Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival and The Garden of Morning Calm

Last weekend was Lunar New Year and we had Monday and Tuesday off school. I had wanted to travel outside Korea for the weekend but flights were expensive so I stuck around the area. On Saturday I went with two other teachers and one of their friends to a winter festival. The name of the festival is Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival. It took about two hours traveling to get to Gapyeong where the festival was located. The main event there is ice fishing. We watched the families gather around one of many small holes in the ice to try and catch fish. I'm not sure how they could have caught anything since the holes seemed very close together, and there were so many people. I didn't go ice fishing myself because we had gotten a late start on the day and were headed to a garden with a special night display afterwards.

Jaraseom Singsing Winter Festival

Holes for ice fishing

The garden was my favorite part of the day. The name of the garden is The Garden of Morning Calm. Doesn't that sound calming? It is one of the oldest private gardens in Korea and I would love to see it in the spring or summer. During the winter they have the Lighting Festival which essentially means they put up a heck of a lot of Christmas lights. It was really beautiful to see. We walked around the garden experiencing all the different lights. For me the beauty of the garden made up for the unexpected commute. It was a really magical atmosphere.

The garden before sunset.

Some lights were shaped like animals. There was also an elephant, deer, and two angels.

All the beautiful lights

Me and the lights

More lights

A frozen river bed where people had stacked rocks for good luck.