GOLO or Gabby Adventure Time Now: Come on over to the border

Happy August everyone!
It's Day 29 and I have got some news for you.

Just last night (well, now two nights ago) we had our all-important, future-deciding, friend-dividing, super-secretive Placement Ceremony!

Ladies and gentlemen, the results are in. I will spend the next year in Hwacheon 화천!

Let's learn about Hwacheon!

Hwacheon is a rural town in the greater Hwacheon county. Hwacheon county is the little red area in the north of the map. It is part of Gangwon province (the dark grey area). In South Korea - (the whole map, duh).

1) It's the coldest province in Korea.

Like we-get-freezing-Siberian-wind cold. And are basically-on-mountaintops cold.

I promised myself, after surviving Boston winters, that I would never live in a cold place again. A place where, when you walk outside, the air hurts your face. A place where the snow sticks around until March or April.

On the positive side… at least I am super prepared for the cold. I got my snow boots and everything!

And who knows what type of superpowers I will gain from this experience. Watch out world.

2) We have all the festivals. We turn the freezing misery of winter into tourist profit with ice festivals. (But, like, actually, a reported million people come to Hwacheon every year for this stuff.)

And a very special, catch your own trout, ice fishing festival!

And in summer there is a lovely, refreshing tomato festival.

And a creative raft festival.

3) We also are supposed to have some of the best Samgyupsal. 삼겹살 (Pork meat for Korean BBQ)

4) The population of my entire county is only around 24,000 (about 90 of them are foreigners). But since we are right on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), aka North Korea is my neighbor, there are army bases and camps and training centers (also the 6-month training center for North Korean defectors is in Hwacheon!) So the population is actually a bit bigger. And tourist season it is a whole different story.

I guess my encounters with the marching soldiers earlier this summer portended my army fate...

5) I am over five hours away from Micia (she'll be in Daegu). I am still avoiding thinking about this. We both just expected to be together (or at the very least near by each other…) Nope. Cannot accept this. (denial stage of grief people. It's real)