Everland

Well, Chusok break is now over, so it's back to school and back to grading papers and tests. However, I had a fantastic break, very restful and relaxing, so I'm okay with that.

I spent all day Monday at Everland, a kind of Korean Disneyland. It even has different characters and parades throughout the day. One of the best parts about Everland, in my opinion, is that it is nestled amongst the Korean mountains. While that unfortunately means the park has a lot of very big hills, it also means that it has gorgeous views of the Korean countryside.

We made a full day of our trip, leaving at 8 a.m. and not getting back until after 11 p.m. Thankfully, we never got stuck in traffic. It normally takes about 45 minutes to get to Everland from Songtan, which is what it took to get there in the morning. That evening it only took us 35 minutes to get back. Hooray for no Chusok traffic! It was a long but fun day. The park itself was only moderately crowded, giving longer waits for the most popular rides, but not enough to be a deterrent.

The park had all sorts of rides, including kids rides, roller coasters, spinning rides, and upside down rides. The park also has some animals and a Safari where you can see lions and tigers and bears, oh my! The most popular ride, however, is the T Express. The T Express is a huge wooden roller coaster that claims to have the steepest drop of a roller coaster in the world. One of the hills drops down at a 70 degree angle, which feels like straight down when you're on it. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to ride, but hopefully next time I will get to.

Doesn't that look like fun?!

We ended our trip to Everland by watching the light parade after dark, where all the floats and characters are covered with lights. After the parade there was a massive light and fireworks show. It was pretty cool. It told a story about how light was created but then a dragon came and threatened the light, only to be defeated by a phoenix rising from the fire created by the fire-breathing dragon. The fireworks went off to celebrate the victory. There's probably much more to the story, but that's all I was able to gather from the action, since the actual story was told in Korean. The lights and fireworks were cool, though, and all set to music.

From the light parade