Holiday Journal

• Start
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• Mountain Trout Festival
•  
• Hwacheon Market
•  
• Seondeung Street
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• Makeshift stage
•  
• Ice fishing place
•  
• Fishes
•  
• Finish

Since we enjoyed fishing enough, now it's time to eat something. Right across the street from ice fishing place, you could find a fire pot that you could get your trout baked right after you catch them. It looks like a container of big sweet potato. It costs 2,000 won for one trout and they will serve you baked fish steaming. It takes approximately 15 minutes.

After I got the waiting number ticket, we headed to the raw fish center right next to it.

If you pay 2,000 won, you could eat raw trout that you just caught. Dip it in red chili-pepper paste with vinegar and put it in your mouth, you will love the chewy texture. If you didn't catch any but still want to eat it, you are going to have to pay 30,000 won. But I believe there is no one who wouldn't enjoy fishing when they went through all the troubles coming here because raw fish tastes so much better when you catch it.

While I was enjoying raw fish, 15 minutes flew so I went to get baked fish I ordered. I saw tempting baked fish steaming as I carefully opened aluminum foil. I didn't expect much but it was delicacy with delicious smell and tender taste.

This is the event where you catch fish with bare hands. I doubted if there are people jumping in the water in this cold winter but I saw it was very popular. I guess everyone wants to look good to the people they love or their kids. It attracted a lot of reporters as well since it's not only a game for participants but also it makes a good game for people who watch it, unfortunately I could not watch it because it was on weekday.

There is no Bungeobbang(carp-shaped bun) in Hwacheon. But it has a better one, that is Sancheoneobbang(trout-shaped bun). Sancheoneobbang look like a fresh water fish and thinner than Bungeobbang which attracts people's attention.

At the skate rental shop, people were putting safety helmets on kids who rent a skate. Kids were getting ready to go out on the ice in groups to enjoy skating on the river. It's a natural skating rink.

I had to take a closer look at the bicycle on the ice and strangely enough, it was a bicycle for ice rink with blades from a racing sled attached instead of front wheel.

The kids were sliding on the pieces of ice. The big lamb, the symbol of the year 2015 was looking down on them.

I remember riding a sled as a kid and it still exists. Their arms must hurt from swinging them but they seem so excited to run a race again.

Okay, I couldn't resist this newly fried hot dog so I had one in my mouth and kept walking.

I used the gift coupon that was included in the entrance ticket to buy agricultural products grown in this region. I could get good quality peanuts, wild edible greens, mixed grains and other things.

We crossed back the train track and headed to my car.

I was curious about trout that we asked them to bake and prepare raw fish so I checked and found out trout is a kind of Salmonidae that did not go to the sea but stayed and adapted to fresh water. These are leftovers after I gave people for gift so I am about to keep them in the fridge and eat it as I bring back my memory.

There are so many local festivals held by local government. The most popular ones are Butterfly Festival in Hampyeong, Flower Festival in Goyang and International Garden Exposition Suncheon Bay Korea. Mountain Trout Festival in Hwacheon has become a very successful local festival now. Among many reasons, first one is that people could catch trout easily that would worth enough to cover the entrance fee, second reason is that there are more than 24,000 trout-shaped lanterns around the place that successfully embodies the same image as the festival theme, and the third reason is that anybody including families or couples could enjoy since they design and offer various events other than fishing which include sculpt of snowflakes, ice sledding, lure fishing, Eolgomi bicycle and catching trouts with bare hands events. It is two hours away from Seoul so I believe it is considerably attractive to experience new things not only for Seoul citizens but also for tourists visiting Korea.