Day 161

Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival

This weekend I went to the fourth largest ice festival in the world, the Sancheoneo (Mountain Trout) Ice Festival in Hwacheon.  The city of Hwacheon is due north of my city, Chuncheon, and is about 20km/12mi from the DMZ--exactly halfway between Chuncheon and the DMZ, actually.  It's a cute little town on the Bukhangang river, and the ice festival receives over 1,00,000 visitors each year.

This looks much cooler at night.

This was the last weekend of the festival, so we had to go!  It's only a short $4 bus ride away, so there was no excuse not to.  There was so much to do and see--in fact, I'd say the number and variety of activities available was downright ridiculous.  

So what can you do at the Sancheoneo Ice Festival?  They have a website in English which lists some helpful descriptions for some activities.  First, you can do the popular thing and go ice fishing.

"To mention about ice fishing, you need to catch at least one Sancheoneo. It is an elegant fish underneath ice out of comparison to the other fishes due to moderate size and beautiful shape. Sancheoneo is hard to catch as it is rare but everyone can catch one or two Sancheoneo at Hwacheon with somewhat good luck and knack." --Official Website

There are 11,000 ice fishing holes, and apparently 3 tons of Sancheoneo trout are brought in each day.  The water is only about 2 meters deep, so you are virtually guaranteed to catch a fish.  The holes are spaced out over several hundred meters of the Bukhangang river, sharing the ice with several other activities.  There is a special foreigners-only section with 1,000 holes, which I strongly suspect is located on the thinnest ice.  Then again, maybe on the thickest--there was a definite push for foreigners to come, judging by all the commercials and posters featuring happy Westerners.

There were a lot of people out there!

Didn't bring any fishing gear?  No biggie.  Buy plastic rods and lures at one of these convenient stalls!

Everything is plastic.

Found this guy and had to get a picture with him, but I had to cover up the basketball on his shirt.  I'm not sure if there's a Red Wings basketball team or if they were just confused, but I got the photo anyway.  Gotta represent my hometown, after all.

This picture is only 30% awkward.

The rods were plastic sticks with twisted plastic grates, to which fishing line was attached.  They worked surprisingly well.  Mostly it was families and couples, but there were a few solo middle-aged gentlemen out there.

Double-fisting!  A serious fisherman with serious fishing gear.

Now, I'm not exactly an ice-fishing expert--after all, I despise winter and cold weather--but I'm pretty sure that in Michigan, where ice fishing is popular, they do it a little differently.  The required equipment for ice fishing in Michigan includes a warm hut, a chair, and copious amounts of alcohol, and it's often a winter hobby for men trying to escape their wives and get toasted for a few hours. Here ice fishing seems to be more of a novelty for families and young couples, although I did catch one guy with alcohol.

 The green bottle is full of soju, which is like watered-down vodka.

But ice fishing is far from the only thing to do!  The other activities are... well, a little more bizarre.  You can admire some snow sculptures of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves:

Snow White!  She's got some MANLY shoulders.

Dwarves, sitting on houses?

Ice castle!  There's a gift shop inside that leads into...

Ice tunnel!  This is a legitimate igloo tunnel, it was awesome.

Daaaaang.  This thing was well-built.

Look at the icy architecture!  Brilliant!

You can also slide down a very short ice luge:

And you must scream the entire way down.

You can go ziplining over the river for $10 a person, starting from this ice-fishing bear:

Kinda scary.

There's also a rail park here, which I'm sure is gorgeous in the summer.  (If you don't remember what 'rail bike' is, refresh yourself here.)  Fortunately they covered the bikes.

Cute!  Maybe if they were heated I'd try one.

Oh hey, what's that in the background?  It's a ferry between two sides of the river.  It looks like a police boat surrounded by plastic jugs that are shrink-wrapped together...

Oh.  That's exactly what it is.  Ho hum.

Then there's "Ice Sledding," which is described as "Let's run with iron sticks in hands!  Please enjoy your memories in child in the country."

Looks fun, but exhausting.

Lots of space to do your ice sled thing!

These appear to be Home Depot carts with the wheels removed.

This requires a parent/boyfriend to push.

Honestly.  What is that.

