Jilin/Yanji/Baihe

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From Harbin we headed east towards Korea with our final destination being Changbai Shan. Changbai Shan is a Mountain and National Park and is also a spiritual place for the Korean and Chinese cultures. We took a bus in the early morning from Harbin to Jilin (~ 4 hours). Mostly we passed drying Corn fields along the way. The air didn't get any better either. We had a nice stay at the Home Inn in Jilin and went for Mongolian hot pot again. The people here were especially friendly. A boy named, Mike, introduced himself to us, I guess wanting to practice his English. The next day we caught a bus to Songhua lake, a large lake dammed at edge of Jilin.

The next day we caught the afternoon bus to Yanji. This ride was mostly at night but the landscape did change as we headed more into the mountains. Yanji is in the Korean autonomous Region of China and many people speak Korean or have Korean backgrounds. That night we went for the recommended Korean BBQ across from our hotel. We got to roast our own bbq on hot coals at our table. Again we didn't stay long here hopping on a bus to a small town called Baihe (pronounced Bye-heugh).

Baihe left a mark in a couple of ways. Immediately after getting off of our bus we were bombarded by people offering their services as taxi drivers or for their hotels. We tried to get away from these but were joined by a persistant taxi driver named, "Fa" who explained that he could take us to Changbai Shan. We were a little tired and unsure where our hotel was. Somehow we leaked the name of our hotel, so he quickly grabbed a bag and showed us the way. Once we had paid for our room he helped us unload our gear even though we had asked him to leave several times. Finally, we queried the price for the ride to ChangBai Shan, and got a reply of $40 yuan. Ready to get rid of Fa we accepted his proposition to take us to the Park at 7:00am the next morning. That night we collected our thoughts and made plans to spend one night at the park.

Sure enough, at ten to 7:00am, Fa had arrived at our room to collect us. Still unsure of whether to trust him we reluctantly followed. Firstly, he took us to a local Baozi (fried dumpling) restaurant where we ate a bunch and filled our tupperware for the trip. We soon left, but first we wanted to stop at the train station to get our ticket for Shenyang, the next destination for an extra 10 yuan. Unfortunately, it wasn't opened, funny that he didn't know, lol. Then we headed toward the park...

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