I recently went curling with 7 other people from Gumi. We went to a curling club somewhere in a small town in Korea. This club had 4 curling sheets or playing fields. I was amazed that a small town of around 80,000 in Korea would have a multi-million dollar facility like this. It was the same size as an indoor hockey rink,it had a cooling system to keep the ice cold and all that. One of the guys we went with was Canadian and he helped to get it built a few years ago, he said it costs around 3 million to build a facility like that. It was completely paid for by the city and it didn't cost us anything to play there. I don't think curling is very popular in Korea and as far as I know this is the only club. But there could be more, I have no idea. Curling is a sport that is played on ice. It's like shuffle board on ice. The board or sheet is the full length of an ice rink. You push a very heavy stone down the ice and try and get it to land on a large target about 100 feet away(a regulation sheet is 146 feet long and 15 feet wide,also the ice must be 23 degrees). The target is 12 feet in diameter. You wear a slick cover(called a slider) on one shoe to allow you to slide on it. When you release the stone(it weighs 44 pounds) you push off a starting block and slide on one foot using a broom to help you balance, you glide about 15 feet then release the stone and let it glide to the target. At this time another 2 members of your team will sweep in front of the puck to create heat on the ice to change its direction and speed it up. If your stone stops on the target you get points. That is if its still on the target at the end of the round. People can knock your stone off, only stones that that remain on the target at the end of the round get points. More points are awarded if your stone is closer to the center. It's the same as shuffle board. It was very difficult to stand on the ice and move quickly and it was even more difficult to glide when releasing the puck. You don't have to glide you can just push it if you want but thats not the best way to do it. But for old guys who play that how they do it. Curling is an Olympic sport(since 1998) and it is one of the hardest tickets to get at the Olympics,it has become very popular recently. I had a blast, anyone who has a chance should try it. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page.
Curling Wikipedia Page
