It's another long bus ride in the morning to Zhangjiajie National Park. I pick up some snacks, hmmm...interesting chip flavours. I try Lobster & Cheese and a lime flavour. The lime is refreshing, the lobster is cheesy with a seafood aftertaste. Tasty at first, but I don't think I can eat too much of that.
There are pit-stops along the way and locals are eager to wash down the bus for a tip. Sometimes so eager they don't even wait for the passengers to exit first.
We arrive at Zhangjiajie National Park, which is known for tall pillar-like stone formations.
We take a cable car ride up the mountain.
Monkeys in the mountains! But please, don't feed.
We take a ride back down the mountain in a cable car between the towering rocks.
After the park, we're delivered to Dr. Tea's for a tea seminar. We're introduced to different teas and their medicinal benefits. Also, there's different ways to taste tea. The "Dap" method, like making a lapping sound with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. I can actually taste the bitterness coming out of the tea. Another method for tasting a certain tea is the loud slurp. I don't taste any significant benefit from this method. Mom's laughing so hard, her tea's going to spill.
In the evening we see the Charming Xiangxi Show (魅力湘西). Lots of acrobatics, music and dancing showcasing the local ethnic groups of Hunan province. (In the land of pirating, they don't seem to care if you take pictures or film performances. Everyone has their camera out. Only some theatres are starting to crack-down on recording performances.)
The theatre is packed with people. Everyone goes crazy during a wedding scene when lucky money pockets shower down from the ceiling. Mrs. Chan from our group catches one and gives it to me as a souvenir. The crowd is exuberant with an air of recklessness...I feel like if anything were to go wrong, this would be a crowd I'd be trampled in.
The show ends with 3 martial artists/strongmen who demonstrate their strength. They are stacked on top of each other upon a layer of broken glass, and bricks and a board of nails are sandwiched between them. Finally a solid rock boulder is placed on top of the 3rd man and their assistant slams a sledge hammer on the rock repeatedly until it cracks. The men get up with each layer removed from them and they are uninjured.
For the finale, one of the strongmen is placed beneath 2 solid blocks of cement and then 8 audience members are invited to stand on top of him. He emerges unscathed.
