7 Days in Jixi

Land in Jixi, take the museum's regional rooms, and finish with the iced cold noodles the city counts as its own dish.

1. jixi museum

About 130 km via Mishan to the border lake — 4,380 square kilometres, roughly a third on the Chinese side — then Dangbi town on the southwest shore for boardwalks and fish suppers.

1. jixi xingkai lake
2. jixi dangbi town

The shallow small lake behind the sand ridge, and the shore museum of the 6,000-year fishing culture excavated in 1972; the big lake freezes from late November, ice fishing December to March.

1. jixi small xingkai lake
2. jixi xinkailiu site

The April-May and September-October passages move tens of thousands of waterfowl through the marshes — cranes and storks among them — then the carved-stone corridor near Mishan.

1. jixi xingkai wetland
2. jixi beidahuang calligraphy corridor

About 150 km southeast: the 1934-1939 fortress complex ended by the August 1945 fighting, its factual exhibition halls, and the border-river promenade. Sleep in Hulin.

1. jixi hutou fortress
2. jixi wusuri river hutou

Morning mist over the border river, a river-fish breakfast, then the road back via Mishan for the whitefish that counts among China's four famous freshwater fishes.

1. jixi wusuri river hutou

A forest loop at Qilin Mountain — skis instead December to February — and a last hour in Hengshan's mining park before the evening train.

1. jixi qilin mountain
2. jixi hengshan mining park