We slept in until
about 9:30am, got ready to leave, and went downstairs to the lobby. We asked
the ladies at the desk for directions to Tianzi Mountain—our last tour
destination. We took a bus to a stop nearby Tianzi Mountain and then walked a
bit to reach the entrance at the bottom of the mountain. There we bought the
pass to entering the mountain area and took a shuttle up to middle of the
mountain.
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| The entrance to the mountain area |
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| View from the monorail |
We were planning on taking the cable car up to Tianzi Mountain, one
of the most famous scenic spots there. However, we took the wrong path at one
point and ended up having to decide between climbing up the stairs to the top
of Tianzi Mountain or paying extra money to get back on the right track. After
some debate we finally decided to walk up the stairs, which was a
two-and-a-half hour course with about 4000 steps total. Yes. FOUR THOUSAND
steps (some people even told me it’s actually almost 8000 steps).
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| Stunning view of the mountains from the monorail stop |
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| Our journey up... |
We thought climbing up
the stairs would be a great way to actually enjoy being surrounded by nature
and seeing it from close up rather than from inside the cable car. Then after
walking up for a while we realized it was too foggy to appreciate the view.
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| We could only feel that there was something so much more grand and awesome out there than what we could see |
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| We came all the way down from that hill in the background all the way up to another hill...kept climbing up... |
The stairs were so
steep. Although it was drizzling and pretty chilly, we were soon covered in
sweat. Quite a few people were coming down the stairs but we were the only ones
going up. The people we passed by all asked us how much more they have to go
and were all impressed that we chose to climb up.
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| About half our way up to the top of Tianzi Mountain! Steps and more steps... |
We finally reached the
top, only to find more fog….. The view itself wasn’t very rewarding so we
walked a bit in hopes to find some good food. And guess what was there! A
kingdom of McDonald's! So disappointing and exciting at the same time. At least
it was better food than what some Chinese street vendors nearby had.
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| We just took pictures of the building that marked the top of the mountain without realizing there was supposed to be an awesome view in the background... ugh the fog..... |
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| Learning from the signpost that there is supposed to be an awesome view at the top |
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| ...and actually seeing nothing but more fog |
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| Some street food we found at the top of the mountain...and didn't look very appetizing to me |
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| The Chinese kingdom of McDonald's! |
Anyway, we took the
easy way down since it was getting dark and rainy. The view from the cable car
was actually more fascinating than we thought. It was a bummer I wasn’t able to
get a good picture because of the rain.
We went back to the
hotel to pick up our bags and left for the airport. It was a small airport with
not much to look at, so we just dozed off until our plane arrived. After a
fierce competition to get on the plane first (It was strange, but I guess
everyone was so tired and wanted to get on the plane asap), we were happy to
find ourselves in the premium economy seats with more space for our legs. We
said bittersweet goodbye to Zhangjiajie and flew back to Shanghai.
