A Trip to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

Recently I have taken a break from work and joined a group tour to Hunan Province, China with my family for a holiday.

As the scenic spots of Hunan are mainly located at some remote areas, we spent quite a lot of time in transportation.  Apart from taking airplane, we also spent many hours travelling on roads by coach.  But, it is worthwhile, as the scenery and landscape there are glorious!

One of the scenic spots we visited is Fenghuang Ancient City, a valley town in Xiangxi Prefecture.  This ancient town is situated at the foot of mountains and beside waters, and is a well-preserved historical site.  The town is added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List (Cultural Category) in 2008.

The main purpose of this trip is to visit the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park within the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is famous for its distinct geographic features.  As a result of millions of years of erosion, the mountains there are pillar-like.  These pillar-like formations can be found throughout the park.  After reaching a mountain top by cable car, you will find the weather there is misty due to the high altitude.  The scene is just like a traditional Chinese painting.

It is said that the scenery of Zhangjiajie provided the inspiration for the floating mountiains of Pandora in the movie "Avatar".  And you can find this there:

The food in Hunan is a bit too hot for me, but trying the local food is also a great experience you gain in travelling.

I love travelling.  Travelling gives you an opportunity to be away from your routine life.  The world is big and I just want to take every opportunity to explore it.  I hope that I can have another holiday soon. 

The Little Corner's First Anniversity

The Little Corner just celebrated its first anniversity on Sep 15.

Actually, 15 Sep 2010 is the day I registered a seller account for The Little Corner on Etsy.  The first item was listed on Sep 18.  I still remember how excited I was when I saw the first item appeared on the computer screen.

In the past year, I totally got 54 sales from 49 different customers, about one sale per week in average.  I know that the numbers are not comparable to many other online shops, and I also have to admit that my shop has not yet been profitable.  Maybe it is not wise to mention here my shop is not profitable, but what I want to say is that, running this little online shop gives me the satisfaction and happiness which cannot be calculated in monetary terms.  And actually, getting one sale per week in average is something better than what I expected one year ago.

Apart from a few local customers, my customers mainly came from US and Australia, and others from UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, France and Germany.  I have never been to any of these countries so far, but my items were shipped to these places, isn't it amazing?  There may be millions of online shops in the internet world, and these people found The Little Corner among the countless shops, and they even decided to buy something from it.  It is really wonderful, just like a kind of magic, and I am truely grateful for them.  Many thanks to you all! 

I also want to offer my thanks to those who have made enquiries about my items even if no sale is made at last.  It is because they have shown their interest in the items of The Little Corner.  Besides, I would like to thank those who have featured my items in their blogs or treasuries.  Thank you so much!

I know I am lucky.  I have a stable full-time job to support my running of this online shop as a hobby (maybe it is also not wise to mention that I run this shop as a hobby as it sounds not professional at all).  But my ultimate dream is that the shop can expand and I can quit my daytime job to run it in a full-time manner one day.  It is not easy and a long way to go.  But, people should have dreams, right? 

Ok, let's have a look at my newest creations.  Recently I have tried to crochet a bucket hat in pink and gray:

After seeing the finished product, I just thought "Oh, it's not bad."  So I crochet it in other colors:

And again other colors:

  

And finally the hats become a new collection of my shop.  Hope you like it too :)