Apr 2, Thursday, Zhangjiajie

Today we took a bus ride back into the national park.  It was a bit rainy when we left the hotel but nothing we couldn’t handle.   

 Almost as soon as we got off the bus the thunder roared and the heaven’s opened.

After standing under a structure for about 20 minutes, along with various groups of Chinese tourists, we decided to change the itinerary for the day.  We went back to the hotel to rest and dry off and then went out for lunch.  Cute statues at the door of the restaurant.

After we had ordered the server brought over a large metal container and sat it on the table.  We weren’t sure what it was for.  However a bit later the server came over, poured tea in our teacup, then transferred the contents of the cup, along with more tea, to our bowl and then proceeded to rinse the bowl, chopsticks and spoon in the hot tea.  She then poured all the tea into the large container.  Gabby said this is a common practice, to clean the bowl and utensils with hot tea. 

After lunch the rain had cleared and we decided to head back to the National Park.  Apparently the Travel Weather Gods had a plan because by the time we got back the rains had cleared out the worst of the haze and we even had patches of blue sky, an unusual occurrence in China. 

We took a 7.5km (4.6 miles) walk through a valley along the Golden Whip Stream (Jinbian Stream).  The stream was beautiful...

and generally rather red and muddy looking from the run-off from the morning rains.  However, one section had muddy water (from the rains) and clear water, from a spring. 

Much of the walk was through a cool forested area.

 The rock formations and the rock walls towered over the valley.  

The walk ended at a beautiful park surrounded by more towers and peaks.

There was a small, charming lake near the end of the trail.

And the walk was beautiful.  It was an awesome day of sightseeing.

More photos of the Golden Whip Stream


After dinner we went to see the Charming Western Hunan pageant.  The event started out with an auction (just like the last pageant).  However, the items actioned were being created by a master calligrapher right on the stage.  Bidding appeared to be quite brisk.

Calligrapher is the older man in the center

There were five or six acts that were purported to be based on local customs.  While that may be true, most of them were also an excuse to showcase various acrobatic type acts. 


There were the beautiful girls (show girls?)....

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a contortionist act,

drummers,

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some aerialists,

and acrobats.

After about an hour and a half of acts the entire audience moved outside for the final acts. 

There were several master martial artists, a couple of men who walked barefoot across burning coals and one man who walked barefoot across a 30+ foot long sharp edged “knife”.

The entire production was very colorful and very interesting