We never thought we would say this, but we went ice fishing. Yep. We sat on a huge frozen lake, put a line into the water and pulled out a fish. It was actually quite entertaining! Would we ice fish again? Probably not, but mainly because we had a hard time seeing the fish die. Would we go to the ice festival again and partake in the activities? You betcha! About a year ago we found a video online about a huge ice fishing festival that took place in Korea each year. We had told ourselves that if we ever made it to Korea, no matter what, we were going to go to this festival. Well, now we’re here, so we had to make it happen! It was easiest to get to the festival by bus. The Seoul Hiking Group (who we have used on some of our other excursions) was going so we jumped at the opportunity and signed up to take their bus up to the northern part of Korea! We had to be in Seoul pretty early in order to catch the bus but it was all worth it. Our alarm clocks went off at 5:15 and we dragged ourselves out of bed. After a whirlwind of packing, putting on layers upon layers of clothing, and saying goodbye to the kitties, we were off to Seoul to catch our bus for the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival (I think Sancheoneo means trout in Korean)! It was about an hour and a half hour bus ride from Seoul to the festival, which was located up in Hwacheon County in Gangwon-do. It’s a really pretty area in the northern part of the country. The area is surrounded by lots of mountains. It was pretty cold when we got off the bus, but the sun was out which helped a lot. We were immediately ushered to the fishing area where all the fun began! Let me first start by explaining that there aren’t many foreigners at this festival. The Korean population by far outnumbered the foreigners who were fishing. It was actually quite easy to see how many more Koreans there were than foreigners because the foreigners had their own fishing area! There was probably 1% of the amount of foreigners as there were Korean attendees. The amount of Korean attendees was absolutely amazing. I would have never thought I would see so many people ice fishing at once. Anyway, we made our way over to an ice hole and dropped our lines in. No joke, within about 30 seconds we each had a fish! We quickly pulled the fish out and a helper came over and helped us bag our catch. We were allowed to catch up to three fish, but after we had to watch our fish flop around and die, we were good after catching just one. We headed off the ice and over to the eating area! After catching a fish, we had to bring it over to a tent, where workers were cooking other fish that had been caught. We would turn in our fish and got a hot grilled fish in return. It was delicious! Now that we were full we were off to participate in all the cold weather activities! Our first stop was the ice sculpture exhibit. We had to walk across town to get to it but that was a neat experience in itself! We finally made it to an indoor arena that was deemed to be the largest indoor ice sculpture plaza in the world. Since Korea is hosting the Olympics in 2018, the theme was past Olympic cities. The sculptures were huge and absolutely amazing. I think our favorite ones were probably the China buildings representing the Olympics hosted by China, but they were all really neat. Next we trekked back across town to the frozen lake. As we were walking back, we came across a live performance of some sort that seemed to be attracting all the older women. We, of course, had to stop and watch. It was quite the music and it was pretty funny to watch the ajummas (middle aged Korean woman) dance to this guy’s jams. We finally made it back to the lake where we participated in an interesting ice activity. I really have no idea what it is called, but I guess the best way to put it would be seated ice-skating. We were given a piece of wood that was big enough to sit on cross-legged. On the bottom of the wood were long ice-skating blades. You were also given two short sticks about the length from your hand to your elbow, and you used these sticks to push yourself around. This seems so simple, but it was actually a lot of fun! We probably spent a good thirty to forty five minutes on these things. We finally left because there were other activities we wanted to do. Next we headed over to the sledding zone. This may have been the best sledding experience of my entire life. After purchasing our tickets (which were good for five turns) we grabbed a tube and headed up the rickety ramp that lead to the large downhill slide. This slide was set up on the frozen lake so when you went down the slide you flew onto the ice and just kept going. I probably could have done this a dozen times, but we wanted to see the rest of the festival. Next we went to an area that educated us about an old Korean games. The best game is called Nul Ddui Gi. I guess the best way to describe it is like a grown up seesaw. But instead of sitting, you jump. You and your partner have to find a rhythm, which is way harder than it sounds, and you can really catch some air if you get your timing right. Casey and I tried for a while (which was quiet amusing for our Korean audience) and then Casey tried with a well-experienced Korean lady. They actually did really well! There is a festival dedicated to this game that takes place in the spring, so we may need to hit it up since we are pretty much pros at it. After all this activity it was time to eat! We ran across a ramen cooking machine and it is the most amazing cooking machine known to mankind. We order our ramen in the vending machine, and after it gave us the packet we went over to this little machine that dispenses water and cooks it in about three minutes. We just told the machine what brand of ramen we ordered and presto! The machine was all in Korean, so knowing some of the alphabet helped us out. It cooked the ramen and it was awesome! While we were cooking our ramen a group came by that had nametags on that said “Olympic Committee.” There was a man leading the group and they stopped in front of the machine while the leading man explained it. The other men took notes, nodded in approval, saw that Casey and I were operating it and were on their way. So if you make it to the Olympics, and there is this awesome ramen cooking machine, it is probably due to the fact that Casey and I were able to show the Olympic Committee that foreigners can operate a ramen machine. No need to thank us now, thank us once you try the ramen. Oh, a media person for the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival stopped us while we were eating and taught us how to say, “We love the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival!” in Korean. After two takes he was happy with how we sounded and thanked us for our time and took off. Maybe we will be used in an advertisement one day! Who knows?! It was finally getting dark so we started to head back to the main ice fishing area where the fireworks would be going off! As we were walking back we passed an area where people get into knee-deep water and try to catch the fish with their bare hands. Ummm no thank you. Considering it was about 20 degrees and we were both freezing, we decided to pass. We decided staying fully clothed was the better option. Prior to the fireworks, a singing group performed and they sang some old Abba songs, which was awesome! The songs were a mix of Korean and English so it was quite funny to hear. After they sang “Dancing Queen” for the second time, the fireworks started. After about fifteen minutes, the fireworks ended and we headed back to the bus and made our way safely home. We also spent one of our weekends exploring Namhansanseong Fortress. The fortress is located to the southeast of Seoul and is really easy to get to if you take the SRT train to Suseo station. The fortress itself is located on Mt. Namhansan and was built around 2,000 years ago but underwent an upgrade in 1621 during the Joseon dynasty. The night before our hike it had snowed a bit, so the hike ended up being a beautiful winter hike. We hiked around the entire fortress and it ended up being around an 8-10 mile hike. We had worn plenty of layers but MAN, it can still get cold, even though we were always moving. There were lots of temples to see along the way and plenty of views of the surrounding are. From the very top of the mountain we got a pretty amazing view of Seoul. The fortress itself had a wall surrounding it and it looked like a really small version of the Great Wall of China. We, of course, couldn’t resist taking a billion pictures along the trail. The winter atmosphere was really amazing. We also spent a day in Seoul exploring an area near Hongik University. The area really reminded us of Seattle and we immediately fell in love with it. We also saw a small flea market and bought some post cards from a girl who drew them herself. We also went to the Garak Fish Market, which is one of the largest wholesale fish markets in Korea! It was quite the relaxing day, and a day in Seoul can never be beat!
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