Week 53 – 54 – The Hwacheon Ice and Mountain Trout Festival

Sharon and Annelise came over for a quick week around some school holidays – ended up being a busy week as I was working and also had a quick trip to Tokyo, met up with an old friend, and finished the weekend in Beijing. Since I have 3 – 80 hour weeks ahead of me I will pace my write ups over the next couple of weeks. An unexpected treat during the week was the Ice and Trout Festival. I am in several ”Meetup” groups and a notice came out for this event and although we couldn’t make it with the larger group, we decided to take an afternoon and check it out on our own.

It was about a 2 hour drive and as we were heading north, we crossed the 38th parallel marker and some guards along the road and got a bit nervous that we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in that other country. But we were on the right track and ended up finding it. Not that crowded on a mid-week afternoon (but almost a million the prior weekend). It was everything to do with ice – fishing, skating, sledding, sculptures, bike sleds, hockey, and typical festival food (at least typical Korean food). Didn’t plan on fishing, but for $5 it was worth a try and we hit our “foreigner limit” – everyone was very welcoming and helpful in getting us outfitting then cooking our catch. The local press cameraman was very helpful to Sharon and Annelise – for some reason was more focused on them than he was me. Lots of ROK soldiers there – I guess they are posted in the DMZ and this was a break.