Hello, Steemians! YIYU here!

Let's go to Gangwon province today. Lately, Lonely Planet chose Korea as "Best in Travel for 2018". One of reasons is PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics. The north east side of South Korea is Gangwon province and PyeongChang is one of a city of it. If you are interested in 2018 Winter Olympics, please do not buy a ticket to "PyeongYang" which is the capital of North Korea. lol

Today, I'm gonna write about my Hoengseong day tour. I've been told you about PyeongChang so far because it can be good intro for Gangwon-do. But, I will say, there can be some not to visit to PyengChang but there can't be any not to love Hoengseng Korean beef! I'm 100% sure! Hoengseong Hanu(=Korean beef) is one of must beloved menu not only for Koreans but also everyone in the world who enjoy meat. The only problem is just the price. lol Even, once I've been Hoengseong only for 2 hours a special Korean beef dinner by 6 hours round trip. Haha It worth it.

Okay, stop about Hanu. Haha. There are many extraordinary nice places in Gangwon-do, including HoengSeong.

Woljeongsa Temple

It's located east side of Odaesan Mountain in Gangwon-do. It was established around B.C 600. It's a big temple which is in charge of over 60 temples around that area. I think the most attractive point of this temple is,

pine tree forest path on the way to get the entrance of the temple! It takes about 20 minutes by walk from parking lot to the temple itself. You feel fresh air full of your heart. And there're many animals like small squirrels here and there. Soooooo lovely😍

The entrance of pine tree forest

There was some festival on that day

Woljeongsa Temple is also the site of Seongbo Museum, displaying artifacts and treasures from Buddhist culture of the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), including a nine-story octagonal pagoda, also called as the Sari-Pagoda (relic pagoda), and a Stone Seated Buddha figure.

Yeah, this is it!

The highlight of this temple should be nature.

There's another part of temple inside the forest. Especially I loved the words on columns,

Do not follow nidana, do not fall down into the empty.
You would achieve nothing, if you're obsessed one thing.

Umm... It's really hard to translate it right. T.T

HoengSeong Market and Mansae Park

We went to Hoengseong market to get lunch. Inside of the town Hoengseong, there's a "Hanu Street". You can see same caw sign on every shops in the town. It looks fun and cute. (: We didn't go to the city itself but only visited to the market. It's arcade market street. Of course, there're lots of butcher's shops so you can buy good quality Hanu easily. Or Korean traditional street food, as well.

It's not modern style but there was amazingly nice chef there.

We didn't order this great cold noodle with pumpkins. She gave it to us for free. The story is, the next shop's owner asked her neighbors if they want some noodle as a snack. My chef didn't answer because she fell asleep shortly. It made a misunderstood so she made noodles a lot. My chef had lunch before a nap so wasn't hungry. But she didn't want to say "No" so just got it and gave it to us. Yayyy, what a lucky!?

So that's why we could enjoy that free lunch! lol Honestly, it was even better than main haha. Seriously. I really loved that noodle. The soy sauce was very very traditional taste, it was perfectly fit well for noodle and seasoned pumpkins.

It's town of Hanu so we ordered Yukgaejang, hotspicy meat stew with lots of beef. It was also nice. And relatively cheap. It was only 5,000 won(5$)!

I guess the hostess of this restaurant loves poem. Also I liked what she likes as well. I'm happy that I don't need to translate it! Because it's written by American poet. lol

The only thing I can give is love - by Maya Angelou

Flower blossom without sound
Birds sing without tears
Love burn without smoke

Picked a rose only to find a thorn
Liked a friend only to meet a parting
Loving world I born only to find a death

I if poet I may give you a poem
I if shepherd I may give you a cup of milk
I just a poor have-not so I only give you is love

After lunch, we waled Mansae park for a while. When Korea was a colony of Japan, Koreans all around this land raised up and fought against invader. It's called "Mansae movement" and this park's name is same with it. So it's one of historic place. Nowadays it's very peaceful park for people.

Old men love Korean Chess.

Beyong-ji-bang Valley

I think it's even not famous place for Koreans yet. But I bet on that it will be one of the best summer vacation places sooner or later. It's long valley and the water is quite clean and deep. You can swim or even can do diving!

Many dives from on that rock.

Yes.... this is what I desire...!

Pungsuwon Catholic Church

Last, we visited to the 3rd Catholic church in Korea, Pungsuwon.

Pungsuwon was the first catholic village in which over 40 faithful from Yongin (Gyeonggi-do), led by Sin Tae-bo (or St. Peter), settled to escape the wrath of Sinyubakhae (religious persecution of Catholics) of 1801. Over a period of 80 years, the settlers had led their religious lives without a priest until Father Le Merre (a French priest) came to the village in 1888. Succeeding Le Merre in 1896, Father Jeong Gyu-ha (or Augustino), along with Chinese engineers, began to build Pungsuwon Cathedral.

It's not fancy like Catholic churches in Europe, but it's historic place and has special atmosphere. Calm and holy... Also, it has lovely garden around the church. If you have enough time, you can go around there for 1 hour.

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Gangwon-do is really lovely place. It's worth for visit, absolutely. It's the coldest province in Korea so there're a lot of snow in winter time. Once I went there in snow storm and got lost near some river. It was freezing, but somehow I felt mad happiness. In summer time, it's pretty cool compare to Seoul or other big cities. The temperature is only around 15~20℃ inside forest or mountain in Gangwon-do. So it's perfectly nice vacation home. (: Next summer, I'll go to Beyongjibang Valley again. I was sorry I didn't have my swimsuit!

Always thanks for reading, Steemit friends!
See you again soon😘