China - ZhangJiaJie (Day 3)

This huge and humongous place has existed since 480 million years ago. The ocean limestone-shaped rocks
were formed by the crushing of two sets vertical cracks of geologic lifting, water erosion and dissolution.
It was a long walk here on a hot sunny day, lucky I wore a hat to help protecting my skin from the sun burn.

In fact, I prayed really hard that my tour here to be sunny or cloudy rather than rainy as it's easier for all of
us to tour ZhangJiaJie. Everyday the tour guide already warned us to take the umbrella for the rainy season,
but we are very lucky to be spared the rainy days during the whole week here. Every night before I fall asleep,
I send a good thought for tomorrow is going to be a good day for me to trail the Tian Men Shan with no rain.

The Chinese tour guide has also mentioned to us, what kinda lucky bunch of people we were as the weather was
predicted to be raining but we only experience a little rain after we got into the coach. Haha...I really thanked
God for that as the rain will only dampen our high spirit to explore this high, huge mountain of ZJJ excitedly.
This is the longest cable car that has ever been built in the world history, taking about 25 minutes to reach up
the highest hill of ZJJ. 

Supposed Jamie was sitting besides me but she was so scared all along the way up to the high hill, she was
screaming like mad. Haha...I told her to sit in front, opposite of me besides the tour guide so she won't have
to see the going up views ever. Occasionally, I told her it's going to reach up there and it's more scary that
she held real tight on the side bar of the cable car. This is only the start of the challenging part through the
ZJJ adventurous trail in China.

Just when I thought Pulau Langkawi has one of the highest and scariest cable car up to the top, this is even
more scary cable car ride I have ever taken. Switzerland, not scary at all but takes a long time to reach up and
down along the journey, this cable car ride is also slow but scary lot with fascinating views for nice pictures.
Totally worth the patience, great effort for me sitting obediently watching the beautiful, wonderful view of all. 

Reaching up here on the top, at the highest peak of more than 4000m from seawater level, we're all getting
really excited to trail the glass plank of Tian Men Shan. Jamie has been asking me if I would go for it, I told
her absolutely as I'm looking forward to experience this exhilarating adventure of my lifetime with Rambo.
They are charging us RMB5 for the recycle socks so that we won't scratch their high-tech glass plank that
they have invested so much for their China Tourism. Jamie came along with us as I told her to braven herself
more to try out this fun, exciting trail and so she did. That day, she met me for a spa gathering, she told me
again she was so glad she went along with me as she felt so good about it, she's so proud that she did it.

Haha...that's great to know as I felt the same way like her. But she said she can't act
so calm like me, sitting at the corner side and remained so cool about it when taking
pictures. I told her I understood what she meant by that as I saw from the video, Sam
was actually holding someone's back and look down, some are walking at the side
holding the mountain while walking but I reassured her there's nothing to be afraid
of but to embrace the challenge and conquer the fear of it. I totally fell in love with the
captivating views here I took the chance to capture as many great pictures as possible.
I think it's not suitable for kids to go through this and the old aunties also decided to
skip this glass plank trail and meet us at the end of the exciting journey. 

The Glass Trail of Tian Men Shan is 1430m based on the earth level, I told Jamie that day when she told me
her hubby and her friends said they wouldn't dare to trail this glass plank. See also scare liao they said but I
told her to watch a video of the glass plank construction that's really an eye-opener of how it's been built by
the experts 'Lo Meng Lei Bok'(risking their lives) in danger, hundreds of millions cost that the Chinese will gained
back from the China Tourism sooner or later. They have the population to back that up with more tourists coming
from around the world. Even my stepdad was amazed by the Chinese exploration on this when I showed him this.

Lucky I get to taste one of the best 'Shan Ja' fruit Ice cream all along the way of my tiring ZJJ mountain trail as
I need more energy and excitement to keep my mind from thinking how tired I was with all the walking and
climbing. Although it's not a public holiday, but the queue was long and full of tourists here coming to explore
this ZJJ trail with their 'Tongkat', wind breaker suits and hiking equipments. And when the wind blows, OMG
it's windy and breezy till you really need a Jacket and scarf to cover yourself up like a monk. Haha...lucky I was
well prepared for that, everything covered up from top to toe and feeling totally comfortable with that. 

Coming down from this high peak of TianMen Shan on the right side by cable car, we saw this 99 slopes that I
hope I don't have to go for this. But a Big No, we need to stop at Station 2 cable car pit stop for the bus ride up
to Tian Men Shan that's on the left hand side. This ride can be torturing lot esp. when the bus driver was driving
crazily and speeding like a Formula One driver. Reaching up here, all of us feeling 'pening lalat' like the drunken
tourists. Haha...lucky I drank a lot of Cellfood for oxygen booster needed for my brain, or else I'll be like those
oldies who rest at the shops waiting for the others to finish climbing up this high mountain.

This super duper high mountain looks fine for me, but in actual of fact it's 999 steps of stairs to heaven mountain
right up to the top. After praying to Buddha at the foot of this TianMenShan, I told Jamie to go ahead without me.
I took my own sweet time to climb up as high as I could, just to catch the best shots here with the nearby waterfall
and let's go shopping with the time left. I told Rambo to conserve those energy needed for the next few days tour.
I saw some Chinese including the ladies went up crawling like the ghosts you saw on the movie, really torturing
and suffering.And when I went down the hundreds steps of stairs on the way back, my legs were shaking like mad.

Just when I thought I can run down easily like a runner, but I was totally wrong about it as my leg muscles
began to froze, harden like the ice. A real torture actually, seems to look easy and fine for me as I used to climb
up the Great Wall of China excitedly and 'Dai Fatt' The Big Buddha in Hongkong easily, but this ZJJ Heaven
Mountain is a total challenge of it all. I have no choice but to eat a lot that night dinner although I'm not a fan
of  the Chinese food at all. I took 3 of their Hunan specialty breads, lots of veges and lucky got my favourite
steamboat that somewhere, somehow helps to replenish the needed nutrients and vitamins for me. I'm a survivor
anyway,no matter how fussy and choosy eater I can be. In China, I'm like undergoing a slimming therapy tour
for sure as I've been forced to take lots of veges+fruits, nuts and water with over limit of exercise from am to pm.

Actually I wanted to go home and sleep liao after the special Hunan Dinner, but we have paid the RMB400 each
just to support the tour guides extra income. This kinda performance show is not only expensive, but a waste of
my time as the last time I went for the Guilin, highly praised of the Zhang Yi Mou grand show at the lovely lake
of GuangXi was a total failure show. To pay that extra RMB400 (RM212) supporting them to gain extra income
is fine for me, but the show needs to be special and extraordinary like the Beijing Olympics show, at least. 

But thank God I really enjoyed their original Chinese songs and old folk songs from this region of China, or
else I think it's not worthy of my money already. I know they're earning hard cash the very hard ways, that's
why my heart of compassion grew stronger for them and we tried to help the Chinese in every way we can since
both Jamie and I are Buddhists, we totally understand the secret happiness of giving and sharing for the less
fortunate ones. At the end of the day, we're so blessed and feeling really satisfied with our ZJJ Tour because we
are safe with no sick+no accidents (some did as too tired, too ill) and fulfilled with great memories to bring back
home sweet home, green green grass of home. I'm so grateful to Amituofo that I felt even more motivated to
'Ganbatte', strive and thrive harder to live a good life after this great Autumn holiday. Life is good and smooth!