EDIT: I posted the pictures in a "smaller" size to make the formatting a little more streamlined. Just click any of the pictures to see them full size.
Sorry it has taken me so long to get this up, the first week back from vacation was hellish. I was playing catch-up from taking the Zhangjiajie trip, got my bike stolen on Tuesday (while it was missing a pedal, take that bike thief) had my first test on Thursday (I got a 92, whoop whoop), five classes on Friday, and two makeup classes today (Saturday). Now I get to enjoy a faaantastic one-day weekend. Womp. At least I've got the Zhangjiajie memories to get me through, and there is a "90's" themed party tonight being hosted by some friends of mine at a local watering hole. I guess you win some you lose some. Back to the matter at hand:
On day two we were again early to rise. We had planned to go back into Zhangjiajie city to go on a cable car ride that we had seen on the bus ride in. I personally wasn't particularly enamored with the idea. We had already purchased our three day passes to the national park, and from what we saw from the bus, the cable car didn't seem all that special.
You'd think by now I'd stop making assumptions about what to expect in China. It was awesome. My dad, who in the past became hopelessly smitten with a tire-pump with a digital readout at a gas station, would have loved this ride (sorry Dad, the world had to know).
The entrance showed the name of the park was TianMenShan or Heaven's Door/Gate Mountain (don't worry, I made the requisite "Knock Knock Knockin' on Heavens doOooOooor jokes) and we purchased our tickets for about 25 dollars American (not Canadian, unfortunately) with our student ID's. Old man Bryan tried to use his expired student card to buy his, but the small, snarky, female attendant pointed to the area of his card where it presumably said, "this is expired," with a look that undoubtedly said, "homegirl don't play that shit." Bryan, ego in tatters, feeling older than ever, had to pay the full $40 fee.
We jumped in the 8 person car (literally jumped, it was moving around the boarding area fairly fast) and began our ascent. At this point I was still a little doubtful, but I snapped some photos anyway:
Then, the car was pulled upwards until we cleared the smaller set of hills/mountains and were greeted with this view:
Our destination, as we slowly realized, was all the way at the top of the above picture. I'm sorry for doubting you TianMenShan, truly. As our car heaved upwards, the views became more and more resplendent. Adding to the pleasure of the ride was one of our female travelling companions/free tour guides. She was absolutely terrified of heights, and, as you might expect, did not take the sudden change in altitude well. She held a hat in front of her head the entire ride up. I contemplated asking her in Chinese, "I like that hat, can I try it on?" but I didn't want to tease her didn't have enough confidence in my grammar/speaking abilities. The view from near the top:
The mountain top park itself was pretty cool. It was a few square miles, and most of the paths hung over the edge of the mountain. No, really:
It was a little eerie at first, but by the end of day the danger didn't even seem real. One of the more interesting sections of the park was the glass walkway. Instead of just standing on cement on the side of a mountain, for a small fee ($1.50), you could stand on cement holding up glass panels,observe your coming doom. It was fun watching the less brave tourists stand exclusively on the cement section of the walkway closest to the wall and suffer as they were taunted by their good friends (I've learned there is an international language for giving your friends crap, and, unsurprisingly, that I am very nearly fluent). Our acrophobic friend paid the fee expecting herself to muster the courage when the moment of truth arrived. Sadly, her courage was as absent as the walkway's opacity.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have trusted the glass walkway as much as I did. Firstly because I'm a bit heavier than the average visitor, and secondly because some of the things every single thing I've purchased in China has broken or had some sort of manufacturing issue. But I made it. I, and this blog, live on. At least the safety instructions were clear:
We ventured around a few more of the paths, eventually crossing a bridge:
Seeing an elaborately painted Buddhist Temple:
And, of course, some amazing views of the scenery:
After we had hiked around the entire top section of the mountain, we got back on the cable car and rode it to a way point about halfway up the mountain. From there we were herded onto complimentary buses that took us to this mother:
A casual climb all the way to the top of the mountain's sphincter, (if mountains had sphincters). If the whole park was heaven's door than this must have been heaven's garbage chute. It was a really holy place. Alright, I'm done. Jokes aside, after two days of continuous hiking, my legs had just about had it. There was a large staging area at the bottom (where this picture was taken) where we girded our loins for the coming ascent. After a few moments of apprehension whining and swearing, we ventured upwards. The steps were steep, crowded, and worst of all, there were a lot of them. If I had to guess I'd say around 1000. The view from halfway up:
I, of course, was the first of our group to make it the summit, where I caught Old Man Bryan taking a load off:
With a final burst of speed, he made it:
Which, really, isn't at all impressive, considering actual old people were all over those stairs. Hilariously, once you reached the top, there really wasn't anything there. There were nice views all around, but nothing like we saw further up the mountain. There was another area to buy locks and attach them as wishes, but nothing that warranted that much effort, in my humble opinion. I suppose it doesn't matter. It's about the journey, not the destination, after all.
Thoroughly exhausted, we very, very slowly descended the stairs, boarded a bus, fell asleep on said bus (all of us) and headed back to our hotel to gear up for....drum roll please....Day Three.
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