Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival and Cheongpyeongsa Temple

This past weekend I decided to leave Gwangju and head north to the city of Chuncheon for the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival (화천산천어축제). The Ice Festival was picked as one of the 'Seven Winter Wonders of the World' by CNN in 2012 and really didn't disappoint.

Ice Fishing festivals are great. Especially when the town is covered in colorful fish decorations.

I left Gwangju after school on Friday and 4.5 hours later I was in Chuncheon. I met my friend Emily at the bus terminal (she lives in Daegu and arrived before me) and then we walked to a Jjimjilbang called Whasan Spa Land. Jjimjilbangs are public bath houses where you can also spend the night. Whasan Spa Land has 4 floors; reception, a women's floor, a mixed common area, and a men's floor. For 8000₩ you receive a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, a locker, unlimited time in the baths and saunas, access to a computer room and exercise room, and a place to sleep. While there are gender-segregated floors for bathing, there's a large mixed-gender common room where you can watch T.V. and sleep.
I feel like I can't properly explain Jjimjilbangs without writing an absurd amount and boring you to death so here's a link where you can learn more: About Jjimjilbangs

After a semi-restless night of sleep thanks to the loudest snorer I've ever heard, we checked out of the Jjimjilbang and bought our bus tickets to Hwacheon (45 min. away). Since this is such a popular festival, there was already a line for the bus at 9:30am but the buses were coming every 20 minutes. The bus ride to Hwacheon was really beautiful. I kept catching glimpses of people ice fishing on the water and sledding.

You just sleep where you lay your mat. This Jjimjilbang was crowded.

After a quick Kimpab lunch in Hwacheon, we walked towards the river and the majority of the festival. I say majority because the entire town was decked out in festival decorations (fish everywhere!) and some events were farther away from the river. Walking up to the river was incredible because you were able to see the sheer size of the festival crowd. What looked like thousands of people were set up on the river ice fishing, eating, ice skating, sledding, and partaking in other icy activities. To say that I was giddy with excitement when we arrived would be an understatement. Our first goal of the day was to find the Foreigners Only Ice Fishing Area. Yes, you read that right. The river was divided into many different sections but there was one special section where Foreigners could go ice fishing. We bought our ticket (8,000₩) and immediately received a 5,000₩ coupon that could be used anywhere at the festival. Of course, we were than told that we needed to buy our fishing rod next door...for 5,000₩. Well played...

Lots of people at the festival. Judging looks as I took this pictures.

I think this photo explains itself.

We spent 2 hrs ice fishing and I DIDN'T CATCH A FISH. I got over it pretty fast but I was really looking forward to bagging my own fish. It especially hurts now because I was just looking at the festival website again and saw this "It is not easy to catch Sancheoneo because of it's rarity. But at Hwacheon Ice festival, we put 2~3 tons of Sancheoneo everyday into the river. So with piece of luck and by some skills, everyone can catch it very easily." Thank you website for rubbing it in and confirming how I'm a total failure. Although I didn't catch anything, Emily managed to catch one. We took the freshly caught fish to a stand right across from the fishing area, paid 2000₩, and enjoyed a delicious baked fish lunch. I wish we had caught more- so yummy.

Ice fishing.

With our lunch. So so good.

After fishing we walked along the river, snacked on street food, people watched, and debated trying out other activities. I had initially wanted to go ice skating but ice fishing seemed to drain our energy. While we didn't try out any other activities, we did watch the Bare-Handed Ice Fishing event. Men and women were given shorts and a T-shirt and then had maybe 5 minutes to catch as many fish as possible. I mention the clothes because they're really important to bare-handed ice fishing. People shoved any fish they caught down their shirts for safe keeping. It was really fun to watch. They also had a kids bare-handed fishing event before the adults. One of my favorite things about the competition was the M.C. He was yelling into the crowd and trying to get us pumped before the event. If we cheered loudly, he would throw a live fish into the crowd. I had two fish thrown in my direction but a crazy ajumma (older lady) grabbed them before I could.

Bare-handed fishing for the brave.

This man is a hero. Yes, that's a fish in his mouth. A live fish.

When we finished exploring the river, it was time to check out the Illuminated Ice Sculptures on the other side of town. The sculptures were breathtakingly beautiful. We had a lot of fun taking pictures but left after a short time- it was super cold in there! Shortly thereafter we caught a bus back to Chuncheon and made our way to Myeongdong Street. This street is well-known for a dish called Dakgalbi (super delicious stir-fried chicken, cabbage, and spicy sauce) and we practically breathed in the food. After eating our fill, we headed back to the Jjimjilbang for bed.

So many ice sculptures. So beautiful and colorful.

Many of the sculptures were famous buildings and temples from around the world. Mt. Rushmore was there.

It took us forever to find but we found Dakgalbi Street!

We woke up early Sunday morning and made our way to Soyang Dam, Asia's largest and the world's fourth largest rock-filled dam. While it was really beautiful, it was really cold. At 10, we caught the first ferry to Cheongpyeongsa Temple. The temple was built in 973 and has a myth about a princess attached to it. There was once a man who loved a princess but died. He came back to earth as a snake and preceded to attach himself to the princess and would not get off. Since she wanted the stalker snake gone, she went to the temple and performed a Buddhist ceremony. The snake left and she build a Pagoda at the temple in thanks. It's name, Gongju Pagoda, translates to Princess Pagoda. The temple is a 30 minute walk from the dock and passes the Guseong Waterfall- which was pretty small and happened to be partially frozen. The temple grounds were pretty and I ended up buying some traditional snacks to bring back to my co-workers. Since we both had work the following day, we caught the ferry back and then caught buses home.

Soyang Dam in the morning. Everything is fish-shaped!

A view from the ferry

The frozen waterfall.

The princess and the snake. A statue on the way to the temple.

I didn't like any of my pictures of the actual temple but this ceiling shot turned out well.

The trip was really fun and I'm glad I did it. I'm definitely going to try to travel around Korea more so expect more interesting posts in the future.

Peace!