Ice Fishing!

There are many things to do in Korea at this time of year, all of them involving ice/cold/snow/the possibility of pneumonia. One that struck us as being highly entertaining, however, was the Hwacheon Ice Fishing festival, a month long event in which people get together and bond over a love of standing over a small hole, in a large frozen river, for hours trying to catch a 'subtly nutty flavoured' trout. Obviously I was very much in from the start. Especially as this years theme was 'Unforgettable Memories, Unfrozen Hearts.' Now ain't that touching?

After waiting for half of our group in a bar at DongSeoul Friday evening, and getting a little tipsy on the way, we all headed to a jimjilbang for the night before catching our 8.15 Saturday morning bus. I was confident that I could remember where the jimjilbang that Anda and I visited in the summer was, (I mean, it was a huge, huge building, where would it go?) but it seemed that once more my infallible sense of direction was thwarted and we ended up wandering around for a while before settling, finally, in a pretty shit bath house. Still, it was fun, especially as it was Aisling, Nicola and Ruth's first time getting it all out in such a public setting. After soaking away the cold, we headed to the sleepy section and most of us got some shut eye.

For once, the actual journey to our destination, Hwacheon, went without a hitch. We had a short stop off at Chuncheon, which enabled us to grab something to drink, some cash and a Frank (who, incidentally, left his girlfriend stuck at the front of the bus, while pushing his way to meet us at the back - wanker) and before we knew it we were motoring on by some beautiful landscape and a bloody huge frozen river - very exciting for me, seeing as I'd never seen one before that day. They're very pretty indeed, and as you know from previous posts I'm completely enamoured with the Korean countryside, so the valleys were like a large slice of cake for the eyes. Though not like that cake Belinda and I shoved in our face that time though, that burnt like hell.

When we emerged, a little achy, from the coach, we found out that there was no accommodation left in the town - a reminder to book ahead for festivals in small, small towns. Still, I had faith in the Korean way, and luckily enough, we received a call halfway through the day that we had acquired two rooms in a (very pricey) minbak right in the centre of town. Cockroaches came free, apparently.

There was so much to do at the festival that we didn't really know where to start, so just jumped around like children, with bright, shining eyes, for a while shouting, 'Let's go do activities'! There was ice soccer, mini ice hockey, human ice bowling, and rubber tubing, all of which I enjoyed immensely, despite falling on my ass frequently. The fact that positive discrimination came into play, seeing as we got cheap tickets to stuff for being waeguks, plus free coupons to things only added to our joy. Next came the piece de resistance, bare hand fishing. We all decided to pay up and head in to the water to try our hand at catching a fish with, you guessed it, our bare hands. In sub zero weather, this was a nerve wracking prospect, but, I'm proud to say, not one person backed out, except for Frank, but really, who was shocked? We all trudged to the changing rooms to don our sexy orange t-shirts and blue shorts and were herded back out into the cold, being shown off to the excitable crowd, like so many cattle in a farmer's market. A lot of hanging around later and we were allowed to dip our feet into the water to 'get a feel' for what we were about to endure. Part of me wishes I hadn't done this. Nevertheless, a minute later and we all jumped in, determined to catch one of the delicious Sancheon trout that we'd been lead to believe from the guidebook, were so easy to catch. This was a lie. What I also didn't bet on was how cold the water would be. My whole body was assaulted with pins and needles and it took less than 20 seconds for most of my body to become completely numb. Dan was the first person to catch a fish, I reckon it has something to do with being Canadian, they're good at the type of thing, Canada being a place, 'much too cold for good sense', according to The Life of Pi. Martel also mentions something about bad hair, but that's by the by. I decided that I wasn't going to move until I had a fishie in my hand, so I waited and, YES!!! I was rewarded!!!! I lifted my arm and the crowd went wild! Out I'd pulled....a fish shaped bloody rock. Arse. I duly returned to the water, but alas, I had to give up. There was no way that I could have stayed in any longer. So annoyed, but oh well.

The rest of the evening was filled with dinner, part of which was Henry the trout, heading to an ice palace, with slides - yes slides (hello, falling on my ass again), and a few drinks in a bar. Bed time was pretty early, as continuing with the small excitable children theme, we'd all pretty much wiped ourselves out by 10.

Sunday started off with, ahem, an awful snowfall, which cleared up pretty well during the day. We decided to brave cross country skiing, which to be honest, to me seems like extreme walking, just not that extreme (regardless of the 'not extreme' part, hello falling on my ass again, being paralysed with pain for at least 30 seconds). Still, it was fun while it lasted and we got a prize for completing the course, as did Catriona, who didn't actually do the course, owing to a bad finger. Instead she got a fire and cake. Hmph. After we did some more ice skating. I was bloody awful compared to the previous day, when I was just bad, and had to resort to being towed around by Ruth, much to the mirth of everyone else. I blame the skates. We rounded off the day with some fresh produce buying with our gift certificates and then a spot of ice fishing. Ice fishing, for those that have, like I had until this winter, never given it much thought, is holding a plastic rod over a small hole in the ice and moving it up and down, so the trout underneath think your fish shaped bait is in trouble and eat it. Dan, unsurprisingly caught a fish in the first 2 seconds, followed, slightly more surprisingly, by a very proud Hugh, who then spent the next 10 minutes regaling us with tales of the catch and talking about being a man, then punched the fish in the face. Oh, how that scene from the Inbetweeners was recreated. All we needed was Seb naked with a sock over his wang and we would have had the entire thing.

Again feeling slightly dejected (the ones that didn't catch fish anyway), we headed out to cook the fish that we'd caught. I loved this part as it made me feel like a true person of nature. Communing with the planet and all that. Ok, so an hour later we were on a bus kicking out more fumes than a steam engine, heading for one of the most polluted cities in the world, but the illusion was nice, even if only for a short time.