Everland!!

I love vacation!

Saturday we went back to Dongdaemun for some shopping and Sunday we visited Homever (formally Carrefour) for some rum-n-groceries, but TODAY we went to the magical world of Everland (not to be confused with Michael Jackson's Neverland). Everland is the worlds' no. 7 amusement park and is basically the Korean Disney. We had some awesome weather for the day as it is October 2nd and we wore shorts and went on water rides!



The commute consisted of a bus from Suyu (where we live), 3 subway transfers over 19 stops and one more express bus to the park. When we got to Everland we went to buy tickets but were immediately identified as 'foreigners' (how did they know???) and directed to another booth in a different building. We were promised 'discount' (the one english word the teller knew...) but expected 'inflated prices' lol. Nope, there was some sort of foreigner special this week (for the holiday week) and we got in for 20,000 ($20) !!! Score!

The park had a Halloween festival going on, even though Koreans do not go trick or treating or celebrate Halloween.

The random person appearing in our photos is Vanessa, another Canadian teacher stranded in Asia who also likes to play crib. Here we are riding horses. By the way, Everland is liscensed and I stole that mug. Hey, I only have 2 cups in this country.

Caucasian monsters singing 50's tunes to Koreans. I love it!!! Even Beatlejuice was there.

We ate at a 50's style restaraunt. The waitress tried to give me one hamburger and one fish burger and mumbled a cold "hamnida" when I didn't want the fish.

A "set" is a combo. Mmmmm I love hamburgers and 'french fried'. I'm glad they were 'included'. All signs in Korea contain some sort of awkward, funny english. Much like the english used in this blog.

We went on a water-safari-type ride.



It was the type of ride where your personal belonging might go wet.



Also you weren't allowed to use your umbrella :( Who used their umbrella on this ride????



Mel's bum go wet.



We had fun JUST LIKE the guys in the picture.



There was a SCARY ghost house!



We went on this wild west-themed tilt-a-whirl ride and our ride attendant was getting really into the music. He gave us a good show! This video has Dayna written all over it.



The flume was awesome. At most of the attractions you can buy pictures of yourself on the ride just like at Disney. Except the pictures are $6 instead of $20 at Disney. I bought this picture and I consider it an investment.



The ferris wheel was the tallest I've ever seen. We only waited a 30 minutes to get on it.



The view from the top. By the way, we were the worst three people to have stuck in a cage at the top of a creaky, tall ferris wheel because we're all scared of heights. We dubbed it the 'fear cage'. It was tense.



There was a really grand fountain with a lot of roman-esque statues and a huge rose garden. But why take pictures of that stuff when you can pose like an ass with a topless statue?



Token uncool mascot "Lastar". His girlfriend "Laila" didn't warrant a photo.



You learn something new everyday, today it happened at the candy store. Apparently Mr. Big is #1 with Canada's teens. Pass me an Oh Henry, please.

Mel and I had a really awesome time at Everland. There were two rollercoasters, the rides we posted about and a lot of carnival-type rides. The landscape was cool too. But the most impressive thing to me about this park was the lack of gouging. It was so cheap! $20 for admission, $2.50 for a beer, $5 for a lunch combo, all of these items are twice the price at Disney. We are definately going back to explore the water park, Caribbean Bay, which is considered a seperate admission ticket and is a full day experience in itself.

We found some gems on our way home. We got off our express bus in Gangnam to catch the subway home and look what we found...



Quiznos! Unfortuately our favorite sandwich shop in the whole world had just closed. But now that we know where it is we will definately go back. Gangnam is a cool area... there is a whole lot of shizzle there. But man am I craving a sandwich. The only sandwich meat you can buy in Korea is ham, and it's that super-processed spam-ham. Turkey is 'exotic' and chicken just isn't sold like that. No pastrami, no roast beef, no nothin', just ham. So Quiznos, Shawn, and Mel have a date in the near future. Luckily, around the corner we found the next best thing...



A mexican restaraunt! Tacos, fajitas and the ingredients to make them are not sold here at all and I love Mexican food!! The restaraunt was full of foreigners lol- I've never seen so many in one place. Oh, we gorged. It was so cheap and so great. A fantastic end to the night. Who knows what's in store for tomorrow...