Modern Cities：Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou

Historic cities: Beijing, Xi’an, Harbin, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Nanjing, Chengde

Coastal Cities: Qingdao, Beihai, Xiamen, Sanya, Dalian

Scenic Cities: Guilin, Hangzhou, Kunming, Suzhou

Natural landscape: Zhangjiajie, Yangtze River Gorge, Jiuzhaigou, Mount Emei, Taishan, Siguniang Mountain, Inner Mongolia Grassland, Changbai Mountain, Huangshan, Lugu Lake, Xishuangbanna, Huashan, Shangri-La

Outdoor adventure: Qinghai Lake, Shennongjia, Hukou, Yellow River’s Hukou

The miracle of civilization: Shaolin Temple, Western Xia Imperial Tombs, Dunhuang, Lhasa, Mount Wutai

Ancient town: Zhouzhuang, Xiangxi Phoenix, Pingyao, Wuzhen, Yangshuo, Lijiang River, Wuyuan

The next few days, I’ll introduce the 50 places one by one.

Lhasa is the capital city of Tibet. It is the holy land of the Tibetan Sect of Buddhism with nearly 1,400 years old, is the birthplace of Yibetan Buddhism. According to Tibetan Buddhism, “Lha” means “God”. Thus the meaning of the word “Lhasa” should be the “place of God”.

1. Lhasa City

The 1,400-year-old city of Lhasa is the birthplace of Tibetan Buddhism. It is a sacred place so its meaning for symbolizing isn’t lower than itself. Its symbolic significance is not lower than the value of its existence. It is representative of willingness, materialism and spirituality. Natural scenic spots include the Namtso and the famous geothermal scenery in Yangbajain.

In AD 633, the Tubo Songtsen Gampo moved the capital from Yarlung in the Shannan Region to today’s Lhasa. He ordered the construction of the Potala Palace, and the Jokhang Monastery and Ramoche Monastery, turning it into the most popular settlement on the Tibet Plateau and laid the foundation for Lhasa.

Both in city and country area, Lhasa has places of interest and cultureal attractions which it is proud of. The important sites inside the City of Lhasa include the Potala Palace, Jokhang Monastery, Sea Monastery, Zongjolukang, and the Tibet Autonomous Region Museum.

2. Potala Palace

No matter which direction you come to Lhasa, you must first see the Potala Palace. The Potala Palace is the best preserved ancient highest building at the elevation in the world. It is a symbol of architecture in Tibet. Consisting of 13 storeys, the Potala Palace is 119 meters high and includes different building styles. The Potala Palace is the one of the 10 Most Fascinating Castles and Palaces in the world.

The murals on the outside wall of Potala Palace.

The Tibetan people respect the gods so much that they remain silent after leaving the Potala Palace for a long time.

prayer wheel

3. Jokhang Monastery, it represents the most brilliant and resplendent architecture of the Tubo period.

I saw many the glittering golden roofs of monasteries. They are a symbol of Lhasa and well matched with nature.

4. Bharkor Street.

Originally, Bharkor Street was used by pilgrims to walk around Jokhang Monastery every day. Here is a picture of a Tibetan’s daily life which you can see in person.

You can see people turning prayer tubes everywhere and pilgrims lying prostrate in prayer.

The girl pilgrims lying prostrate in prayer.

5. Ramoche Monastery

6. Namtso

The article “China tibet tour, Sichuan-Tibet, section 4″ has described the Namtso.

There is a legend about the lake. It is said Namtso is a pearl accidentally left by a fairy. After a long time, it took root here and became the present lake. So today when you appreciate the beauty of Namtso, you can also feel a remote tranquility.

7. Yangbajain Geothermal Scenery

In the past, Yangbajain was only a pasture filled with grass, but now, it has become a hot spring, which attracts many visitors.

Yangbajain is famous for its geothermal scenery. Throughout the year, hot water at 70 degrees boils and bubbles amid a thick fog. The grandest sight appears when the valve is turned on, boiling water and steam will burst straight into the sky.

I visited the local people in Lhasa, I found that they mostly live in stone or wooden houses with a flat roof. These are the major residential buildings of rural Tibetans. The building have two or three storeys.

In rural areas, people live in tents made of cloth or leather.

Tibetan clothing is colorful. The most common article is the Tibetan robe which features a big outer covering front and wide sleeves.

Line: Qamdo-Dingqing-Baqing-Naqu-Dangxiong-Lhasa.

The way to Dingqing.

Kamaduota

Red soil

Zi Zhu Temple, the highest monastery in Tibet.

Mountain, road, river…

The way to Baqing.

Finding cloud shadow…

The way to Naqu.

Naqu.

Sky full of clouds, will rain, father and son on the way to pilgrimage…

The Naqu Horse Racing will be held in August each year.

Mysterious unpopulated, there are wild yak, Tibetan antelope, wild ass…

Namtso

Namtso is the largest lake in Tibet. It is 4,718 meters above sea level, the second largest salt lake in China.

