After I was accepted into the Chinese International Study program at SMU, and after it started to sink in that I would actually be visiting China, my mom called me on the phone and said, "since you're already there, once the program is over why don't you stay for an extra couple of weeks and travel around on your own?" Weirdly, the thought had not even crossed my mind! But once I started to think about it, I thought "well, why not?"
After talking to my parents, we decided to book my flight back to Canada on June 22, 2017 from Beijing. This gives me 12 days after the program ends on June 10 to travel and make my way north to Beijing to catch my plane home. After booking my flights, the next question was "where should I go?" Beijing is fairly far away from Zhuhai, so I thought I would make my way to Beijing slowly and visit some places along the way. After looking online at the 'Top 10 Places to Visit in China,' I came across the Zhangjiajie National Park and immediately knew this was somewhere I wanted to go. So I used the park as a base for the rest of my plans. Since I will be flying home from Beijing, and because I only have 12 days to visit, I didn't want to try and cram in too much travelling. I would rather see more of fewer places than just a little bit of a bunch of places. So I decided that Zhangjiajie and Beijing were the two places I would like to see.
Zhangjiajie National Park was the first national park in China, and is extremely interesting because of its mountains, which resemble huge pillars rising up toward the sky. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get directly from Zhuhai to Zhangjiajie because there are no direct trains or buses to get you there. Even though a direct flight should only take a couple of hours, because of layovers and stops all flights would take over 12 hours! Once I started looking at how to get to Zhangjiajie, I realized that it would be easier if I travelled to a bigger city first and then took a connecting flight from there to the national park. So, I decided I would travel to Shanghai and then catch a flight to Zhangjiajie. But being in Shanghai seemed like too good of an opportunity to spend purely in the airport, so I decided I would spend a couple of days there to explore. From there, I will fly to Zhangjiajie and spend about 4 days at the park before travelling north to Beijing.
So far, all I have planned is flights and hostels. I haven't planned out where exactly I want to visit in each city, but I have looked at many places and sights I hope to be able to see. I think once I actually arrive, it will be much easier to figure out where I want to go and when.
If you're interested in my exact timeline here it is:
Zhuhai: May 13-June 10 --> Shanghai: June 10-June 13 --> Zhangjiajie: June 13-June 16 --> Beijing: June 16-June 22.
I hope you're enjoying my blog posts so far! I am hoping to be able to post every couple of days while in China just so you all can get a sense of how I'm doing and where I am. If you'd like to get notifications about new blog posts, there is an option to subscribe to my blog. It can be found under the 'subscribe' page in the menu bar at the top of my site!
Thanks for reading!! :)
