Zhangjiajie with kids, day three (Tianmen Mountain)

In ZJJ city, we stayed at the Bajie Ren Wen Hotel (also known as Bajie Hill Inn), which was cute and much more Western-tourist friendly than our first hotel. The room did have its issues, however, most importantly being a non-Western toilet (not sure if all rooms are this way). This took me back to my Peace Corps days! By the time we got there, my daughter had gotten used to it, but just FYI if that's an issue for you. It's located in a cute little alley way but is hard to find. And it's noisy. Very thin windows and walls.

Day three might have been my favorite. Or maybe not. It's hard to pick! We took a cab over to the Tianmen Mountain cable car station. Our guide had already waited in a 45 minute line to buy the tickets, but then we waited in line for about an hour to get onto the car. It's just crazy how many people were there, and even I could see that the lines could be much longer. But I wouldn't want to be there when that happened.

This cable car ride is the longest in the world (~30 minutes). It starts in town and goes to the top of Tianmen Mountain. It gets very steep! It also goes through a lot of different scenery, and is really a lovely ride. 

 

Upon arrival at the top, Grace suggested we walk all around the mountain. One section is a glass walkway, but most of it is a lovely wooden walkway bolted into the side of the mountain. It looked quite sturdy and we didn't stop to think about it.

 The glass walkway requires a small entrance fee and shoe slippers. It really didn't seem like much to me, but then I don't have a fear of heights, I guess.

The glass walkway turned to wood again and we walked on. Suddenly we found ourselves in a sea of red ribbons. We learned that the Chinese write a wish on a ribbon and tie it on a tree, so of course we wanted to do the same!

 There was also a cool bridge, with great views.

I think he's telling her about Dungeons and Dragons here. 

After the walk around the mountain, it was time to head down to the hole inside the mountain. This required 7 LOOONNNG escalator rides! And after that? 999 steps down to the base of the mountain. The kids really loved all these little challenges and transportation methods.

We stopped to take a few pictures on the way down. 

Above is at the base of the mountain hole. You are still pretty far up. And I'm sorry to say that this is the only way down:

This road has 99 curves and they don't take them gently. It takes about 45 minutes. We made sure our stomachs were full before we got on the bus and we sat in the front. No one tossed their cookies, but I wouldn't really like to do that again. 

And that concluded our Tianmen Mountain day and our trip to Zhangjiajie! I did like the third day the most, because it included so many interesting aspects. 

Overall, it was a really cool trip, and we are glad we went!