Day 52: Everland

*Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-Beep!*

My alarm screamed in my ear...ugh....was it 5:45am already? Time to get up....

You may be wondering why I was getting up so goddamn early this Monday, even though it was a day off from work? (Today was Arbor Day - a National Holiday in Korea - yah!) Well me and the whole Park family were going out to Everland today - Seoul's version of a Disneyland-like amusement park. Long weekends in Korea are notorious for producing horrific traffic jams on the freeways heading out of the city so Steven wanted to beat the crowds by getting up REALLY early so that we could be first in line to get into Everland. We picked up Steven's sister, her husband, and their two children (the same people I went and saw at church last weekend.) We all rode together in Steven's mini REI bus and hit the highway out to Everland.

Everland is located outside of Seoul, down to the south. It was about an hour or so on the highway from Shihung to Everland and being that it was so early I slept most of the way. I woke up just as we were approaching the park and it was really cool to see the arrival. Everland is nestled in this horseshoe-shaped valley in the hills south of Seoul and it really is a very serene location for an amusement park like this. When I got there I was surprised to see that were ALREADY LINE-UPS of people waiting to get into the park! Wow! It wasn't even 9am yet... Just how busy was this park gonna get today?

Steven's sister and her family were extremely nice and paid for my admission into the park. Everland is very, very similar to Disneyland (I've only been to the one in Anaheim) and I wouldn't be surprised if it was modelled directly after the California landmark. You pay one price that basically gets you in and allows you to ride anything you want in any order, as many times as you like. When you first walk in through the big gates you're in this 'town square.' Unlike Disneyland though, this town square was made up of various architectural styles from around the world - Victorian, Buddhist-temple style, Midevil castles, and even a giant mosque (all holding restaurants and gift shops.)

Everland is very large and contains many rides ranging in size and scariness-level. The first ride we went on turned out to be my favourite! It was this absolutely incredible rollercoaster called American Adventure and is the most fun I've ever had on a ride! It's a suspended rollercoaster (which I had never been on before) in which the 'buckets' you ride in are free to swing from side to side as you rocket along. The coaster is located entirely in a forest along the edge of Everland, and it begins with dragging you 1000 feet up the sides of the hills before launching you down into the trees! IT WAS SO FAST!!! You literally whipped along from corner to corner and at times I swear we were completely turned at a 90-degree angle!!! It literally felt like you were flying through the forest and it was amazing!!! Wow!! I could've ridden that coaster all day long and not gotten tired of it!

We spent the first part of the day just wandering from ride to ride. Considering that I tend to have a weak stomach towards rides, I must say that I fared really well today and never got sick or too dizzy! Again, in Disney-esque style, we saw this ride called Global Village that we went on. It's this cheesy ride where you sit in a boat and float through all these different 'countries' where dolls dressed up dance and move for you (can we say "It's A Small World After All!!!") Everland also has lots of really beautiful flower gardens and because it was spring they were having their Tulip Festival throughout the park - really pretty!
We got to see their Euro-Carnival which was a circus-like performance involving acrobats and gymnasts - really neat to watch. After that we had lunch and then wandered more throughout the sprawling park.

At this point it had gotten ABSOLUTELY PACKED in Everland! It was so crowded and I swear it seemed like all of Seoul had decided to come to the park for the day! The line-ups for rides were getting ridiculously long - after a certain point there wasn't a single ride where line-ups were under an hour, and some even stretched to two hours!!! HOLY SHIT! We just went on only one more ride in the afternoon, and I think we made a good choice. We went on the Amazon Express which is a tube ride down this 'whitewater river' in the jungle - tons of fun and we all got splashed quite a lot! (Very refreshing on this warm day!) After this ride we went and caught the Magic Parade - a good-sized parade full of giant floats and lots of dancers. We then wandered through the Equatorial Zone - full of tigers, lions, chimps and monkeys, seals, polar bears, and of course the omnipresent petting zoo. This park really does have everything!

What was really great about today was how absolutely spoiled I was by Steven's sister and her husband! Not only did they pay for my admission, but they bought me lunch, cotton candy, a churro, a snowcone, and even some souvenirs!!! They are so nice to me!!! They really made me feel like I was 'part of the family' and it was great fun to hang out with them and their kids. Today again reinforced to me how lucky I am to have ended up with such a friendly 'host family' to take care of me!!! I totally felt like a kid again today with all the rides, the candy, and just the plain good ol' fashioned innocent fun that one feels in an amusement park.

By the time 4pm came 'round we were all getting pretty tired, and plus with all the crowds and the line-ups it was becoming a bit much to stay in the park any longer. We said our goodbyes to Everland and drove back to Shihung City. Again, I slept all the way home! Everland was a total blast and I'd love to go back there sometime, maybe with some of my friends on a non-holiday day (hopefully less busy that way!) so that I can ride that awesome rollercoaster again! Woohoo!!!!!!