beginning and I kept taking alot of pictures~~

Have to be extra careful not to drop your camera into the deep valley below your feet~~~

And then the initial aerophobia and whatever phobia slowly subsided by the extreme coldness.....brrrr~~

Finally after some 10 of minutes....we reached our destination~~~

Super cold and windy!!!

After some dizzying journey around the spiraling road you saw just now, we are ready to conquer the "Heaven's Gate"

To get to the top, you have to climb 999 super steep steps!!!

There is no leveled area for you to rest in the middle~

If you are too tired, can either sit on the stairs......

Or just stand and gasp for air~~

After some 20minutes of struggle!!!!

Finally we reached the top!!! 

I can see they are building a cable car to the top...maybe in near future, those that find it hard to reach the top can take the cable car there~~~

A must try in Zhang Jia Jie~~~ Is a type of wild plants grind and made into tofu like structure~~ Very elastic and awesome texture~~ (魔芋豆腐 - Mo-Yu Tofu)

For more illustration, click here~

A Walk into Pandora~ (袁家界)

Like I mentioned in previous post, Hunan province was famous with tall and pillar like mountain. In fact, it gains its fame in recent years from the movie Avatar with the signature mountain Hallelujah mountain from the planet Pandora.

Totally awesome right?~ What if you are given a chance to see this for yourselves?~~~

Not the floating part though~~~

So here we were in Zhang Jia Jie National Park.....with all these magnificent pillar-like mountain~

The new Hundred Dragon Elevator(百龙天梯) who escalate the speed of reaching the top of mountain~ Though it get some warning from UNESCO for violating some nature protection policies~~~

Quite interesting enough, the French spiderman Jean Michel Casanova conquered the escalator few days after our visit~~~ without any safety measurements(as usual~)

Inside the elevator~~~

I must say... it took away our breath for few seconds~ Phew~

There is even a model of Toruk the "big bird" in front of the view where they filmed the scene where Jake captured Toruk~~~(If you can remember~~)

All these years, some of the pillars might have just snap and bridge the nearby mountain~~~

They called this world number 1 bridge~~~ha!

Of course~like the movie avatar, there are still indigenous people staying deep in the mountain~ But to develop this place for tourism purposes, the China government had relocated them somewhere else in the city~ Strangely familiar eh?~ Now we can see James Cameron's sarcasm in this matter~ =P

How big exactly is the place?~ The model in the indigenous village (now serve more as a muzeum) shows it all~

One of the most magnificent, beautiful and breathtaking place I have ever been! FUH! Awesome!

For more illustration, click here~~~~