For our last vacation of 4 days, I and seven other girls in my group went to Zhangjiajie, which is a crazy cool mountainous region that the topography in the movie Avatar (blue people, not element benders) is based off of. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, it's gorgeous scenery was a nice contrast to Beijing and Shanghai.
This trip, we decided to be extra frugal and stay at the cheapest hostel in the area. For $8 per night, we got a freezing room-apparently room heaters are considered dangerous in China- and some sketchy wall stains. Although we spent the whole weekend bundled in four to five layers, it was probably a good preparation to coming back to below zero winters most of us will have in Utah and Idaho.
After getting very little sleep on another overnight slow train filled with cigarette smoke, we spent our first day in a park close to our hostel that boasts the world's tallest outdoor, glass elevator. We zoomed to the top of this mountain and walked around the area, blown away by the scenery.
Mirror on the top of the elevator |
Beat that, Willy Wonka |
Chinese hamburger!!! It was foul. |
This little, old, toothless lady kept us well fed with cheap bao zi all weekend. |
Sittin' in a tree with this great girlie next to me. |
Tsu'tey is not amused. |
The whole gang-with a rainbow of sneakers |
Our second day of vacation, we went into a different part of the huge park. Our adventuring brought us to a lovely river walk, and some ground views of the mountains. Chinese give nature sights the best corniest names. I'm not sure if they're the result of a botched Chinglish translation or an effort to enhance the magnificence of the site.
This weekend I realized that my many years of terrifying car rides with a sibling at the wheel was really just practice for the trust necessary to endure a bus ride up a series of vertiginous mountains at breakneck speed through a series of crazy winding curves. Driving up the mountain was seriously worse than the Night Bus-and way more magical.
On Monday morning we checked out of the sketchy hostel at the crack of dawn to climb the Stairway to Heaven and experience the other wonders a different park had to offer. After arriving there, we climbed into "longest passenger cableway of high mountains in the world", which offered a splendid view of the surrounding farming villages. We then experienced the aforementioned bus ride of terror and finally reached the top.
Some centuries ago, the native people of this province discovered this natural arch in the rock, and decided to build a temple at the end of 999 steps climbing to the arch- 9 being a lucky number.
To be quite honest-I don't remember what the locks and ribbons symbolize. |
Stariway to Heaven I counted every one of those steps and reached 967-sorry, Mom, not in Chinese. I'm hoping I was one who counted wrong. |
After the climb, we took a literally 15 minute series of 8 escalators to the very top of Tianmen mountain. The best part about this was that we had no previous knowledge of it, so it seemed like just this never ending escalator ride to an unknown place. When we finally emerged into daylight at the top, it was like we were on this island in the sky-us and 300 other Chinese 60 year olds.
We then hiked around the mountain on this narrow ledge literally on the side of the cliff supported by who knows what. It was amazing. And terrifying. And magical.
This is our best attempt at portraying how high and steep the cliff was. |
Chinese architecture is amazing. |
What we had known about previously was the glass walkway around the cliff through which one can see the ground thousands of feet below. It was amazing. And terrifying. And magical.
The red foot covers kept the glass from getting too grimy and gave us awesome smurf feet. |
Concluding our sojourn among the clouds, we rushed back to catch our 15 slow train back home. Thankfully that was the last overnight hell of a train ride, and it was made a smidgen more enjoyable by adorable babies dressed like old men.
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