Ice Fishing Festival

These last two weeks were a lot of fun! Bryon came to visit us! We spent a lot of time in Seoul traveling as well as Gongju and some other surrounding cities. But the highlight was the ice fishing festival! There is an organization we like called Adventure Korea. They set up weekend trips for foreigners to various places around Korea. They take care of everything (transportation, food, lodging, activities, etc…). So, the weekend started out with a bus ride to the festival in a northern province (about 30-40mins away from North Korea). There were hundreds of people there. We started off the adventure appropriately with some ice-fishing. Within 10mins Bryon caught one! We put it in our plastic bag to eat later that night. We continued fishing and Michelle was using multiple strategies. If I can recall, loosely and with my own interpretation ;) she was wiggling her fishing line and pole to the “dance”, the “bob”, the “sway”, and some rapid fire jiggling. Unfortunately, her moves just weren’t interesting the fish. But that’s ok because soon our Adventure Korea guides (along with the paparazzi) came over to string our lines and hooks with some already caught fish for some picture and marketing purposes. My roommate, April, was the main event of the photo shoot topping it off with a kiss for the fish.

After that, we enjoyed various things around the festival such as fried/grilled foods, warming our frostbitten toes in the tents, looking at snow sculptures, and sledding on the ice with wooden boxes. There were also 4-wheeler rides on ice, ice skating, and tubing.

But among all these exciting festivities, none could compare to the bare hands fishing. Imagine, 2-4degree Celsius water outside in one of the most northern parts of Korea in a little pond filled with fish. We were instructed to strip down and put on a bright orange t-shirt and shorts. Then, we huddled together outside in the cold before lining up on the edge of this man-made pond. Once on the ledge, our feet were stinging from the snow and ice under us. There were news cameras and a band of Koreans circled around us shouting and cheering for all the shivering foreigners. Finally, they instructed and cheered one of us to dive in the start the event. The goal was to catch as many fish as you can with your hands.

I should preface this: A group of Koreans went before us to do this, they were shoving them down their t-shirts, putting them in their mouths, and catching them one after another. So many people from our group were determined to catch 3 or 4.

Ok, back to the big dive in. Some brave soul from our group went for it, dove head-first right into this arctic water! We were then all instructed to get in. Michelle and I were quite slow to get in. In fact, I am pretty sure I was the last to get in. Once I was in, my legs and feet were numb with pain. My feet and legs went rigid and it hurt! My brain was saying to me “this is not right, this is not right, you’re going to get frostbite and never be able to use your toes or legs again!” There were people taking pictures and video recording us, but there was no posed smile on our faces. I just screamed frantically into the news camera. Michelle, our friend Stephanie, and I were the first ones out. I would definitely say within 30 seconds of being in the water we headed out. We waddled, feet numb, over to the tent with a large wooden foot spa where we carefully put our feet in. At first you could only let the steam hit is because the warm feel of the water hurt your numb feet so badly, it took me about 5 minutes before I was ready to fully submerge my feet and calves.

So, you might ask, did anyone catch some fish with their bare hands!?!? The answer is no. Why? Remember the group of Koreans that went before us? Well, they caught most of the fish. There were like 5 fish left for the foreigners. We were all just splashing around, going completely numb looking for these dang fish when all along there was nothing there! To say the least, I think we got played. But on a brighter note, Bryon and the excellent fisherman he is, caught a fish with his bare hands! However, as soon as he held it up in the air to show, it slipped out of his hands back in the water never to be seen again.

It was a fun adventure! Enjoy the pics!

Love, Kayleigh

If you see me walking by and the tears are in my eyes, walk away, baby walk away!!

So while living in Gongju, random things often happen to us. We don't plan for these things, we don't try to make them happen in any way but they just do. For example we happened to come across the lighting of "the" Christmas tree in Gongju at just the right moment, got to meet the mayor once again, (luckily he remembered us from the chesnut festival) and then proceeded to be in the local Methodist Church Christmas photo of the lighting of the tree. It was hilarious!

However, one incident in particular was a little more "spicy" than we cared for. We were walking from the bus stop to my house after church and out on the street, there was a group of about 15 women churning up cabbage and making a smell we well recognize these days. It was kimchi making day in this part of the neighborhood and everyone was pitching in! I made the mistake of getting a little too close, innocently asking if I could get a picture of their mad kimchi making skills. As fast as you could say, 1, 2, 3...."say Kimchi" for the smiling shot, the woman standing closest to me shoved a giant piece of freshly made kimchi into my mouth and then in the next second, another woman nabbed Kayleigh. We smiled and said thanks and started to walk away.

About 20 feet after leaving their presense, both of us looked at each other in utter horror and started spitting it out as fast as we could. Our mouths were on fire, I couldn't feel my lips and for the next 5 minutes till we got to my house, you'd have thought we were 2 rednecks from S. Carolina (if my friend Jeff is reading this, you know I love S. Carolinans!!) spitting left and right till we could start to gain feeling in our tongues again. It was an atrocious experience and one we will not soon forget.

Lesson learned: Fresh kimchi will kill you!

Where Did December Go?

Wow, it's been a busy month! And we're a week into January already. I can't believe how fast time is going by. We've just finished 1/3 of our contract here in Gongju. We did our very best to have all of the normal Christmas traditions throughout December even miles and miles away from home and thanks to many of our friends and family, it was a very meaningful holiday time. On the 2nd weekend in December, we spent an entire day at our friend Virginia's home baking cookies and listening to Christmas music. We were a machine for like 8 hours straight! We made enough cookies for each of us to have a small bag to take home and also to deliver to over 60 children at an orphanage that our friend volunteers at.

It was so wonderful to be inside an actual home and have kitchen space to move around in. Plus Virginia has two little boys that were a delight to play around with. They are half Canadian/half Korean and the oldest can speak both English and Korean. It's such a great gift for him to have this skill. He may not appreciate it now, but I guarantee he will in the future! Poor little baby Aidan got his first taste of kimchi the night we were there. It was not an enjoyable experience for him. But that's what older brothers are for right? To torture and aggravate the younger one?

The next day we traveled to a nearby city after church to have a Christmas party with middle school students that live in an orphange that our friend Lisa volunteers at. We had a great time with crafts, games, lots of candy, music, snacks and all of this was done with very little Korean on our part and very little English on theirs! Fun is definitely a universal language. It was a great experience and I'm very glad we got to participate.