Jiuzhaigou (The place with the waterfalls)

            It's been a looong time since I last wrote here. I meant to throw up a few blogs about various places within China that I have visited. If I can remember these places , I will mention them here. To be honest, it has been quite a while since I have visited a few of the following places so bare with me while I remember a bit about these areas!
          Anyway....where should I start.....hmmmm , Jiuzhaigou !
Jiuzhaigou is part of Sichuan province. It was hit by an earthquake a couple of years ago so I am not sure if things have changed since then. I travelled there back in 2014 from Chengdu. I think I took a bus from Chengdu (I guess Xin nan men （新南门）) all the way up the Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟)
                                     [ By the way ..... 新南门 = Xin Nan Men == The new south door/ gate. In Chinese , one can see just by looking at the words , what each word means. When I first arrived in China , all I heard were sounds. Once I could see the characters associated with the sounds , it helped to remember the names of places. It is really the only way to remember places as the sounds are quite different to English.
                                       Also, if you ever want to get out of Chengdu for a day or two , 新南门 bus terminal has a map which will give you plenty of ideas of places to explore. You just need to practice saying 'dao ____ (to  your destination)' ]
                                    I remember it took quite a few hours to reach Jiuzhaigou. It took the guts of a day to arrive at the area and once I arrived there , there was just enough time for a quick bite to eat and rest (This was winter time so it was fairly cold. ) As is the custom in a lot of China, most people go out in groups so everyone orders one piece of food each , all the food is placed in the centre of the table along with rice (and/or noodles depending on which part of China you visit) and everyone digs in. Unfortunately , I have no photos of food from Jiuzhaigou! [I will post up some food from other places later.]
                  The following morning , I got up early and decided to go to the park entrance. Bloody hell , be prepared! Although , Jiuzhaigou is in the middle of nowhere , it is very famous so many tourists come from many places to observe the area

Longest queue in the world ever (Well ... until the next tourist attraction)

            It took 40 minutes for the people in the queue to get inside the attraction. Just be aware , queues are your friend , though!!! Once inside , a lot of people will take a bus and travel around the sites. The queue for the bus didnt really exist. Everyone ran towards the bus so it was more of a 'survival of the fittest' facility! If you are fit enough, going by foot is the better / safer option.
            Once inside though, everything is pretty stunning. Clear blue rivers / waterfalls and lakes can be seen everywhere.The air up in this part of the country is very crisp and clean!

Be careful here, although it is cold , the sun still beams down! Nice view of the lake , though

It takes a long time to walk around this area. If you do go here, be prepared to walk for the whole day. It is worth it , though.

A view from the bottom of one of the waterfalls.

You can walk all the way around the falls if you want. Personally , I think it is worth it just to breath is the sharp air.. 

I did see a guy who walked to the edge of the falls at one point.

Guy standing on the edge of the falls.
Some people have nerves of steel.

      At this point , I decided to go to a few Tibetan areas within Sichuan province. A friend of mine told me about Songpan  , Ruoergai and Langmusi. So I jumped on a bus and went to these places. [I hard that Langmusi is a nice place to visit in the Summertime as one can ride horses at that point.] I took a chance to go there in the winter time. If I can find some pics , I will post some photos up later.