my changbaishan itinerary (china must-visit)

if you’re thinking of visiting china but you’re not sure where to go, let me put you onto this place called changbaishan. i flew into beijing and took a train in that i booked on trip.com so the journey was pretty direct! 🍁

leading up to this trip, i’ll be honest and say that i had never heard of changbaishan and didn’t know what to expect. but the experience left me awed and pumped to explore the world, and that’s an exhilarating feeling that i wanted to take to the people. below is my full itinerary, starting from activities to food. it’s a long one but there’s an order to it so just be prepared.😌

back to changbaishan, 5 of us were there for 2 full days in december, not including the day we arrived and left. beginning with the accoms, we stayed at the 📍Changbaishan Guoxin Four Seasons Hot Spring Resort Hotel and paid about $33/pax per night. this included entry to the hotel’s hot spring and free pick up and drop off at the main railway station which only needed to be arranged a day in advance. my favourite thing about the hotel were the heaters in the toilets — you will never leave the shower shivering like a leaf. given that temperatures were deep in the negatives, i really appreciated that. booking was done via trip.com so this was really easy to navigate.

the lady driver from the hotel who picked us up at the train station was super helpful and friendly, letting us know that if we booked our activities with them, we could get discounted rates and free transport to and fro. of course, we fact-checked and compared the rates and ultimately managed to cancel several activities we pre-booked with full refunds.

now onto the activities,

day 1️⃣: started out with rime drifting/rafting 雪飘 (slide 1) early in the morning (i’m talking 7am). 🌨️ rime drifting is essentially just drifting through a little river on a kayak boat of sorts and admiring the beauty of rime (snow that falls and freezes on the trees and branches). no words can do justice to how gorgeous this was and i didn’t even know what rime was before. this was one of the activities that the hotel helped us to book and the lady driver had even brought us to a winter wear store right before to rent out some much needed leather/animal skin pads to keep our legs warm. sitting in the boat is extremely cold because you don’t move much so this was a lifesaver. it costed us only about $6-7 for the day.

rime drifting ended by about 9am and we headed straight to the changbai mountain. 🗻 this wasn’t so much a climb as it was a bus ride. bus ride tickets were purchased on klook and they provide the address of the area to catch the bus from. the tickets to visit the tianchi lake (pictured in slide 2) however, do require an additional purchase on wechat and instructions for how to do so are provided as you queue to enter. beware, it’s all in chinese so i do suggest navigating wechat beforehand to purchase the tickets. information such as passort number and name is required for this.

access to the tianchi lake is quite dependent on weather conditions so we were lucky that the 2 hours it opened in december coincided with our timing. going up is relatively easy. 2 buses take you to the lake — one bigger tour group bus kind and another smaller one as the roads get narrower and steeper. 🚎 the journey is over an hour long so you get to take a nice long nap or take in the mountain view. admittedly, i had one of my best naps on the journey up. after they drop you off, you will need to make a short climb up some stairs to reach the tianchi lake. the climb isn’t that intensive but the wind is the real killer here. 💨🎐

some necessities for braving the cold: sunglasses to protect your eyes from the wind and light reflection, a beanie or anything to cover your ears, ski mask for your face and waterproof shoes that are a size or two bigger than your regular shoe size so your toes don’t freeze. heat packs were rendered useless by the cold so really prepare yourself. the animal skin leather pads we rented at the winter wear store saved us once again.

** as someone with extremely poor cold tolerance, if i can make it through, so can you. do not be deterred by the temperatures!!! **

lunch was had at the food area near to tianchi. maybe it was the cold, but those were some of the best instant noodles i’ve had. 🍜 after you’re done at tianchi, a bus will take you to the waterfall area where you can climb up to the waterfall viewpoint or do activities such as riding on a snow mobile or sled (slide 2). hot spring eggs which are boiled in the natural spring water are sold here and they also offer other hot foods that you can enjoy. we didn’t know that there would be food here but in hindsight i would’ve had my instant noodles in this area instead.

the climb to the waterfall was slightly tiring, quite a lot of steps but nothing unmanageable. the waterfall is pretty far from the viewpoint but i see many people playing in the snow and taking pictures on the way up so it’s definitely still worth a climb. 🧗🏼‍♀️

day 2️⃣: the day started with us going ice fishing (pictured in slide 9), 🎣 also booked with the hotel. i thought that it was quite a cool experience to fish from holes in the ice and the fish in that area seemed plentiful because we managed to catch about 3 fish each on average. ngl, it was slightly disturbing to pull the fish off the hook after you catch it but it was fun and they cook the fish for you to eat after (it’s seasoned really well). ⚠️ do beware the toilet there is just a hole in the ground so do with that what you will.

after ice fishing, we had lunch and went to the main central street called 📍云顶市集 yun ding shi ji (slide 3). it’s very beautifully lit at night and is the perfect place to get souvenirs for your loves ones. 🌺🌉subsequently, we visited the hot spring at our hotel and enjoyed a nice soak in the water. ♨️

and that’s it for the activities that we did on both days! changbaishan is also a good area for winter sports if you enjoy skiing/snowboarding. ⛷️ it should be pretty easy to find ski resorts where you can rent equipment and get ski passes for cheap.🚠

now that i’ve covered the activities, i’ll just briefly go over my food recommendations in no particular order because they were all really good! food in changbaishan is pretty affordable, costing us around $15/pax for relatively unrestrained ordering.

1. xingyuan barbecue (slide 5) 🍢

biggest 烤串 chuan-chuans i’ve eaten. so juicy and delicious. recommended by our driver— this is popular amongst the locals for good reason.

2. 添柴铁锅局 tian chai tie guo ju (slide 6) 🥘

to get a taste of true changbaishan specialty, this is the place for it. food is cooked the traditional way using firewood and this place has the most amazing 锅包肉 guobaorou i’ve ever eaten. the lady working there is the sweetest and the soup was really delicious. definitely not the typical kind of chinese food you find in singapore so i highly recommend coming here. the flat yellow blobs pictured at the side of the wok is some flour bread thing that’s unique to changbaishan and it’s worth a try for the experience but for me, it served more as an additional carb.

3. 火山石烤肉 huo shan shi kao rou (slide 7) 🥩

korean bbq with free flow sides! changbaishan borders north korea so you do get quite a few korean cuisine options in this area. this was a very good meal and they cooked the meat for us but i would suggest to avoid getting their soups because they were slightly lacking compared to the rest. definitely get the tofu pictured in the slide though.

4. 萬福楼 wan fu lou (slide 8) 🍲

walking distance from our hotel, we were craving hotpot so this was it. and honestly, can you say you went to china without having hotpot? a solid meal in my books and even though it started snowing right after, the warmth of the meal lingered as i walked back to our hotel.

5. 安姖酸奶 anngee (slide 10) 🍦

a short walk from our hotel, i visited anngee every single day i was in changbaishan. i often reminisce about their stretchy yoghurt and milk skin yoghurt and how they always have fresh fruits and plenty of toppings to go along with it. nice lady boss, charges by weight, very worthwhile.

and that’s a wrap on changbaishan! writing all this out was truly a piece of work but i guess that’s testament to how much i loved the place.

i hope i’ve inspired you to pay a visit to this lesser known part of china, and that you enjoy it as much as i did. ❤️

#traveling #travelrecommendation #china #chinatravelguide #travelitinerary