Ice, Ice, Baby

We arrived in Hwacheon, a city about an hour and a half away from North Korea. The air was crisp and a steady snow was falling.

The small town reminded me one that would be used for the setting of a Hollywood movie. It's a Wonderful Life-like. Small stores, friendly people and a cheerful atmosphere. I felt like I could've walked around there all day, letting the snow fall on my face while admiring the decorations celebrating the town's annual ice festival. I felt great. I felt like grabbing a random Korean girl and giving her the Jimmy Stewart monologue.

But then I realized it wasn't nighttime. There was no moon. There was no Mary. There was Sang-Hee-Wee and she probably wouldn't speak much English.

I decided to drop the idea and head for the festivus. Heading into the festival, I wasn't expecting much of anything. I don't know why. I just figured it would be a bunch of foreigners taking turns trying to catch fish around one small hole; trying to keep warm with a couple bottles of Soju and Dimple. The body of water would probably be about the size of the 3rd pond at Fulton Park.

You know the pond. The one that is partially hidden from the road behind a stone wall? Nobody likes to look at it. Many deny its existence. Two-headed trolls and other ghastly creatures have been known to make their homes in and around this disgusting mess of nature. If you're lucky, you might find a couple baseballs that Matt "Party Crashing" Carr launched from a few of the upper diamonds.

But I was pleasantly surprised. The area playing home to the festival was enormous. It equaled the entire length of Fulton Park. Thousands of people littered the grounds. There were three huge expanses of ice dedicated to ice-fishing, one for ice soccer, a couple more for go-karts/ATVs and a final pool for swimming. Also, huge snow/ice sculptures surrounded the boundaries of the ice. Amazing and detailed illustrations of animal faces and people. Ice cold.

Ice-fishing was difficult. The trip organizer gave us what resembled a fly swatter, and attached a string and some bait to the end. My bait was neon-green. I don't think I could've caught a fish with down-syndrome.

It seemed like it also takes quite a long time to catch a fish. A ton of patience. A few Koreans seemed like they had been there a couple days. Lying on the ground, blue in the face, on the brink of hypothermia.

After ice-fishing, we headed over to the final section of the ice festival. Where old men go to die.

When we arrived, a group of young Korean men and women were standing around a pool of ice water. They were dressed in small shorts and t-shirts, shivering in the 15 degree temperatures. I eventually put two and two together. They were going to jump in. And why were we here? Because we were also going to jump in.

The Koreans jumped into the the water and screams of terror erupted from the below 0 water. The idea of this exercise, besides making your heart stop, was for the participants to search for and catch fish with their bare-hands. These men and women actually seemed to catch a lot of fish. It didn't look that difficult.

However, I still was not going in the water. I was too young to die. And dying in a foreign country? Who wants to do that? Talk about a hassle for family and friends.

But, peer pressure has always been one of my worst faults. I got sucked in. I couldn't face the outcry and bashing I would get if I didn't make the jump.

About thirty other foreigners and myself walked bare-foot along the snow and out towards the pool of death. The area itself is shaped like an arena. There is a small pool down below and then crowds of people watching and trash-talking from up above. (I think someone actually threw a soju bottle down at me).

Anyway, when I looked around at the 30 foreigners in bright orange t-shirts and 100 Koreans watching/taking bets on who would fall first, I felt like a clown put there for someone's amusement. They were all laughing at us, entertained by our stupidity. As they should have been.

It kind of felt similar to that scene in A.I. when the robots are tortured to the sheer delight of human spectators.

I jumped into the water.

Honestly, telling you the water was extremely cold does not suffice. It felt like needles were being pulled out and then driven squarely back into my legs. I stood there, frozen with fear, frozen with...well. Frozen.

I didn't even look for fish. Quite honestly, I don't think there were any fish left after the previous group. I quickly gathered my senses and headed towards the ladder to escape the pool of misery. I think I was the second guy out and actually elbowed a couple girls out of the way to get to the escape route first. Put my legs in a hot bath and can finally feel them thawing out today.

I will never, ever put myself in this type of situation again.

Unless someone asks me twice.