HWACHEON, South Korea,
Jan. 12,
2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2025 Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice
Festival, one of South Korea's
most popular winter events, kicked off last Saturday in the
northeastern county of Hwacheon, offering nearly a month of ice
fishing and seasonal activities.
The festival, set to run through Feb.
2, opened in the remote mountain town in Gangwon Province,
located just 25 kilometers south of the inter-Korean border and
about 90 km northeast of Seoul.
In the festival, participants try to catch "sancheoneo," a
species of mountain trout, through holes cut in the surface of a
vast frozen river, as well as take part in barehanded fishing,
sledding and other events.
As early as 8:30 a.m. last
Saturday, the frozen Hwacheon stream was crowded with hundreds of
visitors clad in thick winter jumpers who gathered to catch the
sancheoneo.
The visitors carefully lowered their rods into the ice holes,
with some of them soon erupting in cheers as they reeled in the rod
with freshly caught trout.
"I came early in the morning from Seoul to celebrate my kid's birthday," a
participant, identified only by his last name Kim, said. "I come
every year but this year I plan to enjoy the Sancheoneo Ice
Festival as well as a nighttime concert at Seon Deung Street."
Outdoor grilling areas were set up nearby for tourists to
barbecue the fish.
The Hwacheon festival has attracted more than 1 million visitors
almost every year since its launch in 2003, making headlines
worldwide with thousands of tourists also taking part in other
events at the festival such as bare-hand fishing and sledding.
The festival turned Hwacheon, with a population of just 23,000,
into a global wintertime festival city of South Korea.
In 2011, a leading global news organization introduced the
festival as one of the world's seven wonders of winter.
Last January, the New York Times
named the event one of five "must-see festivals in Asia" in winter that year.
The festival attracts around 100,000 foreigners annually.
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SOURCE Ice Fishing Festival Organizing Committee