In Tibetan, Namtso means heavenly sea. In the Tibetan people’s mind, it is the most saintly as well as the holy place for Lamaism. So they consider it as one of the four powerful lakes. Every year, agreat number of believers from every part of Tibet come here and walk around the lake, especially in the Year of Sheep in the Tibetan calendar. It takes 20 to 30 days to finish this trip.

Go on…

We arrived Lhasa. Tomorrow I will continue to tell the story of China tibet tour.

Line: Ganzi-Maniganggo-Dege-Jinsha River Bridge-Jomda-Qamdo

The prayer flags on the way of going to Maniganggo.

Pilgrims

Xinlu lake lies on the foot of Quer mountain.

Start climb Quer mountain

Snow storms on one side,  climb over the mountain top the weather is fine.

Dangerous mountain road

Finally down the mountain

Arrive Dege. First we went to the Dege Sutra Printing House, it well known as Encyclopedia of Tibetan culture. You can visit the Sutra printing process here.

I finally understand why Tibet’s road called sky road…

Arrive the town of Qamdo. We visited the Qamdo Temple. Qamdo Temple relationship with the mainland Dynasty has always been very close. It has thousand-year history.

Go to Tibet by bike

Continue…

1. Xinduqiao

The morning of Xinduqiao

The traveler come to the plateau by bike.

Continue… We met lhakang. lhakang belongs to the Sakya of the Tibetan Buddhism. It is the one of the pilgrimage site in Kham Tibetan region.

lhakang held a grand Buddhist ceremony every year, has unique cultural characteristics.

lhakang lies on the grassland. You can rent a horse ride in the grasslands.

2. Daofu

At the foot of bold Snow Farm Kamiyama.

Be famous of Daofu houses.

Scenery along the way.

3. Ganzi

This is the Ganzi county’s main road，I think it may not be so bad always.

Ganzi Monastery, means white and Beautiful, belongs to the Gelug Sect of the Tibetan Buddhism.

Ok, tomorrow we will go to Maniganggo.

Today we from Chengdu to Danba.

1. Chengdu

As one of the 24 China key Historical and Cultural Cities, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, has many tourism resources. You can meet Panda here, you can enjoy orthodox  Sichuan cuisine. Sichuan cuisine is one of the eight major cuisines in China.

2. Dujiangyan

Dujiangyan Irrigation Project, constructed by prefect Li Bing of Shu Kingdom in 227B.C., claims to be the oldest irrigation project in China. Dujiangyan has been playing the role of channeling water to the Chengdu Plain for over two millenniums.

3. Yingxiu

Yingxiu just a very ordinary town, the reason for special mention it is the earthquake measuring 8 Richter scale in 2008. Yingxiu is the earthquake center. Until today, is still rebuilding.

Continue… Road is getting worse. If is the rainy season, will often landslides.

4. Four girls mountains

Four girls mountains not only are the national level scenic spots, simultaneously also is the national level nature protection area. Because its relationship of form and spirit and Europe’s Alps is similar, therefore has “China’s Alps” the name. Tibetan called “four girls” are “Si Gula supply reach” or “four suffice”, Italy just like four female competes Xiu, so that the posterity “four will suffice” the sound to transfer “four girls”. Here everywhere is the beautiful mountain peak, the beautiful gully, the beautiful good cloud, the beautiful running water.

Four peaks

Continue… The unknown river accompanied us along the way, a fast-flowing river.

5. Danba

Recommend two sites: Jiaju Tibetan village and Beauty Valley.

Jiaju Tibetan village

Beauty Valley, as its name, many beautiful women living here.

July and August is the best season to Four girls mountains. Recommended walk through from Bipeng valley to Changping valley.

March and April is the best season to Danba. Peach blossom and pear blossoms are in full bloom at this time. To meet your romantic story in full bloom.

Tomorrow, from Danba to Ganzi.

1. Qinghai-Tibet

It is the section of 109 State Road from Xining to Lhasa. This is the shortest, safest and best traffic route, is the most people’ first choice. It is from Xining to Lhasa. The line across the three natural zones in China: Eastern monsoon region, Northwest Arid Region and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Only passed the Qinghai-Tibet line, you’re been to the Tibetan Plateau.

2. Yunnan-Tibet

This is the most interesting line, from Yunnan Dali to Lhasa. You will experience four Seasons in a half day. This route through some minority areas like Bai, Naxi, Tibetan… The route will cost 8-10 days.

3. Sichuan-Tibet

It is arduous journey, but it is a classic line should not be missed, from Sichuan Chengdu to Lhasa. You will meet Panda, excellent scenery and Sichuan cuisine. Do you know Gong Bao Chicken, Ma Po Bean Curd? Yes, they belong to Sichuan cuisine.

