Hunan

Located in the south central part of the Chinese mainland, Hunan has long been known for its natural beauty. It is surrounded by mountains on the east, west, and south, and by the Yangtze River in the north. Its mixture of mountains and water makes it among the most beautiful provinces in China. National parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites abound, and it's currently in the headlines for being the location of the world's longest glass suspension bridge. The Wulingyuan area is noted for its thousands of quartzite sandstone pillars hundreds of feet high, along with many ravines and gorges with attractive streams, pools, lakes, rivers and waterfalls. The area is said to be the inspiration for the floating islands in the movie Avatar.

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A few snapshots from the entrance of the Zhangjiajie Global Geopark:
interesting eco-buildings, random artwork, and the interior of the Yellow Dragon Cave.

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Visiting the Skywalk, the famous glass bridge that spans the width of the Zhangjiajie Great Canyon.
It is the longest and highest glass bridge on earth.

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A visit to the glass bridge is not simply a matter of walking from one end to the other. After you get across, there is a long meandering trail down the opposite canyon wall to the floor of the canyon, which takes the hiker along the river at the bottom as well as through caves and other natural scenic wonders. It ends with a boat ride where the trail ends to where people can reconnect with the road out of the park.

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Gorgeous multi-layered karst mountain backdrop behind the city of Zhangjiajie.

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Snapshots of various vendors and stores around the Zhangjiajie tourist area, some highlighting the area's remoteness (i.e. the Lost Bar), others highlighting things that the area is famous for, such as stinky tofu.

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The elaborately-choreographed "Charming Western Hunan" performance showcases the area's ethnic folk costumes and dances.

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A highlight of the show, given today's obsession with zombies and the underworld, is a haunting segment about Hunan's very own walking dead legends. Soldiers killed in foreign lands march at night back to their home villages to be properly disposed of by their loved. Nice special effects of bodies and ghosts floating away into the afterlife.

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The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is so large that it takes several days to really see and explore it all. Private vehicles are not allowed inside, but there is an extensive network of trams and buses that can ferry visitors to all the important sites and trailheads.

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Taking the Wulingyuan Ropeway cars up to even higher elevations for even more spectacular lookouts.

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One of the park's quartz sandstone pillars, the 3,540 foot Southern Sky Column, was officially renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" in honor of the movie Avatar in January 2010. According to park officials, photographs from here inspired the floating mountains seen in the film.

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The towering Bailong Elevator, literally "hundred dragons sky lift," is the world's tallest lift at 1,070 feet.
Time to descend to the canyon floor for more amazing views, this time looking up at these stone columns.

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Near the Wulingyuan Scenic Area is impressive Tianmen {Heaven's Gate) Mountain. A cablecar ascends from Zhangjiajie railway station to the top of the mountain. The Tianmen Mountain Cableway is claimed to be the "longest passenger cableway of high mountains in the world", with a total length of 24,459 ft while ascending 4,196 feet high. A long winding road with 99 bends also reaches the top of the mountain and takes visitors to Tianmen cave, a natural hole in the mountain of a height of 431 feet.

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Continuing the theme of Chinese people becoming recently obsessed with glass bridges,
in August 2016 a glass skywalk called the "Coiling Dragon Cliff" opened to the public.

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Breathtaking views of the mountains and canyons below.

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Natural obstacles have never been barriers to the Chinese!

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Heaven's Gate, from closeup and from afar. Beautiful no matter which way you look at it!