Day 4 - 22nd July 2002

Travel - 0745

The soft tones of the morning call awoke us from our slumber this morning. We had breakfast in a high ceiling, glass paned hall overlooking the lake. The view was good and helped our appetites at breakfast.

At 0900, we boarded the bus after many discrepancies over luggage. It took four hours to reach the destination and really, I was already quite fed up with long bus rides.

Along the way to Lian Ji, we learnt of the procedures involved in extracting gall juice from black bears. The process is highly graphical and does not warrant any place on this web site. Please email me if there are any questions.

Trade along the border mainly involves Russians and Chinese. The Russians are affectionately named (老毛子) in these parts. They have a lot of heavy industry and we Chinese sell our light goods to get money to buy their heavy goods such as construction vehicles and cars.

We had the usual lunch after the stretched ride.

Bear Farm - 1300

After lunch, we traveled to a bear farm where 'authentic' gall bladder extract is made. There are many parts to this farm. One part is for bear observation. One part is for marketing purposes and one part is for gall bladder extraction. There are probably many other parts that we have not visited.

The bears had aggressive tendencies and the situation was like in Gladiator where spectators jeered and cheered for the fighters.

The Marketing area is where we all sit down and listen to a marketing officer recite the benefits of gall bladder extract. The medical advantages claimed by the potion is not just peanuts. The potion can allegedly cure liver problems and promote vision. Whether the claims have any ground or not is open to personal experience.

Dinner - 1830

On our way to dinner, we stopped by a grocery stall to restock our larders with fruit. An essential food which was found to be inadequate in our daily diet.

Dinner today - in order to satisfy us youngsters, was eaten in a Korean BBQ restaurant. Plates of raw flesh greeted us as we sat down at our places. Buckets of charcoal was brought to the stoves in front of us and lit, providing the heat in which we cook the raw flesh.

Hotel - 2030

We arrived shortly after a meaty feast in the restaurant. Here was a hotel in the city with free pool facilities, so I used them. Unfortunately, the water quality was so bad, I could only see 1 metre ahead of me and manoeuvring was severely impaired. After my exercise, I played cards until twilight hours.

---< end of day 4 >---