Seriously, 1 or 2 hours standing in a line is a piece of cake since I broke my Guinness World Record for queuing up 7 hours and 40 minutes waiting for cableway at the gate of TianMenShan of ZhangJiaJie.

Started from the first day of Chinese NewYear 2016, we had a 16-day trip driving from Shanghai to ChongQing. After staying at JingDeZhen and ChangShai, finally, we arrived ZhangJiaJie on day 5.  At night, my daughter told me: “All the tickets which access to the mountain have been sold out?” “What? Are you joking, what can we do then? Stay here or continue driving?” “I have no idea, Mum, sorry….” “Hang on a minute, let me check again,” In a while, my daughter smiled: “I’ve got good news, there are a few tickets available at TaoBao, but we need confirm. “ Yeah,yeah, I’ve got it!!! We can go for mountain tomorrow.” “Awesome, you are genius!!!!” “But wait… we have to get up 4:00am tomorrow?” “My goodness, that’s the last thing I wanna hear, ok, let me see if I can make it or not tomorrow morning.”

The following morning, we were woken up by the alarm clock, my daughter jumped out of the bed immediately, that was not her character as she used to be the one who could never get up no matter how many times I asked, that was what her replied to me “5 more minutes, then another 5 more minutes, until 1 hour later, still one more 5 minutes”….. I understand she’s the organizer this time, which made difference.

Now it was my turn: “Give me 5 minutes please, definitely I will get up.” I was lying on bed, with half waking up, half thinking: “Go or not go? If I don’t join them, I might have to stay in the hotel whole day, what a waste of time and ticket!!! And probably I will never come here in my lifetime. To be honest, I couldn’t get up at all at such an early morning 4:00am.”  “Come on, Mum, please put on your clothes or you can stay, we’ll go.” “Oh, well, I might have to go with you.”

Though I got up quite unwillingly, I was getting excited: “Haha, we might be the first one at the mountain.” To my surprise, when we reached the TianMenShan at 5:00am, it was already lined up in a big queue outside the ticket box building, but we were still happy as finally we found a car parking spot.

“That’s interesting, I have never seen sooo many people in a big queue at such a dark morning with lights on. That would be breaking news if I told my friends in Australia or put it on wechat, facebook.” Then I took the photos from different angles, different sides, different lines, I was disappointed with my iphone as no matter how many times I tried, what it showed on the camera were much less people than the actual ones in the queue, no good. L

“Well, don’t worry about that, let me just wait until the door opened.” I looked at the people in front, and I figured out, it might take us 2 more hours maximum. When it started getting bright, someone passed by: “Do you know, where is the ticket box building please?” “Oh, man, what time it is now? I don’t think there’s any ticket left, they were all sold out yesterday.”

It broadcasted: “Due to public holidays, we will open up the gate earlier today.” That was what exactly I liked to hear. After 2 more hours, I didn’t feel the queue’s moving at all. “What happened?” I asked one guy in front of me: “Do you recon how long we have to wait?” “It is said someone waited for 8 hours yesterday”. “Really? Ok, thanks a lot.”  I looked at the queue in front and doubted: “That won’t be true, it wouldn’t be so long. It might take another 2 more hours, but not 8 hours.”

Ok, just be more patient, I started reading articles from wechat. Suddenly, there’s one group of tourist guys added in, just beside us. I was really upset: we have just wasted the whole morning waiting, someone came later lined up at the same spot with us, what’s the point I got up so early? Stupid!!! Are there any discipline here.” In a while, policemen came in “Hey, you guys, please move out of here, there’s only one line.” I did appreciate the policemen tried great effort for keeping the queue in order, the second line was gradually disappearing, on the other hand, my line in front was becoming bigger and longer, and we were still in the same place as 3 hours ago.  

 At that moment, I’ve got no idea where’s one guy sneaked in, he stood beside my daughter all the way like a fly, my daughter tried to get rid of him, when the guy moved fast, my daughter became fast, when he was slow, my daughter slowed down the speed, the guy was very annoyed as he couldn’t find any space to jump in. In the end, he dropped, and found a new target just behind us,

 The queue seemed never moving, I looked at the lady in front, she must be the most brave women in the world as everyone was angry about her cutting in the line, some policemen were telling her to stand behind, she got very calm as there’s nobody watching, she jumped in and out, in and out until the policemen went away. I could always saw her ugly face (actually, I don’t mean to call her name, the ugly truth she was that type as someone said the facial expression reflects the lifestyle) moving in front.

When I looked at my mobile, 4 hours already passed. We were really frustrated, staying in the line or simply leaving, if left, we have already paid accommodation and tickets, and 4 hours waiting. If not leaving, when’s the end? But we made a decision, just be more patient, we would not drive another 4 days here next time. Eventually, we were moving forward, it seemed more organized in front, OMG, I would never expected there was an endless moving, from nowhere to outside the building and then inside, from level 1 to level 2, and level 3. Each level and stairs were hundreds people waiting, such a huge population-China, very good business. When we arrived at the cableway, it was already lunch time 12:40pm.

“You are a very patient woman.” My Australian colleague teased me. “Yes, I am. When I got off at Melbourne airport, it was such a small queue, only 1 hour and half.” “What? 1 hour and half? That will kill me!!!” my colleague answered. “Probably you should go and visit China one day, then you will be very happy for being in Melbourne.”

Anyway, we would not regret for waiting for so long as we were lucky enough to see the most beautiful view-sea of clouds, which was only happen after rain and sun came out. 

Sea of clouds at the top of TianMenShan