Day Three in Seoul (Part 1)

It has been a month since my Korya and I’m not even half-finished blogging about it. But I am taking my time and my photos are definitely taking their time to load. Haha! I’m squeezing this in between work and social life. Hehe. But I will finish this, hopefully before the end of June!

So, we’re now on our third day! You see, when we were in Korea I spent every night planning our itinerary. I’d labor over it until 1AM, figuring out where to go first and how to go to every destination. I was slowly becoming such an expert in reading maps. Heh. But we scrapped everything I planned for our third day because it rained! There was 90% chance of rain and it did rain all day. We couldn’t just spend the entire time indoors, so what else were we supposed to do? Huhu.

So we decided to spend the entire day at Lotte World since it’s the largest indoor amusement park in the world. We were only planning to go there during the afternoon on our 4th day but the rainy weather made us change plans. But where else were we supposed to go?

We braved the harsh weather, and when I say harsh, I mean teeth-shattering cold and strong winds. The rain wasn’t even that strong but the wind was pretty something. I don’t even want to think about it. Haha! We walked all the way to the Hyewa subway station to ride all the way to Jamshil station. It was a pretty uneventful ride but I did enjoy looking at people’s rainy day outfits. Yes, my stalker tendencies were quite astounding that day.

The trip to Jamshil was quite long! Not only did we have to transfer subway line but we even crossed the Han River. The previous day, all the subway lines we went to were underground. But this, we saw the light of day! Heh. And it was gloomy. Blah.

Anyway, I was sitting next to the sweetest ajumma, okay. Whenever we ride the subway, we always make sure that we know which stop we were in. We had a really big map which gets crumpled after a couple of use. The ajumma couldn’t speak English (and I couldn’t speak Korean of course!) but she gave me a mini-map of the subway! She probably had a hard time watching us fidget with our big map. And she was smiling and bowing when she gave me the map, and I was doing the same thing. Heh. Dear ajumma, wherever you are, kamsahamnida!

It’s not hard to find the Lotte complex from the Jamshil station since it’s directly connected to the Lotte mall! It was amazing! It was the first that went inside a shopping complex in Seoul. I wanted to just roam around and look at all the clothes and shoes! But our intent was the amusement park and we were really hungry. Heh.

But while we were still looking at the fountain, two female university students approached us and asked whether they could interview. It’s for school I think. Actually, they approached my parents and my sister and they agreed to be interviewed. But they made me answer all the questions. WHYYYY. But I enjoyed our little interview. They only asked us about our favorite Korean food (samgyeopsal) and one of the most common Filipino dishes (adobo heh). Then we asked for a group picture for souvenir. Haha.

Before entering the amusement park, we ate lunch at Lotteria first. I’ve heard about it and I can only interpret it as the national fast food chain in South Korea. But of course, I’m only inventing that since I only saw one Lotteria in Seoul.

The point is, THE FOOD WAS AWESOME. I’m not a burger person and Lotteria sold mainly burgers, but I loved everything. I loved the onion rings and chicken, too! It’s surprisingly affordable, too. It was definitely better than our KFC meal during our first night. I’d definitely go back and eat more.

After lunch, we went to the ticket vending machine to buy the tickets for the amusement park! And we had a lot of problems getting out tickets. The machine just won’t accept our bills so someone came in to help us. And we finally got our tickets but it took us a long, long time.

There were so many rides and so many attractions, and it was so hard to decide which one to see or try first. But we saw the Conquistador which is like Enchanted Kingdom’s Anchor’s Away. And that’s pretty much one of the first things I try in every amusement park I visit. The line was already pretty long but after our whole-day stay in Lotte World, I guess it was quite short already. A few Korean school students were in line after us and I asked them about the korean Wave show indicated on the Lotte World’s program. They didn’t know anything about and they squealed a bit. Heh.

The Conquistador didn’t disappoint! But our next ride was Sinbad Something and it was nice at first. There were some twists and thrills but the latter part got a big boring. After Sinbad, we rested for a bit and waited for the Mask parade to start!

