My Chuseok Vacation

Hi Everyone! Sorry that I'm giving you a deluge of updates right now, I haven't gotten around to blogging lately, but now I've got a day off so I can spend time on it.

This past weekend was Chuseok in Korea, which means most Koreans went to their hometowns to spend the holiday (and it is a big holiday--I got 3 weekdays off).

However, since I'm not Korean, I didn't participate in Chuseok. Instead, me and a bunch of my friends went to Everland! Everland is a pretty big theme park about an hour south of Seoul, which tries to recreate the magic of Disneyland as much as possible.

Here's what the weekend looked like (just as a note, some of these pictures are from my friends' cameras):

We traveled the 280km by bus from Gwangju to Seoul, which took around 3:30 hours and cost an astonishingly inexpensive $16. Once in Seoul, we made our way to the guesthouse that we would be staying at. It was about 5 minutes walk from the Myeongdong subway station (which is very much in the centre of the city), and we had a great view of Namsan tower from where we were staying.

Making our way to the guesthouse

Namsan tower

At our guesthouse, guests from all over the world could have
their pictures taken and be put up on the wall.

A lot of people were shopping and getting ready for Chuseok.
You might not be able to tell from this photo, but this particular nun
was laden with many shopping bags.

After we got settled in at the guesthouse, we had the afternoon and evening of free time. Irene's friend from high school was living in Seoul, so she came to meet us and took us to Gangnam! If you've heard the currently popular K-pop song "Gangnam Style", this is what that song is about. Gangnam is a really new, flashy area full of stores and coffee shops to get noticed at. Lots of young people go here to hang out and be seen.

Gangnam at night

Irene, Keonna, me, and Irene's friend Jasmine

After a bit of shopping, I was tired, so I stopped for a break at
the NICEST Tous Les Jours (bakery/coffee shop chain) in South Korea

After spending some time having fun in Gangnam, we headed over to the Banpo bridge (the rainbow bridge) because they have a water show in the evenings. They use fountains attached to the side of the bridge to create a nice fountain show set to music. People can come on by, bring some food or drinks, and have a nice time. In fact, they even had a few people with boxes of pizza and fried chicken ready to purchase ;)

Banpo Bridge

Banpo Bridge

My group enjoying the Banpo bridge

Banpo bridge

Namsan tower at night

Miyuki, Irene, Keonna, Lariesha, and Jasmine

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The next day was the big day. Everland! Since it was going to take about 2 hours to get there, I had wanted to leave at 8am (the park opened at 10am). However, the rest of my group was tired, so they wanted to leave at 9am. We settled on 8:45am. I got up early in the morning, got ready for the day and went to the McDonald's down the street for breakfast. Since it was the actual Chuseok day, nothing was open. Thankfully, Mickey D's came through with REAL EGGS (we never get eggs at the CNU cafeteria). Delicious. 

When I came back to the guesthouse to meet everyone at 8:45am, they were late and hadn't even eaten breakfast yet.... so we all went back to McDonald's and spent another 30 minutes there waiting and eating.

We went to the Gangnam subway station to catch the 5002 inter-city bus which would take us to Everland. Somewhat surprisingly, everyone else in the world wanted to go to the same place, so we had to run and fight people to get on the bus (Korean style, use your elbows). The driver kept letting people on, so we were all sardined onto this hot, sweaty bus that would make us stand for an hour until we got to the park after driving through slow-moving Chuseok traffic on the highway. 

Regardless, we made it to the park and purchased our special "Chuseok for foreigners" tickets. Normally it costs around $40 to buy an admission ticket to the park, but Everland was catering to foreigners who don't celebrate Chuseok by offering admission for a reduced price of $23!! Quite a steal.

And there were many other people who were taking advantage of said offer. Once you arrive at the parking lot, you get on a shuttle bus which takes you to the park entrance (Disneyland style).

The park gate

Everyone's excited to visit Everland! (Irene, Miyuki, Keonna, and Kayla)

Welcome to Everland! They had all their Halloween gear out.

Are we in Korea anymore? 

The park is really nice and incredibly charming. I love theme parks and I was not disappointed by Everland. It actually felt like we weren't in Korea anymore, because the streets were so clean and there were garbage cans everywhere :)

Another thing to note: most of the people at the park this day were not Korean. In fact, most of them were races I had never seen before in my life! It turns out a lot of them were from India, Bangladesh, Russia, all the 'Stans, and other countries in Southeast Asia (it was like a mix of Indian and East Asian that I had never seen before). To be honest, it was kind of a strange experience.... even for someone who has lived near Vancouver.

When I went to meet up with Keonna and other members of our group, she was posing for photos with Russian businessmen, lol. They talked to me for a bit, apparently they are in the business of shipping Korean cars to Russia. Who'd have thought...

Anyway, Everland is pretty awesome. They've got a zoo, themed areas of the park, the world's steepest wooden roller coaster, and amazing gardens to boot. Well worth the price of admission.

