Enjoy winter in Gangwon

The Herald has an article titled, "Climb and carve your way out of the winter blues" The 'blues' they write about seem to be those suffered by people living in tropical areas. I hope the tourism plans are well supported by more than awkward slogans as Gangwon could be well situated for such tourism.

I am disappointed, however, that the 'carve' in the title seems to describe how to ski or snowboard rather than carve wood. I would like to attend a workshop or two in that field.

Anyway, here is an excerpt:

Gangwon Province for one has begun actively promoting its various ski and snowboard resorts to potential tourists especially from all over Southeast Asia.

The province recently invited 120 Thai tourists from Chiang Mai for a tour of Nami Island - where the hit Hallyu television drama "Winter Sonata" was filmed - as well as an idyllic trek through the foliage covered Seorak Mountain.

A group of 16 travel agency executives from Malaysia were also invited on an excursion around the province's key attractions along with an introduction of various winter travel packages they had in store for potential inbound Malay tourists.

Last month, a travel seminar was held in Taiwan - considered the biggest market for Korean winter travel packages - where major travel agencies and brokers congregated for a summit to further enhance inbound winter tourism to Korea.

Of them, one of the new packages developed specifically for tourist from Taiwan was a tour tied to the forthcoming Hwacheon Ice Fishing Festival to be held early January next year.

One bit of snark, already covered by the writer:

A package aimed at potential Russian tourists will commence this winter season called "Rus-Ki," in the province's efforts to reach further out to non-Asian regions.

Although organizers might want to change the name of that package for obvious reasons pertaining to it being an offensive epithet which was used on Russians by American soldiers during the days of the cold war.

The article goes on to describe ice climbing and where you could try it in Gangwon as well as gives contact information for some ski resorts.

With the recent surprise of waking to snow, I think people are currently excited about winter. A state which dries up about mid February - the excitement, I mean.