4. Xinjiang-Tibet

Also an arduous line, require great physical. It is from Urumqi to Lhasa. If you like adventure, you will love this line.

I will continue to introduce each line, because each of them are  really very very exciting.

At this point I realized that it would be a very long series of articles. This is really not easy for me. I speak Chinese, language is a problem I need to overcome, I’m learning English by myself. Welcome to correct my English.

The highlight of Tibet is its natural scenery. The snowy mountains on the Tibetan Plateau, the endless grasslands, the jade-like green forests and the limpid lakes provide the world’s highest natural habitat. Here, rare birds and beasts freely live and multiply. The unique geography and climate have given rise to many animals found nowhere else on earth, such as the kiang, a Mongolian gazelle, river deer, red deer, black-necked crane, swan, Tibetan snow pheasant, and the Tibetan antelope.

Tibet lies on the southwest of China. The average height of the whole region is more than 4,000 meters above sea level.

Tibet is chilly in most time of the year. The best time travel to Tibet are June, July, August and early September, they are the warmest seasons. You can not run, race, do manual work, or eat too much in there. Because the thin air there. Also should less shower, so as not to catch cold and consume your physical strength. Please note, if you have severe hypertension and heart disease, don’t visit Tibet for the sake of your health.

Ok, let us quickly look at Tibet today.

1. The highest peak in the world, Everest Peak, which is as high as 8,846.27 meters above sea level.

2. Tourist attractions include the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Jokhang, and a number of Buddhist sacred places.

3. Northwest Tibet, mainly Qinghai Plateau, is home to a variety of unusual and unique animals. Across the northern expanse of Tibet, you can see vast grasslands where horses, yak and sheep roam freely. The world’s lowest valley, the Grand Yaluntzanpo River lies in east Tibet.

4. Culture

Tibet has a unique culture of all its own. It is mainly inhabited by Tibetans, a minority nationality of old and mysterious people. Nearly all Tibetans follow Tibetan Buddhism, knowm as Lamaism. Tibetan Buddhism was greatly influenced by Indian Buddhism in its early time, but after years of evolution, Tibetan Buddhism has developed its own distinctive qualities and practices.

Tibet is a place where the soul can be purified. The peopel there are living a simple life, but they live happily.

Are you ready? Let’s go…

When I come to check users management of community builder components in back admin, I found all users were unconfirmed!

It seems there’s some status in the database table of community buildr.  After analysed database structure of Community Builder, I knew the users data stored in table jos_comprofiler. So for the new imported users, the data of this table must be inserted into database also.

I generated all data in excel according the all fields of jos_comprofiler and the data of new created user in back admin. Because there are so many fields in jos_comprofiler. So I only generated the required fields. I didn’t generated data for the fields which has defaul value and can be null.

You must be known, the field of  “approved” and “confirmed” must be set to “1″. It means the user has been confirmed and approved.

Import the excel sheet into MySql. Then export the data of new imported jos_comprofiler to .sql file. Imported the .sql file into the destined database. If you don’t know how to import excel into MySql, you may check Import users’ data into joomla—-data transfer

Afther the data been imported. In the users management of community builder components, all users’ status displayed “Confirmed”.

When I come to front, the new imported users can login OK.

Cheers, the users of old website have been transfered to new website OK.

Why the users can’t bu displayed?

I studied the source code of users manager for back admin. I found the users list is related with two others table, one is jos_core_acl_aro and the other is jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map. You may do a test, when you create a new user at back admin. One record will be inserted into the two tables also.  It seems the two tables is sotre the group of users. So we need to insert users group data into the two tables.

Step 1.  Generate the data of the table of jos_core_acl_aro

There are 6 fields in this table id， section_value，value，order_value，name and hidden.

id: it isn’t same with users id in jos_users, it is the number of this table.

section_value: According to the new created users, its group is Registered and the value of this field is “users”. So I set this field to  “users”.

value: This field is users id, it must same with users id in table jos_users.

order_value: For the new created user, this value is set to “0″, so I set this field to “0″ also.

name: Users’ name, same with jos_users.name .

hidden: Set this field to “0″ with the value of new created user also.

I generate all data in Excel.

Step 2.  Generate the data of the table of jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map

There are 3 fields in this table group_id:， section_value，aro_id.

group_id: The group which users belong.

section_value: Keep blank same with the value of new created users.

aro_id: Same with the value of the id in table jos_core_acl_aro. You may copy the column from the Excel sheet of jos_core_acl_aro.

Then excel sheet:

Step 3. Import the excel sheet data into the table of  jos_core_acl_aro and jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map in MySql.

When you import these data into MySql, must make sure the old value won’t be overwrite.

The data imported like this:

Step 4: When I come to back admin, all users been displayed!

After checked all users, I come to the front page to login. But I can’t login, and following windows pop-up.

It seemed there was some error on users data imported. I realized I used Community Builder. The login module is CB’s also. So it need to import the necessary data of Community Builder also.

To be continued……