traveling Phoenix-style

It's no secret that I didn't love everything about my job. But, one thing they do well is plan very fun trips for the staff every year. This year we went to an area with beautiful mountains, streams, gorges, caves, and trees. It was nice to be out of the city and surrounded by green! The first day we arrived at the destination in late afternoon and stoped first at a site that has nine waterfalls. We then went back to the hotel for dinner, a performance (that I decided not to go to then later regretted because everyone said it was great), and sleeping. Day Two we went to a famous mountain gorge and hiked around for the whole morning. After lunch we went river rafting. I left out "white-water" on purpose. It was actually more like river floating, but still very enjoyable. After dinner there was a bonfire party. It didn't go so well so my friends and I left early. The next morning we hiked through some pretty impressive caves before making our way home. Here are the pictures:

An added bonus was getting to spend 2 1/2 days with my coworkers, outside of work and having a blast. We were 2 of the very few staff who were willing to pay 70 RMB for the cable car to take us up to the top of the mountain. I was feeling lazy, but the view going up and coming down was well worth 70 kuai and I was glad I wasn't tired and sweaty from the hike. view from the cable car I admit I was being lazy, but look, it would have been quite a hike. view from the topmore scenery

one of the nine waterfalls...I realize it's not that impressive. The high season for the water had already passed, but it was still fun to enjoy nature.

Oh, the English. Such a reminder that my Chinese sounds like this all too often.