Well, after many consecutive weekends spent glued to the computer screen, playing Warcraft (yes, I know- I whined about Tom playing, but he got me addicted!!), Tom and I finally tore ourselves away and signed up for a trip with a travel group to a winter festival in Hwacheon, Korea. Our wake up call was at 6:00, and we were very tempted to ignore it and continue sleeping, since we had been up late the night before with some friends. After a couple of rounds with the snooze button, we dragged ourselves out of bed to catch the subway to the meeting place. The bus ride out was a fairly uneventful 3 hours- most people slept. I played FreeCell on our sweet Korean cell-phone, which Tom has somehow made to sound like a sword being pulled out of it's scabbard when it opens (it's his new favourite toy).
Hwacheon is close to the Eastern side of Korea, and it's about 30km south of the DMZ. The town has a population of 30,000- 12,000 of which are people in the army!! It was kind of like a cold Folk Fest, with a few modifications; ice replaced the gross mud, clean Koreans replaced the dirty hippies, and speakers blaring weird Korean pop songs and the odd Kenny G. tune replaced the folkie alternative music. So really, you can see the many similarities.
So, we started off our eventful day ice fishing. No one in our group was particularly successful, although I did see a few fish swimming. Eventually a Korean man came with a cooler full of fish and told everyone in the group to take a fish and put it on their hook and get their photo taken. I guess that they had little faith in our fishing skills. Not that we exactly proved them wrong, but whatever.
We spent the next few hours riding on these crazy ice bikes with skis instead of wheels in the back, and walking around the festival grounds, before we met back up with the group for our main event. On the Adventure Korea website, the activity had been advertised as bare hands fishing, and I had pictured us standing beside a tank with our sleeves rolled up, trying to grab a fish. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. When they gave us shorts, T-shirts and sandals and pointed us in the direction of the change room, I was worried. Our group of 20 foreigners left the change room together, shyly staying close to the other group members. There were many Koreans gathered around us and the tank which we were apparently supposed to be jumping into in a few minutes, who looked as though they never missed this event for the world. We were definitely the hit show at the circus. So, we all edged around this freezing cold, icy pool, and jumped in when the gong was hit.
Hwacheon is close to the Eastern side of Korea, and it's about 30km south of the DMZ. The town has a population of 30,000- 12,000 of which are people in the army!! It was kind of like a cold Folk Fest, with a few modifications; ice replaced the gross mud, clean Koreans replaced the dirty hippies, and speakers blaring weird Korean pop songs and the odd Kenny G. tune replaced the folkie alternative music. So really, you can see the many similarities.
So, we started off our eventful day ice fishing. No one in our group was particularly successful, although I did see a few fish swimming. Eventually a Korean man came with a cooler full of fish and told everyone in the group to take a fish and put it on their hook and get their photo taken. I guess that they had little faith in our fishing skills. Not that we exactly proved them wrong, but whatever.
We spent the next few hours riding on these crazy ice bikes with skis instead of wheels in the back, and walking around the festival grounds, before we met back up with the group for our main event. On the Adventure Korea website, the activity had been advertised as bare hands fishing, and I had pictured us standing beside a tank with our sleeves rolled up, trying to grab a fish. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. When they gave us shorts, T-shirts and sandals and pointed us in the direction of the change room, I was worried. Our group of 20 foreigners left the change room together, shyly staying close to the other group members. There were many Koreans gathered around us and the tank which we were apparently supposed to be jumping into in a few minutes, who looked as though they never missed this event for the world. We were definitely the hit show at the circus. So, we all edged around this freezing cold, icy pool, and jumped in when the gong was hit.
After posing for some pictures, trying to keep as much of our body our of the water as possible, we began the bare hands fishing even. It was somewhat of a mad scramble. They told us we couldn’t get out until we had caught two fish, which we were supposed to store in our pocket. I’m not sure if they were being serious. Once I started I got really into it, and I ended up catching 6 fish!!!! With my hands!!!! Keep in mind that Tom (who grew up living by a lake) caught 2, and no one else caught more than 4! I guess I’ll never go hungry (Although I was somewhat disgusted at the thought of eating it). I threw them out to the eager spectators, but my hands were so cold that I could barely throw- I ended up hitting one woman in the face with a fish, knocking her camera out of her hands. Woops. With the remaining movement we had in our hands and feet, we all scampered out of the water and into the sauna/change room, when we huddled for the next 25 minutes to get warm.
After our body temperature had warmed to sufficiently above hypothermic, Tom and I decided to hike up the nearby mountain. The path was ridiculously icy and slippery, but we got out of the crush of people that is Korea, which was definitely worth sacrificing our safety. The view was worth the effort, anyways. We began the treacherous walk down, and emerged safely to meet up with our group for the drive home.
After our body temperature had warmed to sufficiently above hypothermic, Tom and I decided to hike up the nearby mountain. The path was ridiculously icy and slippery, but we got out of the crush of people that is Korea, which was definitely worth sacrificing our safety. The view was worth the effort, anyways. We began the treacherous walk down, and emerged safely to meet up with our group for the drive home.
