The third and final post on Luna New Year.

Day three of the trip saw us walking in Achimgari near Bang-dong in Inji. Our guide told us this is a little known part of Korea and many Koreans won’t have heard of it.

The walk took us along a frozen river and through some very picturesque scenery.

It was a novel experience to be walking across a frozen river. Initially it was very much frozen, despite this everyone’s first steps were taken tentatively for fear of falling into the icy cold water below. Once people realized the ice was more than capable of holding their weight people became complacent about their footing and were strolling along chatting to those they were drinking with the night before. Walking further up the valley the ice became less solid. The river was peppered with unfrozen water that could be heard rushing along and vanishing below the ice. As the patches of unfrozen water increased in frequency choosing the correct footing became essential to maintaining dry feet, more than once an unsuspecting person put a foot through the ice into the cold water below.

At our turn around point there was a hole in the ice perfect for lying next to and sampling the fresh tasting water of the the river..

The walk back was more relaxed. People had learnt how to tell where the ice was thinnest and thus avoid wet feet. It became a favourite pastime of the men – sorry boys – to find the biggest rock possible and  see how much of the ice they could send crashing – well floating gently – down the river.

Walking back we went a slightly different way to the way we’d come and came to a bit of ice where there was only a few feet between two patches of water. Not wanting to get wet feet I followed two women across the gap. But as I took my first step the ice gave way below me, as my foot sunk below the water I put my weight on my other foot only for the ice to give again and plunge me waist deep into the freezing cold river. Seeing my plight the people around me grabbed me and pulled me out as Emily stood motionless on the bank barley able to contain her giggles.

Once I been pulled out of the water and fond that my camera had survived its dunking I soon saw the funny side. Only I could end up falling through the ice into a frozen lake! Although I wasn’t looking forward to walking the rest of the way back to the bus in my icy wet clothes!

Luckily it wasn’t far back to the bus and we were heading straight back to the hostel for lunch before going back to Seoul so it wasn’t long before I got out of my soggy clothes.

That’s all on Luna New Year.

I’ll check in again soon with details of how I spent Korean Independence Day.

* Posted by j150vsc on 03/03/2007.