Friday, November 2nd: Stairway to Heaven

This morning was awesome. We went to Tianmen Shan (Shan=mountain). We left the hostel around 7:15 so we could beat the crowd and make it to ZhangJiaJie national park by 3. 

We took a cable car up to Tianmen Shan. It is actually the longest cable car in the world. The ride was absolutely gorgeous. The entire experience is pretty much indescribable, especially the "Gate to Heaven" part. 

When we got to the top we went to the sky glass walk. It was incredible. Henry confessed his fear of heights and was super nervous. The sky glass walk  wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. We had to rent these little covers to put on our shoes. They are trying to prevent the glass from getting all scratched up. 

The sky glass walk went on for about 5 minutes and then turned into concrete. Some of the concrete was broken so there were boards to walk over on those parts. The steel was still intact though so that made me feel a bit safer. 

We then went over this swinging bridge. It was so fun. It reminded me of Mario Party back in the day when they are on the tight rope and you try to push everyone else off. Of course we weren't trying to push one another off. 

To get back to the cable car we had to walk up what felt like a million steps (uneven and broken). We then took the cable car back down half way and got off. We got on a bus that drive us along windy roads until we got to "heaven". 

Made it to the top!

This is the part that is indescribable. But I'll do my best. There were a million stairs that headed up to this whole in the mountain where an airplane once flew through. On the left of the stairs is a waterfall. It took probably 15-20 minutes to walk up. Henry schooled me. I had to take breaks and I almost gave up at one point but I knew I would regret it. And I would have. This Chinese girl and I kept chanting "jia you" which is there way of saying "lets go" but literally means "add oil".  This Chinese girl I had never met and I walking up the stares motivating each other and chanting "jia you". It was funny and inspiring at the same time.

The view through the "Gate to Heaven"

Pretty ironic that I felt like I was going to die as I was walking up to "heaven". I keep saying "heaven" because Tianmen translates to the gate/door to heaven. Tian is heaven and men is door/gate. 

The view after I walked through the door/gate was breath taking; it brought tears to my eyes. I don't think I'll ever see a more beautiful view. It was so sunny and was raining a little. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. 

Oh yeah... Going down the stairs was harder than going up. My legs were not only shaking but I felt like I was just going to tumble all the way down. At one point I was sliding down on my butt and all the Chinese passing me were laughing and saying "she's scared" in Chinese. It was really funny. I got back up though and finished the descent on my feet. 

If you ever have an opportunity to go to ZhangJiaJie you definitely should. 

National Park

We took the bus back down to the middle cable car entrance and headed back to ZhangJiaJie city where we planned on getting the bus to the entrance to the national park. However.... The bus station is under construction. So after doing some back tracking we finally found a van that took us to the entrance we wanted. We had to pay 20yuan more but that's okay. Totally worth it. We each got our own row in the van. 

The driver tried to drop us off before the ticket place and asked for more money so I got angry and used a bunch of Chinese so he drove us to the ticket office. 

Once we got our tickets we entered the park and there were a ton of monkeys walking around like dogs. It was so cool. 

We walked two hours through beautiful scenery to an elevator that took us up to who knows how high. But high. And it was a very fast elevator that was built on the side of a rock and was glass. 

From the elevator we walked about 10 minutes to catch a bus then had to switch to a small bus and then finally got dropped off at the youth hostel where we are now. 

Everyone here is super friendly and I've been using a lot of Chinese on this trip to get directions, order food and help translate for other foreigners. 

We got dinner at the hostel. I ordered fried rice and ate every single bit, minus the onions. We ended up meeting a few other foreigners around our age. So we all ate together. 

The foreigners we met: Seeta from Norway who is traveling around Asia. Amber from Canada and Sam from England who both teach English in Changsha. Nicholas from France who is studying in Hunan province (his first name is actually Aizcorbe but he told us to call us by his last name, Nicholas) and Pablo from Spain who is also traveling around Asia. Pablo actually works in Singapore right now! 

This trip marks my first time staying in hostels. So far I love it. I love the fact that you meet new people from different parts of the world and then you end up exploring/traveling with them.