Changbaishan to Jinbro Lake

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Today we were on the bus pretty much the whole day to get to Jinbrohu (Mirror Lake). On the way we drove through Yanggi. It has a sizable ethnic Korean population, and as such many people here are bilingual. The city is relatively rich as many people work in South Korea and send money back. I guess the relatively few bicycles on the road vs. other Chinese cities is a reflection of that.

One of the locals told me that North Korea is very much like China in the 1960's. Everyone wears a pin praising their leader. There are three things that are free in N. Korea - housing, university and health care, although I wonder how good they really are. A large N. Korean refugee population lives in border towns in China. To discourage their citizens from fleeing the country, those who leave without permission will have punishment brought on to their entire family, a way to discourage people from escaping. There is tourism in N. Korea. Each group would be accompanied by 2 tour guides, one to lead the tour and the second to keep an eye on the group for any illegal activity. Children there would approach obese foreigner for money because they think thin/slender people are poor like them and don't have enough to eat. They've learned to say in Chinese "One dollar for me, one dollar for my mom". Apparently there are no cell phones since they are concerned about eavesdropping.

We stopped by a factory that mass produces bile from Chinese black bears. These bears are called half moon bears because the white mark on their belly looks like a crescent. In the old days bears would be killed for their gallbladder and various other things including their paws. I guess they've perfected the technology such that they can continuously extract bile from these bears without killing them. There were thousands of bears in this facility, many sleeping in large concrete compounds outside. The scene inside was a bit disturbing as I saw many bears locked in cages marginally bigger the the bears themselves. Many either slept or rocked back and forth in their cages as there wasn't much for them to do. I'll spare you the photos showing this. I saw two bear cubs; I wonder if they would be better off not being born at all since they'll end up spending most of their future lives locked up in tiny cages with tubes sticking out of their bodies. I guess the Chinese government supports this "humane" treatment of bears as there was a big sign outside saying so.

I heard that ways have also been developed to harvest bear paw - a delicacy - without killing bears. Bears apparently lick their left paw when they hibernate so it is thicker than the right, which they use to scratch their butt. The extra layer on the left would be sliced off and the paw bandaged. It regenerates afterwards.

When we got to Jinbro Lake it was already in the evening. Even though we were in NE China, which has fairly high latitude, it still gets dark relatively early in the summer since China doesn't have daylight savings time. The sun would rise around 3-4am and sets around 7pm in the evening. The waterfall at Jinbro Lake was dry, as it is most of the year. Only when the waterfall at the lake gets high enough would water run over the fall, which when happens, is later in the summer.

The place we stayed at is right by the lake, was was very serene. Solar panels were used to heat water, but unfortunately it meant that hot water was only provided for an hour in the evening for people to take hot showers.

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Photos

Gingseng
Buy it fresh from the locals

Yanggi
Many signs are bilingual

Jinbro Lake
Waterfall - dry unfortunately

Jinbro Lake
Waterfall - dry unfortunately

Jinbro Lake
in the evening

Jinbro Lake
in the evening

Jinbro Lake
in the evening