999 Steps to Heaven.

Who would have thought getting to Heaven was like Disneyland? We bid a sad farewell to Victor and our rocking hostel in Zhangjiajie and took a taxi to Tianmu mountain where we  luggage was stashed at a nearby hotel and got ready to wait in line. It's quite the ordeal to get to Heaven's Gate, and a 2 hour wait in line is the first step. Thank goodness for hilarious slogans and mistranslations on tee shirts to keep us all entertained. A favorite was a massive black and white photo of Chris Hemsworth splattered on a man's tee but the real winner was the man who brought his largish poodle type dog in line with him. Slowly but surely, the line snaked forward and brought us to the cable car ride that started the day's adventure.8 people to a car, the whole 30 minute ride starts by giving you a bird's eye view over a freeway, then a splattering of small villages. From up above, you can see women smacking laundry over rocks in a stream or the washed shirts hanging to dry over a field sprinkled with pecking chickens. As the terrain becomes more mountainous, things fade into thicker trees and jagged triangular points. The view below plummets into dizzying valleys as your little cable car is suspended over a thin line that appears to be climbing straight into the air. It's terrifying. 

There's nothing but a dizzying drop below that concrete platform (and some gorgeous views). 

Once you disembark, the whole scene unfolds before your eyes; a road with more turns than Lombard street snakes below you, while huge canverous valleys carpeted with green go on and on forever, creating a deep dip surrounded by steep and triangular peaks. It's an incredible view that is best seen by above. Good thing you can walk out on platforms with glass bottoms. 

The walkways on the mountain are a bit terrifying when you realize the entire path is clinging to the side of a cliff, but that fear is compounded when cement is replaced by transparent plastic. (Plastic walkway doesn't have the same ring as Glass Bridge, but in no way is that trail glass"). The material was a bit opaque but still provided a dizzying view of what lay below your feet. After the glass bridge, the walkway curls around the mountain, with several viewing points and a large suspension bridge. The swaying and spaces between boards made that crossing more frightening than the glass bridge, but made for another great viewpoint. 

I look brave in this picture. Don't be fooled. 

Needing to catch our flight later that evening, we needed to shorten our travel time up the mountain  so it was straight to the chairlift to take is higher on the mountain. At this point, the afternoon mist was rolling in, giving a normal mountainside chairlift a mysterious edge. The fog made it impossible to see the bouncing chairs ahead of you, leaving you feeling very alone on this mountain slope (read: everything was way cooler). The fog was fully swathing the mountain now, allowing huge structures like the Buddhist temple at the mountain's zenith impossible to see unless you were a few feet in front of it. The surrounding forests that crowd the walkways not hugging cliffs were enshrouded in mist and made everything 10 more beautiful and mysterious. 

I wish all the building in China looked like this. 

Can you see that windy road to the right? 

The Disneyland-esque aspect of our day returned when we needed to take an elevator and an enormous escalator through the mountain to get to Heaven's Gate. I never thought I'd be taking an escalator through a mountain and would need to wait in line for it. 8 incredibly long escalators later, our walkway wrapped around the mountain a giving us a view of Heaven's Gate up close. An enormous archway splits two massive mountains and allows the light to shine through, hence the heavenly appearance and title. One side is approachable by walkway, while the other spits out a 999 staircase you can choose to climb. (Or you can just take the escalator and the walkway and walk down the giant staircase). Despite the many modes of transportation to get there, Heaven's Gate was enchanting, especially if you add the waterfall to your left and the smokey incense curling up from the huge drum at the base. Though it would have been neat to climb up the stairs, heading down them gave us the energy to eat trail mix at the base and take in the whole scene. 

The day wasn't quite over yet; a dizzying drive down dozens (99 to be exact) of hairpin turns awaited us. Anticipating a terrible case of motion sickness, the drive lulled me to sleep after I had taken in my fair share of the views on the way down. A lunch of chow mien, a taxi ride and a plane then got us back to Nanjing. Funnily enough, that's when the motion sickness hit me; being in a taxi, then cable car, then ski lift, followed by an elevator ride and an escalator ride that felt like forever, a shuttle down the mountain, a taxi to the airport where a plane took us to the metro and another 90 minutes on that mode of transportation had me feeling like I was constantly in motion. Needless to say, I was ready to sleep in my own bed (and to see my darling kids the next day).