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Zhangye Colorful National Geopark 张掖七彩丹霞;
Skyreach Pillar 一柱撑天
Binggou Landform 冰沟丹霞
Extraterrestrial Canyon 外星谷
Horseshoe Temple 马蹄寺
Mongolian Town in Sunan 肃南县白银蒙古族乡
Pingshanhu Grand Canyon 平山湖大峡谷
Colored Yingbin Mnt 五彩迎宾山
Zhangye City Museum 张掖博物馆
Zhangye Night Scenery 张掖夜景

Zhangye (Sweet Springs) 张掖市


The city was formerly known as Ganzhou, named after the sweet waters (甘泉) of its oasist。 It borders Inner Mongolia on the north and Qinghai on the south.”.

Its central district is Ganzhou, formerly a city of the Western Xia and one of the most important outposts of western China. Zhangye offers several unique landforms nearby the most famous is the Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park.

Explore Zhangye Lanforms 探索张掖丹霞

Our first sight of
Qilian Mnt 祁连山

I'm always fascinated with snow capped mountains. We had a beautiful view from our plane as we approached Zhangye.

Qilian Mnt 祁连山
from the road

The Qilian Mountains as we drove to our various destinations.

Horseshoe Tample 1
马蹄寺 第一

We had beautiful weather during our visit.

Horseshoe Tample 2
马蹄寺 第二

This temple is the main one and had the horse's hoof that gave it its name. We walked so many stairs that I was sore the rest of the trip in Zhangye.

Extraterrestrial Canyon 外星谷 Scenery

The Extraterrestrial Canyon is truly out of this world. It is not very popular attraction, but the scenry to the location was beautiful.

Colored Yingbin Mnt
五彩迎宾山

This is the first sightseeing stop in this canyong, so the name means Welcome.

The World's Granaries
天下粮仓

The World's Grananries has rows and rows of "granary-like" rock like they are full of grains, which exhibit a scence of a bumper harvest.

Wanfo Mountains
万佛山

The Wanfo Mnt has fantastic colors and towering mountains, which seems like a swarm of godsa gahering or thousands of Buddhas worshipping.

3rd Visit to the Ice Festival

When we planned a trip to retrace our honeymoon trip to the Northeast, we wanted to visit the Ice Festival again. Each year the festival has a different theme and I also wanted to capture some more sunset photos. Read the photo caption to find out what happened.

Sun Island 太阳岛

During our 2014 visit to Harbin, it was rather late in the season to see the best of the Ice and Snow Sculpture. By that time, most of the sculptures covered with haze and dirt from the road. We visited Sun Island to see the aquarium and the Beluga show. We had never seen a beluga before.