After the 6 am wakeup call wore off, we met many wonderful people on our 3 hr. bus trip eastnorth. Over 70% of the people were from Canada though, which is usually an ominous sign. Not this time though, yet we did have a Canadian soundtrack for the entire trip, complete with such bands as Barenaked Ladies, Nickleback, and my personal favorite Rush. Luckily, Celine Dion was not played; if she was I would have ended my life. I probably would have gone with a swan dive off the bus into fast moving oncoming traffic as Meg shouts out "I'll never let go Jack, I mean Chris".* These guys were great though, probably because they weren’t from Quebec like Dion. Upon arrival, we were promptly greeted with a photo shoot and given some fishing poles. The poles were some cheap plastic things. When I say cheap I mean c-h-e-a-p. There was no reel and the lure was awful. But ice fishing is on my life to do list, so I was fired up to catch some fish regardless of a horrible pole.
*Canadians know a lot about American history, dare I say more than many Americans. For example, I asked one fellow from Toronto during a trivia contest who shot and killed Hamilton, without blinking he answered Burr. Wow! On the other side of the coin, I couldn't even tell you how many provinces are in Canada. I know your quick response is, "Who cares? Canada doesn't matter. There's a reason why they know our history." Hogwash. We should know more about our northern, socialist cousins.
We quickly scouted out a nice hole, surrounded by thousands of other fishermen. Vacationing in Korea is a tricky situation, as I am sure that you can imagine, there's an overpopulation problem here in Korea. At first these crowds scared me, but now I have grown custom to it. I was absolutely undaunted by this crowd, in fact it hardly even bothered me.
By the way, we were on a frozen river trying to catch mountain trout. Underneath the ice, the river was crystal clear, which allowed me to get on my belly and get great visuals of the trout. Because there were .5 million people fishing in the river, the festival guys would stock it every couple of hours or so, literally dumping hundreds upon hundreds of fish in the river. We happened to start as they were dumping fish in 25 feet away from us. I would see these sneaky bastards swim right up to my lure and swim away. There were a lot of fish, and people all around us were catching fish using a snag method, pretty much just pulling the rod up hard and hoping to get lucky and hook a fish anywhere. It seemed to be working because I saw a lot of fish with enormous stab wounds to the belly.
Most of the time you can’t see the fish when you’re fishing, instead you feel them when they nibble or bite your bait. Seeing them is way more frustrating. They would examine “the world’s worst lure” and think to themselves, “Wow that one didn’t even fool me for a second, I didn’t even hesitate. I have been in this river for like ten minutes and I think I’m going to make it. These idiots and their horrible technology and weak budgets need to open the checkbook a little more!” Just as the poor fish laughs at my lure some Korean girl around the age of five with a triple headed hook monster snags the S.O.B. right in the gut. Then she mocks me as I’m face down peering into the river. She's literally pointing at the pile of fish she’s caught. This was in my first thirty minutes, so she could have been there awhile to my defense.
Because Meg and I are white, in Korea, and if I do say so myself an extremely attractive couple, we were asked to be in a photo shoot using fish from a bucket. They setup these living prop fish on our little chintzy rods and asked us to look surprised. The
result:
Even in my most bizarre fantasies, fantasies that I can bend time and warp back to the past, fantasies when I happen to be dominating survivor, or fantasies that I can have any job in the world, I have never fantasized being an actor. I know that it could never happen. I could have any superpower in the world, but I could never win an Oscar. Anything in Imagination Land is fair game but acting. My sub-conscience would tell it this way, “Hey, I know we usually get a little crazy here, I mean yesterday we founded Facebook as a 17 year old Harvard undergrad telling Mark Zuckenburg to piss off, but acting COME ON! We can’t get that crazy, not even in your wildest dreams.” So seeing my face on these pictures really affirms what a colossal failure I would be at acting. I really felt stupid posing for these pics as well. Yes, pics as PICS, pics as in plural, pics as in they took one hundred bleeping photos of us doing different poses.
But they did give us the two prop fish that were riding coach on RyanAir straight to hell. So, in an effort to end their lives as quick as possible, we ate them. We took them to a grilling area, bashed their heads in, and grilled them. We also met three great friends. These guys knew a little English. Ming-Young, the guy with the stocking hat with a ball on top of it, (cute I know) was celebrating his birthday with his best friend and his girlfriend. I hope we added a nice touch, because they were ABSOLUTELY AWESOME to us. Our grill table was having so much fun that others were wanting to get in on the action. People would offer (and we would accept) pork, kimchi, rice cakes, and mushrooms to hang out with our table. It was a glorious hour and a half, and I really hope to see these guys again.
After three bottles of soju, a belly full of delicious fish, and three new friends, Meg and I set off for the next adventure; ice soccer. I still have bruises; I should probably leave it at that, but I can’t resist going into a bit more detail. For about 1 hour, I fell on my ass. Right at the beginning, within the first 15 seconds, the puck was out in front of me and I fearlessly ran to go get it encouraged by the three bottles of soju. Next thing I know, my legs are out from underneath me, and I’m on my back re-evaluating the whole situation. Breathing was very hard at this point, so I got to take a few seconds to evaluate my peers. Ice Soccer might as well of been called Icecapaids with all the Canadians playing. They grow up on this slippery shit; I hope they can get around on it. But yeah, they were pulling flying V’s and other hockey strategies. They were good, and me and this fellow from New York were not: (that is me with a coat on kick saving a would be goal fyi)
With each fall, a little soju would be worked off, and then I was sober. This was not the plan, if you remember. I needed to be liquored up to conquer the cold water that was in 15 minutes. The frozen ice pounded the drunkenness out of me.* But like a soldier marching to the worst situation of his life, I continued towards the bare hand fishing. And it was the worst thing in my life...
I'm facing a hairy frog here, because Bare Hand Fishing was awful. Picture this, an audience of a couple hundred people cheering you on, but you don't want to be cheered on; what you want is to go back to the locker room, and put your clothes back on and wish that you never signed up for this crazy shit. They put our group around a ring of ice, and then waited for like ten minutes to let us jump in, but we were wearing just a shirt and shorts in -10 degrees Celsius. That was awful enough, then we jumped in and my life was taken to another level of hurt. Pain. Pain. Pain. My body wouldn't function. My legs barely worked and my hands certainly weren't going to be grasping any slippery trout. In fact, this is what I was thinking, "I got to get out. I got to get out. What the hell am I walking on? Is this gravel? They put gravel in this tank, as if the artic water wasn't enough. I got to get out of here. SHIT! I can't be the first one out. Hell No, say what ever you want to about me, but I have never been the first one out of any group activity. Ever. Shit, I hope Meg doesn't catch a fish. Okay good there are other people getting out. "
Even in extraordinary pain, funny exchanges occur like this one:
British guy: I'm outta here
Korean Supervisor: You have to catch one fish
British: Oi! MOVE!
Korean supervisor: okay, okay
Of course the Oi! made that funny. So I hopped out of that tank (after about 45 seconds, 0 fish, and I was around the 7th person out of there) and headed towards the locker room hoping my shins weren't going to break like a frozen icicle, because they felt like they were cracking with every step. I got naked and huddled around the heater and the British guy, but mainly the British guy. I watched my blue legs turn back to the normal color of flesh and decided to head outside. Meg was one of like 7 foreingers to catch a damn fish, and I'm leaving it at that.
I'm going to try and convince Meg to post on her experience. Look for that to come out soon.
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