Zhangjiajie

So far all the photos you've seen are from that ridiculously cheap 7-day tour of Shanghai and surroundings that we'd signed up for (6 nights at 5-star hotels, three meals a day, transportation to/from all attractions for $49/person -- how can you say no?). And whilst the hotels were a solid A+, the meals were quite bland, the shopping stops were soul-sucking, the days were long and exhausting, and we didn't feel like we were seeing the real China. We had to break free from the herd.

Besides, we needed the flexibility to abort our trip at any time in case my grandmother's conditions worsened (she's 100 and has been in hospital for nearly three weeks due to an infection in her lungs) or Mike's gastrointestinal troubles returned. So we bailed on the other two tours we'd tentatively booked and became free agents again.

We still wanted to see all the places we'd set out on our itinerary, but after Shanghai, we were on our own. Our first stop: Zhangjiajie. Remember in "Avatar" when they're flying around on birds through these cool floating rock valleys? That's this place. And was it ever cool.

We grabbed ourselves a room with a mountain view in the village at the foot of the forest park and spent two days hiking into the peaks and along the creek in the valley and admired the beauty and awesomeness of nature.

Zhangjiajie was honestly like the land before time... we kept expecting to see some sort of prehistoric life form to appear from around the corner. We took a gazillion photos so you can see for yourself --