Day 302: Lions, Tigers, and Bears - (Oh My!)

Today was a fantastic day!

Today was the POLY staff Everland Day! Our bosses at work took the staff our to Korea's largest amusement park for the day, and considering that this trip was originally supposed to happen months ago, we were all looking forward to it a lot. Everland was the theme park I went to with Steven and his family back in April, and is definitely a blast.

Addie and I paired up with Jason and Sally for the day and the four of us had a total riot. We rode on ride after ride and had plenty of laughs. It was a chilly but sunny day and an ideal day to visit the park - there was hardly anyone there! When I was there last spring we often had to wait anywhere from forty minutes to two hours to get on a ride. Today, our average wait was only about 5-10 minutes! Sometimes we could even just walk right onto the ride! Wow, right on!

We went on both roller coasters three times each (including the scary one with two loop-de-loops and a corkscrew, which still feels like a big accomplishment for me!) and hit all the other popular rides of the park - the ferris wheel, the log ride, the Amazon Express, and even made it onto the African Safari. This was a ride that I had never been on cause usually the wait is excrutiatingly long. There was a bit of a wait today but it was well worth it. This ride is a bus-ride on a road through a forest that is full of animals just wondering around - no pens here! There was prides of lions and tigers, a herd of giraffes, an elephant, some ostriches and zebras, and at least 15 bears! It was really cool cause some of the animals would come *right up* next to the windows of the bus and I've never seen any of those animals that close up before. They're huge!!! It was really cool but I kept thinking that the glass on the bus windows didn't seem very thick. One angry swipe from a lion or grizzly and I'd so be toast! Oh my!

All in all we ended up spending a good seven hours at the park and all had a great time. The whole park was fully decked out in Christmas gear and it was really festive with all the trees, wreaths and holly, lights, and Christmas songs at every ride. We left the park around 7pm and took a bus to Gangnam Station in Seoul. When we got there Addie, Sally, and Jay headed off to COEX while I met up with Michael and a bunch of his friends for dinner.

We had dinner at this really awesome French/Italian restaurant that was one of the best eateries I've visited yet in Korea - great menu, not over-priced, superb service, good music, and really cool funky atmosphere and decor. I'd definitely like to come back to this place again, even though it's nowhere near my home.

The cab ride back to Itaewon after dinner was a hilarious one. There were five of us trying to find a cab that would take all of us in one taxi, which is easier said than done. Finally we found a young taxi driver who would take us....and he was unique to say the least. We all crammed into his cab and immediately saw that it was decorated in a...space theme! There was black sparkly paper on the ceiling with tons of cut-out glow-in-the-dark star stickers! Plus the dashboard and gear shift area were full of colourful lights and flashing glowing doohickeys all over the place. It was totally psychedelic! On top of that this guy had this combo 80's mullet/perm thing happening, and was BLASTING Korean pop at insane levels. I remember all us breaking out in hysterics while squished together, flying across a bridge over the Han River, with "It's Raining Men" screaming out of the speakers. Too funny! (another crazy random moment here in Korea!)

Michael and I were supposed to hang with Ailish and the Shihung gang tonight but 11:30pm came and we still hadn't heard back from them yet... So instead we decided to invade the pajama party that Angele and Meghann were having. We ended up having a fantastic time there! We played music (incl. Gwen Stefani's new solo album which kicks major ass) and broke out the Cranium. And then Meghann served the most perfect magical blissful holiday snack ever. She made home-made egg nog, full of rum and whipped cream, and I drank that with Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts!!! OMG!!! It sounds strange but it was the best combo ever since peanut butter and jam. I have no idea why but it tasted fucking amazing! We stayed fairly late and had a great time with the girls before heading home to bed. What a fantastic Saturday!