Mt. Biseul Ice Festival

There are a ton of winter festivals in Korea, but most of them are really far up north. If we weren't going to Thailand tomorrow, we would have tried to go to at least one of the big festivals, but we wanted to save our money. Instead, last weekend, we took a trip to the ice festival taking place outside Daegu at Mt. Biseul with some friends.

Gianni and I thought we were all supposed to go on Saturday because that is what we talked about with Maria and Matthew, so we went to Daegok to meet everyone on Saturday. After texting Sian to let her know we were there, she texted back from the ski slopes! It turns out that Maria, Matthew, and Gianni and I had the wrong day! Woops! We decided to wait to go with friends Sunday, and went back to our house together to play Settlers of Catan, which is always fun. We played a few games, and I won twice! We also all tried toast for the first time. Toast is a cross between grilled cheese and a regular sandwich. Gianni got a steak kind, and I got sweet potato bacon. The sweet potato in mine was cooked inside some egg, which was interesting. It was a pretty tasty lunch. There's a video about it on the videos page now.

The next day we tried the festival again. In order to get there, we had to take the train just a few stops to the end of the line and then a bus from outside the station. The bus was terrible! Apparently, it has different routes at different times. Our friend noticed it was taking us in the general direction of the mountain, but it wasn't stopping at the stops she had listed on her phone. Most of the route was through countryside with no taxis in sight, but we got off the bus at a bus terminal in more of a town-like area to try to get a taxi because we decided the bus wouldn't take us to the mountain. We found some taxis to take us, and got to the mountain.

As we were walking up to the festival area, I stopped to get some of the delicious toffee candy that I got in Jinju before. This time, it was coated with nuts on the outside, which made it even better. At the festival, there were a few activities for children, like "ice skating" on a plastic sled-like thing. We had some fun skating in our shoes on the little ice rinks they made for it. There was also an ice slide, but the line was too long to go on it (and it was probably for kids). There were some really nice ice sculptures leading up the mountain a little ways. There was an awesome dragon, some hearts, and a 2014 one. The mountain path that we were on has a little river as well, which is why the festival is located there. They use hoses and spray water over the river so that it freezes in really awesome icicles and icebergs in the river. You could walk along the river, but in one part they also had an ice tunnel on the river. It was really pretty inside. We spent a few hours at the festival, taking in a little winter and eating ramen for lunch.

When it was time to go back home, we decided to take the bus from the top of the mountain because we saw the stop. We waited for like a half hour for the bus to come. It was two stops until the end of the line from Mt. Biseul, so at the end of the line, the bus driver got out for a half hour for his break. It was so frustrating. It seemed like we'd never make it home. When the bus finally got going again, it turned out that it didn't go along a straight route. Instead, it took a few short, loops to pick up people in other areas. It took us over an hour to get back to the train station! Really annoying, but we finally got back after a few hours on the bus. Gianni and I decided to go to red pork for dinner because we were starving. There's a foodventures episode about this restaurant on the videos page, so check it out.


This week, I've been deskwarming by myself since Niall is on vacation. I also got my new external hard drive in the mail from my parents, so yesterday, I got a ton of videos and photos edited and uploaded, so the blog is almost updated again. Yay! Today, we have the day off before we leave for Thailand tomorrow. We spent the morning packing and cleaning, and we're leaving in a bit to see the new Disney movie, Frozen, with Maria and Matthew. After that, we're leaded to taekwondo to take our belt test and, hopefully, get our green belts!