Koreans are so tall that so many heads end up getting in the way of my photos. It sucks to be a foreigner in a country full of 6-foot-tall people when you’re barely 5 feet. Bleh.

I enjoyed the Mask Parade! The choreography was pretty fun to watch and who can feel sad and irritated with such a splendid show of colors and dancing? One time, I was taking photos then someone just pats my head. When I looked up, it was the Lion from Wizard of Oz! So cute. Also, the little Snow White has this smug look on her face which shows how much she hated to be there but she’d wave anyway.

After the parade, we wanted to go to the outdoor amusement park but it was still raining! There were so many people inside and I’m pretty sure it was because of the rain. The lines were long for every ride so I was starting to feel as if we’re wasting every minute standing in line. But what else could we do?

We went on the Spinning Tea Cups ride first but I think it has a different name. Heh. I was excited to get on this ride, though, since the YongSeo couple tried this ride when they went to Lotte World. Haha! But of course, it’s not just because of that, too. It was really fun and I kept spinning the wheel since I like getting myself feel sick. I thought my sister was spinning the wheel with me but it turned out she was just holding on to it!

We tried the Giant Loop next! It looked extremely intimidating since it goes on a… loop (heh) a couple of times. But before enjoying the ride, my sister and I waited in line for more than hour. OMG. It really tested our patience as you can obviously see from the photos. My parents didn’t even bother since they don’t like nauseating rides, but I love nauseating rides! Anyway, my sister and I almost reached our limit when we it was finally our turn! This is probably one of the scariest and stomach-churning ride I’ve ever been. But it was fun and I’d love to try it again.

It was getting a bit late and we realized that my parents still hadn’t maximized their stay in the place. So we decided to do something we can do together. They couldn’t just sit in one place and wait for us get on rides! We ventured into the other floors and that’s when we realized that it was really so big! There were about four floors and we were just glad that there were directions in English!

We had to get in line again just to get on the cart that goes around the entire place. And again, the line was so long! But at least we didn’t have to wait for more than an hour.

We also tried the 3D showing which I enjoyed so much. There was a storyline but I couldn’t understand a thing since it was in Korean. HUHU. I loved the effects, though, and the moving seats! Daddy, ate and I loved it but my mother said she closed her eyes the entire time since it made her feel dizzy. Eh.

I was surprised to learn that normal citizens really dress up like this. I thought only idols do!

We wandered around a little more and ended up in this one corridor that reminded me of this one scene from Heartstrings! There were tons of optical illusion paintings  which can be used as backdrops for photo ops. But I think the one in Heartstrings is different, and that might be the Trick Eye museum. Well, we didn’t get to visit that one but at least Lotte World had some paintings. Hehe.

And finally, we reached the Folk Museum. It was actually the one we were looking for. Though I liked the Folk Museum, it somehow paled in comparison next to the Teddy Bear Museum. Maybe I shouldn’t have visited both within a short span of time. One can’t help compare, right?

One of the things I enjoyed the most in the museum was the displays you could play with! There were even traditional games such as  the Tu-Ho that the visitors could try. The visitors could even try the olden ways of Korean living such as ironing clothes, kneading the rice, etc. We also tried carrying this triangular-looking baggage you could often see in sageuk dramas. Heh. It was sooo heavy that I was amazed at the Korean kids who enthusiastically tried it out. There was this one boy who tried everything and would happily pose for the camera. SO CUTE OKAY.

I wanted so much to kidnap this kid and keep him forever. Adorable is an understatement!

The museum was so big that my feet were hurting before we could even finish. They put so much detail into everything. They had miniatures of different palaces and even one palace in North Korea. The last part of the museum showed different activities done during other historical periods.

When we finally finished viewing everything, we had some trouble figuring out how to go back. Haha! But we had to rush to get back to the amusement park since we had to catch the KPOP show!

Which I will all tell you in the next post. 🙂