Miyuki welcomes you to Everland! Behind her you can see statues
 of the Everland mascots.

We went on the Peter Pan ride.

Everland has pretty amazing gardens, including a
gigantic rose garden!

The rides are pretty nice too, including Columbus' Adventure!

They have a themed area about Aesop's Fables.

Aesop's Fables land and the Ferris wheel in the background

Some characters from Aesop's Fables

Some characters from Aesop's Fables

Some characters from Aesop's Fables

The fountains near Aesop's Fables. The frogs spit water onto those little pads.

They even have a Global Village ride, which has little dolls singing a
cute song (in Korean) about how everyone is from the same
Earth, we just have different cultures.

Which country is this from?

How about this?

And this?

I went off to do some rides by myself for a little bit, and I really wanted to do the T Express - the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world (the initial drop is a 77 degree angle). Here's a 22 second clip of said drop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ecf58Mh9k4

The lineup was about an hour long, but it was really worth it. What a ride!

Some decorations you can see while in line.

The big drop

Honestly, it was one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on. I wanted to scream going down the initial drop but I was completely petrified and couldn't make a sound. It was terrifyingly fun. They even built the track with kind of low-hanging beams, so it looks like you're going to get decapitated during the ride (everyone ducks). Awesome!

Here's a short clip of the coaster at night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atcmxCig1eA

I went on this ride before I had lunch haha.

European adventure land and the Everland garden.

European food? I ate at the Amsterdam restaurant. Pork cutlet, curry
and omelette rice. It was delicious.

The Everland garden.

The Everland garden.

The Peter Pan ride with Miyuki and Irene.

Everland gets even better at night, because they turn the lights on and everything begins to look more magical.

Aesop's Fables land.

Columbus' Adventure

To the right is the Sky Cruise, a gondola tram ride
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipYBSgD-S78)

Near the entrance. In the background you can see the Halloween tree

Getting ready to see the Moonlight Magic parade! In the background you
can see where they host the Madagascar Live show (yes, from the movie).
Maybe next time I'll go see it.

 Then, at night, they have a Moonlight Magic parade! They have several floats completely decked out with lights. It's a truly magical time. I took some videos of it, but I found a video of the entire parade on YouTube which is better quality than mine. If you're interested, take a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrP4fdiJm0I (it's 10 minutes long, but available in HD)

Below are some snaps from the parade.

Then, after the parade, they have a pyrotechnics show called "Dream of Lasciun" which is about Lasciun (I think that's the male Everland mascot) and his buddies fighting a spirit of darkness (I don't speak Korean, so I didn't really catch the backstory). It was really cool, I took some snaps and a video of the whole thing.

Dream of Lasciun - The Birth of the Light Spirit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePJSKcGCNY&feature=youtu.be

Dream of Lasciun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNVVVFQFaN8&feature=youtu.be (17 minutes)

The stage (in the Everland garden)

And that concluded my day at Everland. The rest of my group had gone back to the guesthouse after the parade. Boy, did they miss out!

In retrospect, I had a really great day at Everland, but it made me homesick. I wish that my family could have been there with me, especially Amanda. That would have made the day even more perfect :)

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The next day, people were free to head out at whatever time they wished. Some left, some stayed in Seoul to do a bit of touring before heading back to Gwangju. I went with some of my friends to Cheongyecheon (the Seoul stream, and my favourite place in South Korea) and we took some pictures (some of these pictures aren't mine).

Irene, Kayla, Miyuki

Miyuki, Irene, Kayla

 After we spent some time at Cheongyecheon, we headed for Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was nearby. They were having some sort of festival for Chuseok, and you could make many different Korean style crafts.

Me posing with a palace guard

They're not allowed to smile, they're supposed to be on duty

Finally, our group split up to do whatever we wanted to do in Seoul. I wanted to go see the 63 Building because it's supposed to have an amazing view. I made my way to the subway station and saw a little girl go through the turnstile (she could barely reach the top to swipe her fare card). Then I realized she was in fact, a Korean dwarf. Awkward.

Anyway, once I reached the appropriate subway station, I transferred to the bus to take me to the 63 Building. Behind me were some middle-aged Russian tourists with baby carriage. The man asked the driver how much the fare was (in a thick Russian accent), paid, and got on the bus along with his wife and baby. Then, he approached the two young Korean ladies sitting in front of me, asked if they spoke English, and then asked them to let him know when to get off the bus to see the 63 Building. After he sat back down, the two young ladies were comically panicking, trying to come up with the right English words to say in this situation. :)

Anyway, once I reached the 63 Building, I found out that it costs TWELVE dollars just to go see the observation deck. No thank you.... so I headed for the bus terminal to take me back to Gwangju. I stopped at Subway (the restaurant) on my way back for a special meal, since I'm completely deprived of quality sandwiches in Gwangju. Totally worth it.

The end of a great trip.