Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou is a nature reserved located in northern part of Sichuan in China. Jiuzhaigou is a breathtaking alpine valley that was discovered in the 1970's by lumberjacks, and was officially opened to tourism in 1984. It's famous for its many waterfalls, colorful lakes, crystal clear waters, and the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage in 1992. It got its name because there are nine Tibetan villages in the valley.

Jiu Zhai Gou is home to all types of exotic wild animals. Examples, Takins, large horned Tibetan wild animal, snub-nosed monkeys and giant pandas. The most fascinating attraction of Jiuzhaigou is probably its 108 lakes - all of which has multi-colored and crystal clear water. This is also why the local Tibetan women wear 108 braids during festivals.

Five Coloured Lake
There is a fairy tale in ancient China that the princess of heaven has a five-colored lake called Yaochi in her palace. In Jiuzhaigou Valley you can see that lake of legend. Through forest clearings and the briefest of glimpses between needle clad branches you may catch a glimpse of the water which sparkles in a kalaidescope of sky blues, light greens, yellows, greys, pinks and blues.

Five Flower Sea
Rize Gully Five Flower Sea is surrounded by mountains, the sea looks like a huge calabash infusing colorful water continuously into the foot of the mountain. The strange part is that on the belly of the calabash, there is a ten-meter long light blue design which looks like the leg of a deer. Legend has it that it is the residing spirit of a spotted deer which slipped and fell down the cliff.



Waterfalls
Jiuzhaigou Valley is a paradise surrounded by mountains, with tranquil lakes like pearls. But the quietness is sometimes broken by the waterfalls, which take you to another world. The waterfalls of Jiuzhaigou are like green looms weaving different silks. Varying in shape some are like dragons, some like snow and some like pearls. The sun often casts rainbows across their fronts.

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and clay built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. The most famous is the wall built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over about 6,400 km from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km in total. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass. At its peak the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.

The first major wall was built during the reign of the First Emperor who is the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but rather was created by the joining of several regional walls built by the Warring States A defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history. The Great Wall that can still be seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, on a much larger scale and with longer lasting materials than any wall that had been built before. The primary purpose of the wall was to insure that semi-nomadic people on the outside of the wall could not cross with their horses or return easily with stolen property.

Petra

Petra is the most famous attraction in Jordan is the Nabatean city of Petra, some 262kilometers or 160 miles south of Amman. The Victorian traveler and poet, Dean Burgeon, gave Petra a description which holds to this day "Match me such a marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose red city half as old as time."
More than 2,000 years ago Petra was used as a temporary refuge by nomadic Nabatean Arabs, Bedouins who came north out of Arabia. From a few caves in a rocky outcrop, easy to defend, the nabateans created Petra as a fortress city.

The Great Sphinx

The Great Sphinx has to be one of the most recognizable constructions in history.Sculpted from soft sandstone, many believe that it would have disappeared long ago had it not been buried in the sand for so many long periods in its lifetime. The body is 60m long and 20m tall. Its face is 4m wide with eyes measuring 2m high. It faces the rising sun, and was revered so much by the ancients, that they built a temple in front of it.
The 18th Dynasty King, Thutmose IV installed a stele between its front paws, describing how, when Thutmose was a young Prince, he had gone hunting and fell asleep in the shade of the Sphinx head.Thutmose had a dream where Ra Hor-Akhty the sun God, talking through the Sphinx, spoke to him, telling the young Prince to clear away the sand because the Sphinx was choking on it. The Sphinx said to him that if he did this, he would become King of Egypt .

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
The Taj Mahal is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles.In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
While the white domed marble mausoleum is its most familiar component, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures. Building began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, and employed thousands of artisans and craftsmen.The construction of the Taj Mahal was entrusted to a board of architects under imperial supervision including Abd ul-Karim Ma'mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.Lahauri is generally considered to be the principal designer.

Owachomo Bridge

Owachomo is the smallest and thinnest of the three natural bridges here and is commonly thought to be the oldest. We may never know for certain, as each of the bridges certainly have eroded at different rates. Regardless of its relative age, it is certainly the most fragile and elegant of the three spans, and an awe inspiring feature of erosion.

History

Owachomo means "rock mound" in Hopi and is named after the rock formation on top of the east end of the bridge. Before William Douglas gave it this name in 1908, it was called "Edwin" or "Little" bridge. Prior to that, it was referred to as "Congressman" by miner and explorer Cass Hite.

Early in the Monument's development, a dirt road led to Owachomo bridge from the south. It ended at the campground and ranger station directly southwest of the bridge. There were no other roads, and visitors seeking the other two bridges hiked or rode horses through the rugged canyons, often guided by the first "custodian" of the National Monument, Ezekial "Zeke" Johnson. Today, remnants of "Zeke's trail", now on the National Register of Historic Places, can still be seen just across the canyon below Owachomo.