Zhangjiajie

Day 11

I had trouble falling asleep after all the excitement last night and woke up again at 6:40 to pouring rain. We ate breakfast at the hotel buffet. There were some sort of sunflower seed cookies that I loved. Tomorrow I'm bringing bottled water with me.

 

The kids slept until we woke them at 8:00 but remained in bed until 8:30 when I read them the riot act and even then they took their time getting ready.

 

Li Feng made some calls and found somebody who was willing to pick up the laundry, do it, and return it to the hotel for $50. Andrea was pretty upset at the expense but I pointed out that some things have been less expensive than we thought they would be, especially food, so it will all even out in the end.

I'm not sure what time we finally left the hotel but it was far later than usual. As soon as we set foot outdoors we were accosted by vendors selling cheap rain ponchos and umbrellas. I bought 6 of the ponchos for under $5 and Andrea bought Zachary a new umbrella.

 

The ponchos were so thin that they began falling apart immediately. Zach's had a hole in minutes. Only 4 of the 6 lasted the day. So much here is disposable and wasteful. The Chinese go through an incredible amount of plastic; they buy bottled water because they don't trust the trap water, for example. And, there is so much litter it's horrific. It covers the streets and is washed into the rivers. I saw hundreds of discarded items today alone, much of it discarded cheap rainwear, including plastic ponchos just like ours and shoe covers made of the same material which we declined to buy even though they were offered.

We headed or to the park, which had an entrance within walking distance. We entered via a gondola on a lift, just like a ski lift although nobody could ski these vertical slopes even if there was snow. We ascended through the rain and cloud catching fuzzy glimpses of the spectacular landscape. Sandstone columns rose hundreds of meters straight up. We spent the day going from overlook to overlook, traveling by a set of free busses in the park, hiking at each stop. There were places where the land looked through a cloud and it was hard to believe that you weren't looking at an island floating in a pool. The weather was less than ideal. The kids whined.

We ate street food at stalls along the road at lunch time because Andrea was hungry and wanted to try things. We got four ears of roasted corn that were a marvel. They not only managed to get it to the texture of pencil eraser they got the flavor too. I gamely ate mine as Andrea tried to convince Zachary to keep eating his, telling him that the texture was intentional and that they got the flavor by caramelizing the corn, even making a couple of supportive comments about how much I love roasted corn, though I didn't mention this one's peculiarities. We also got some sort of steamed mochi ball wrapped in a leaf filed with a peanut sesame mixture. Andrea took one bite and let me have the rest. Zachary and I got red bean buns. They were died out, hard on the bottom and crusty on the top. I gamely ate as Zachary extolled it's virtues while Andrea tried barbecued fish on a stick (they put anything on a stick, including whole fish) and declared it so salty as to be inedible. Far and away the worst meal that I have had in China.

We kept trekking. I tried to get some photos through the fog. I miss doing serious photography something fierce. Every time I take a shot I fall behind and Andrea is always ahead anyway. I've had to yell for her several times when she got ahead of not just me but the guide and gone the wrong way.

Just as it was starting to clear a bit Andrea declared that she was done. I went to take a few shots from one last overlook and as soon as I was within 20 feet she took off, kids in tow to get in line. I just couldn't face running after her one more time and of course the consequence was that a Chinese couple got between me and the group. Zachary desperately wanted me to join the group but I refused to push my way through once again to catch up to my wife.

We rode a glass elevator down the side of a 326 meter vertical mountain. They let people in in groups of about 20 but only about half get to stand right next to the window so people ran and pushed. Some guy behind me tried to push me aside and I was having none of it. I body blocked him and then got squarely in front of him, incensed at his rudeness. When I got in the guide, who had saved a window spot on the side, switched with me. Half way down Andrea said "that guy just pushed his way right in," and I noticed that Mr. pushy had forced himself in between two of my kids.

Li Feng, the guide and I, took a monorail ride around the valley and then followed Andrea and the kids home.

After a little downtime, we headed out for dinner. The kids really wanted American food so we found a place called Cat cafe. Li Feng, Evan, and our guide split off to eat Chinese. We had pizza (no sauce; not our choice, fruit on the side; that was our choice) and pumpkin chicken rice. It was my second last favorite meal in China. On our way home we passed a place that did foot rubs and back massage. I would have loved a back rub since the time I spend hunched over a screen leaves me with a near constant pain in my back but Andrea was dead set on using the first place we had seen that morning which only did feet (for reasons not entirely clear to me) so I went home and when she and Zachary finished we sorted the clean laundry and packed. I slept really soundly but woke up at 6:40 and was just awake for the day despite my best efforts to go back to sleep.