You can play a game of "Ice Soccer," which is exactly like soccer except that the turf is ice and your cleats are just normal shoes.  That's right, normal shoes.  The only redeeming quality of this apparent death trap is that you must wear a helmet.

Why would anyone want to do this?  Looks like a great way to break a leg.

There are go-carts available... on the ice.  It seems like the Koreans are just taking every fun thing they can think of and sticking it on the ice.

This was actually kind of amusing, because half the time the drivers were backwards or careening sideways.
They had zero control over the go-carts.  I cannot understand why this exists.

This snow bicycle actually makes sense:

Although check out the baby in the back... about to fall out?  Asleep?

My personal favorite, and in keeping with Korea's love of ATV's.  They move at a pace of roughly three feet per second.  At least this ice ATV makes more sense than riding them at 10mph on a road.

When they named it the "all-terrain vehicle" I don't think they meant ice.

Awww, ajumma besties.

There's also an activity called "Masou Fishing."  You are given a uniform of shorts and a tee-shirt, then you hop into a freezing-cold tub of water and try to catch a fish with your bare hands.  As far as I can tell, this is mainly an attraction for Koreans to watch masochistic Westerners eager for a 'traditional Korean experience.'   So obviously, we were all planning to do it.

Alas, empty!

Sadly, this wasn't happening today, so these photos are from the website (here, but it's in Korean; the English site doesn't have pictures.)

Notice how all these people are foreigners?

I cannot imagine a fate more miserable than this.

Still all foreigners.  Nobody seems to have a fish.

Apparently afterwards you get to soak your feet in a hot tub, but these people still looks miserable.  And seeing as how there's no photos of foreigners here, I'm guessing that everyone conveniently 'forgot' to tell them about this perk.  Poor, poor waygukin.

Can you believe they make children do this?!  

Disappointed by the lack of half-naked bare-handed fishing, we decided to do some ice fishing.  Fortunately the designated 'foreigner ice' wasn't hard to find.

"Fishing Area for Foreigners Only"

We came around 4pm and it ended at 6pm, plus it was colder than a polar bear's butt, so mostly everyone was gone.  In fact, only one other group was on the ice.  A few people on their way out kindly gave us their 'poles.'

"What the heck are these?" --Everyone

Go, oppa, go!

Excellent form.

We only had three poles between five people, so we let the boys go first.  You know, to let them catch dinner and feel manly and all that.

Patience is a virtue, boys.

Soon, victory!  The first fish was hooked.

This photo is not artistically tilted, I just dropped the camera.  :(

Awwww yeah, look at that delicious feisty fish!

It's really hard to unhook a fish when you can't feel your cold, wet fingers.

One in the bag!

Between the five of us, we caught seven fish, although one was too small and we threw it back.  Not bad for a seriously overstocked pond.  Not to brag, but I caught the biggest fish.  (Thanks to Eric-oppa for the photos of me!)

Dressed for the occasion.  I've got footwarmers and handwarmers, and I loveloveLOVE my parka!

Victory!

I tried doing a kiss-the-fish photo but it turned out pretty weird looking.  This was better.

Awww yeah biggest fish, that's mine!

And the best part of ice fishing?  Devouring our delicious catch!  This was some of the most delicious fish I have ever eaten.  They prepare it for you with some kind of sauce that definitely contained salt and curry.  All they do is take the scales off, put on the spices, and wrap it in tinfoil.   [UPDATE: I found this article that confirmed my theory about the salt-and-curry mix: “Just for the foreign visitors, we add some salt mixed with our secret ingredient - curry powder - and then slather the fish with butter before wrapping it in aluminum foil and grilling it,” a fishmonger at the barbecue stand said.]

SO DELICIOUS.  WOW.

When I said 'devour,' I meant it.

Finally, we went to Baskin Robbins to warm up.  Yes, really.  It was that cold.  They name some of the flavors after movies here, like "Puss in Boots 2," "My Mom Is An Alien," and my personal favorite, "Dark Choco Knight."  We walked around a bit, took a bus back to Chuncheon, and went out for dinner!  And that sums up our day at the Sancheoneo Ice Festival in Hwacheon!

Cheers,
Ashton