seekingmygreaterperhaps

After my school program ended in Beijing, I hopped on a 21 hour train ride to the southern part of China to reconnect with my beloved college roommate Jenna. She is currently teaching English in Cili, a rural city about 1 hour north of Zhangjiajie. I am blessed to be staying with her for a full week! We have been having a great time catching up, as we haven’t seen each other since I graduated undergrad- we’ve been busy traveling the world since. It’s cool to get to hang out in China, and Jenna is an expert when it comes to Chinese things. She was a Chinese major in undergrad (so she can speak fluently) and she has been living here for almost a year (meaning she knows where the good noodles are). I’ve been learning a lot from her as well as enjoying some relax time. In fact, today the only thing on the agenda is blogging. Yes, I’m in China, but sometimes you just can’t be a tourist every day. It gets tiring. Anyways, after dumplings and sangria the first night I arrived, I haven’t been happier. Who would’ve thought, you can stay friends with people after college?

Let me explain the night train quickly. During my program we took an overnight train to Xian, but we got a “soft sleeper” which is basically first class. On my own, I am a little bit more budget conscious and I got a “hard sleeper” which is still a bed, but it’s definitely not as classy. I did not know this, but it is quite a different world in the hard sleeper world. There are 6 bunks in a compartment, so 3 stacked on one another, two fold out chairs for people on upper bunks to use, no doors, no separation between our bunks and those next to us. It’s just all wide open. When I trained in Europe, there were at least doors and separate compartments, but this is China so I was in for a nice surprise. I was on the lowest berth, and Jenna warned me that everyone else will probably try to sit on my bed, so spread my stuff out as soon as I got there. I did and no one bothered me, but they did stare at me a lot. Also whenever someone walked through the train car, they would slow down and stare as they passed me or even stop to take a picture. One woman sat next to me and forced me to take a selfie with her. I was just trying to journal man. Also, people in China don’t believe in using headphones in common spaces. So all day and all night I was hearing game sounds from the child next to me, and all of the action in the horror movie the woman above me was watching, amongst every other sound. They do make headphones here, I saw them in the store, just common space is not seen as something to be shared. All in all it was a long ride, but thanks to Mom’s sleeping aid, I passed right out and was in Cili in no time.

Jenna has been an amazing host and has shown me some cool local authentic parts of China. She’s made some friends, and they’ve been showing me a good time too. On our first day together, we went to Zhangjiajie to head to the famous mountain range with the glass bridge that follows the curve of the mountains. (I’m going back tomorrow!) It’s about an hour away, and we have to take a local bus to the bus depot, then another bus to Zhangjiajie, and then a cab to get to the cable car that takes us up the mountain. We get our tickets and then start to wait in the longest line I may have ever seen. I may be exaggerating, but it was like an extended Disney World… filled with people who are staring at us and taking our pictures. (It gets really old after a while.) We were in the downstairs queue for 45 minutes before we finally got upstairs… where the queue winded around and looked like it would take about the same amount of time. Jenna and I has been scheming already and it was time to make our move.

In line we had seen a group of 4 foreigners, a.k.a. white people and Jenna had the idea to try and get to them and act like we had been looking everywhere for them. They were quite a bit ahead of us in line. The opening had come for us to make our move, I had qualms- Jenna what if they don’t speak English? – Michaella, you’ve traveled around Europe, even if they don’t speak English, they will probably speak English. And if they don’t, the Chinese people think we all look the same anyways and they will never know. So off we went.

We jumped over the barricades and Jenna started shouted, “Guys! Guys! We are over here! We finally found you!” And running towards them, while saying in Chinese, “we are with them.” We were waving our arms and yelling happily and acting like we had just caught up with old friends. Thankfully, the foreigners played along beautiful. With thick French accents, oh hello! It’s so nice you found us! We exchanged plesantries, thanked them profusely and pulled it off. We also caught up with them about 3 minutes before they loaded onto the cable car- brilliant.

It’s about a 30 minute long cable car ride, and it’s a steep one. There is a point when you go through the clouds and you wonder if we are still moving, but then you break through and you are at the top!

There we are! Tianmen Mountain!

Unfortunately…. it was cloudy the entire day. So I actually didn’t get to see the view of the mountains that I had seen on Google. But that didn’t stop me and Jenna from having a great time. She was frustrated that we couldn’t see anything, but I was just happy to be there. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and also the inspiration for Avatar’s Hallelujah Mountain (which is why I’m going back on a hopefully less cloudy day.) so it was awesome to be there! Also, weather is unpredictable, so if I always let it affect my travel decisions…. I would never see anything.

And then we were at the GLASS BRIDGE! This is the moment I had been so looking forward to, and it was so fun! You have to rent shoe covers so that your shoes don’t scratch up the glass, and they also make you feel like a fairy elf. Jenna insisted on us wearing flower crowns, because everyone does that on the mountain, which only added to the fairy effect. I didn’t care that I couldn’t see anything, it was amazing. Jenna took some pics of me and we took selfies laying on the glass, she is a great sport. It was fun and spooky all at the same time. On a good day you can see the abyss of the mountains below, but I was happy to have my head in the clouds.

The pathways weave and wind around the mountain and there is often trees and shrubs poking out. I walked like a hunchback the entire time, because they do not take into acount taller people when grooming the trails. My flower crown got knocked off a few times when I wasn’t paying attention, and once Jenna turned around too quickly and smacked herself in the head. Tall people, be warned.

This is the suspension bridge. Jenna is jumping, which is the highlight, but as an added bonus, check out that green cat jacket. Winning.

This is something called the wish forest. People write wishes on those red ribbons and tie them onto the trees. Walking through this area has quite the dramatic effect, as suddenly everything is red and whimsical.

After we made the mountain loop, it was crunch time. Jenna had a meeting at school that we had to run back home for and we were setting up a gameplan. I would run to the McDonald’s and she would get the bus tickets. We were so hungry (it was like 3 pm) that I was like, I don’t even care about the bus, I just need food. Jenna mentioned McDonald’s, something I’m normally opposed to at home, but my mouth started watering. We both got chicken sandwiches and ate them so quickly on the bus it was magical. I have never enjoyed McDonald’s s much in my life. I inhaled my sandwich, then looked at Jenna as said, “everything is going to be fine now.” And it was.