Heaven Lake
Ann accompanied her son and daughter-in-law on a visit to Heaven Lake.
Heaven Lake is a crater lake on the border between China and North Korea. It lies on top the volcanic Paektu Mountain. The south part is in North Korea and the north part is in northeastern China.
Both the lake and the mountain are culturally very important to the Korean people. Mount Paektu is mentioned in the anthems of both North and South Korea, and it is considered to be the spiritual home of the Koreans.
Chinese buses drive tourists through a national park up to a base at the bottom of the mountain.
That is when you get to line up during the busy tourist season.
From the base, minibuses then take you up the mountain near the crest. You then climb up to the top of the mountain. This is where the second line starts.
Since Ann went during the Chinese Dragon Race long weekend, they were part of a large crowd of tourists. You can see the very long line of tourists working their way up to the very top.
Looking down at the at the rows of minibuses and lines of tourists from the top of the mountain.
This is a photo of Ann with her younger son and her daughter-in-law. Everyone is dressed in their winter coats.
These photos were taken in late June and there is still ice on the lake.
At 2750 m (9,003 ft), Mt. Paektu is the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula and in northeastern China.
Heaven Lake fills the deepest crater lake in the world, and also one of the coldest. It is the source of the two longest Korean rivers—Amnok (803 km) and Tumen (521 km) which serve as Sino-Korean border almost over its entire length.
How do South Koreans’ visit Heaven Lake?
Koreans consider Mount Paektu not only as a heart of Korean Revolution against the Japanese but also as the place of their ancestral origin and as a sacred mountain.
Heads of states North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in visited Mount Paektu and Heaven Lake on 20 September 2018. President Moon filled a bottle with water from the lake to take back to South Korea.
For ordinary South Korean’s they need to travel to China. Planes from South Korea usually land in Yanji, the seat of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in northeast China. It is home to a large ethnic Korean community. In Yanbian, all store signs are both in Chinese and Korean.
My next trip to China
I may visit Yanji and Tumen, two Chinese cities that border the eastern side of North Korea as I can reach them by high-speed train. To get to Heaven’s Lake, I’d have to take a bus and/or a regular train.
I have lots of time to plan that trip.