Zhangjiajie Market and Tianamen Mountain

The hotel breakfast was not bad. A large assortment of items set up as a buffet. Just not as great as the previous hotel. The goal for today is to check out the local open-air market, then head up Tianamen Mountain (4,982 ft elevation), which is south of the city and accessible by cable car or bus. The weather is actually dry and overcast…. should be nice for photos!

Open Air Market

The market was hard to find. It was not labeled and not very large at all. It was just a few city streets, actually not far from where I was last night. I must have passed it before without noticing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Balls of some meat covered in rice.

 

 

 

 

I bought these sweet rice pudding things. Pretty delicious!

 

99 Bends

You get choice go up by bus, or down by bus. Whichever you chose, you will be heading the opposite way on the French-built 24,459 ft-long cable car that stretches all the way from the train station in the city up most of the mountain. It’s one of the longest, if not THE longest in the world.

Just some video from the bus on the way to the mountain so you can get a sense of what the city is like.

 

 

The road heading up has 99 bends, none of which my bus driver slowed down for. Half-way up things got wet and foggy. Did that slow him down? Of course not. It was a thrill ride. No footage since I was protecting my camera and trying not to slide off my seat.

 

Buses only go so far up the mountain. If you want to get to the top where all the sights, monuments, shrines, and glass walkways are, you need to go on foot.  This view of Tianmen Cave, and the 999 steps leading to it, was breathtaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the cave visibility dips. It’s cold, freezing. The wind is blowing and everything is wet. I hear speaking everywhere but see little.

 

 

The trail that encircles the top of the mountain is mostly overhang, and some parts are glass. I saw mostly nothing.

Holy shit. Fucking cold.

 

 

Cold Cold Cold.

 

This is when I realized that the walkways were mostly overhangs

Realizing I have a flight to catch, I decided that enough fog was enough. Time to take this crazy cable car down. Follow that line down, it goes all the way into the middle of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was very interesting to glide over the rural housing and farms on my way into the city.

 

Tourist shops below.

 

Last meal in Zhangjiajie

I made it to the airport in time… and it was small… probably smaller than Rochester’s Which is odd because not only is the population 50% more than Monroe County, the tourism in the peak season must easily double that.

With just a few option for food in the airport, I went with comfort…

Beef noodles and pork dumplings.

My connection was a surefire miss. There was no way I was going to hit it. Thanks, Kayak.com, you piece of garbage. Not only are Chinese airlines pretty much never ever ever ever EVER on time, but even if you connect with the same airline, you have to claim and re-check your baggage and re-enter security. It’s a logistics clusterfuck, that has been solved pretty much everywhere else in the world. Yes, my flight was late. Yes, I was going to have to get in some long lines and be even later, but luckily there’s a VIP protocol for this type of situation and I was fast-tracked in and JUST made it. Off to Guiyang!

A few more

These restroom signs just crack me up.

I can photograph misspellings all day, but only some sound funny enough to be worth it.