Chuseok continued - Tongdo Fantasia

On the Thursday we decided to go to Tongdo Fantasia, an amusement park in Tongdosa, 40 minutes by bus from Ulsan. The original plan was to go bungee jumping, but unfortunately all the bungee places are close to Seoul and we weren't in the mood for traveling so far. We will do that another time.

The three stooges at the bus stop.

Luckily we didn't have to wait long for the bus, and soon we were on our way. We got off the bus in Tongdosa and had a few blocks to walk to Tongdo Fantasia. On our way there we passed a field with sunflowers, and because most of them were dried out, it reminded us of something out of a horror movie.
I was waiting for the alien from Signs to come running out of the field, but fortunately for us it was a public holiday and the aliens also had the day off.

And then we saw it... Tongo Fantasia!!! In an instant we felt like little children again! We were so excited and couldn't wait to get on the rides.


We had the whole park for ourselves!



Lindie was the first on the terrifying slide!

Everyone on the slide, and cheese!

So after having the time of our lives, we headed back home...

Just kidding.

"Welcome to Tongdo Fantasia"

When we got there we still needed to get our tickets, and we were in for a surprise. If I remember correctly there were six rows of people at the ticket office, and to make it worse the people at the ticket office were slower than the South African standard, which instantly made me feel at home. Whoopy!

Waiting anxiously to get our tickets. It took about 40 min. to get to the front
of the line.

Behold, Tongdo Fantasia.

The first part of the park looked like a little fairy tale town. It reminded me of Far Far Away in Shrek. There were restaurants, shops, game arcades and something Lindie found absolutely fantastic... a Hello Kitty shop, filled with all the Hello Kitty merchandise you can think of. Chop sticks, toilet seats, you name it and it's there.

This castle is ghost house, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go in.



The back of the entrance.



First ride, the roller coaster. Luckily we only had to wait a few minutes
to get on.

The ride takes about 1 minute and 40 seconds from start to finish.

Straight into oblivion.

 We did the roller coaster twice. The first time we sat in the third car, because the first two cars were closed. The second time they opened the front cars and I sat right in front.

This is why I wanted to sit in front... Watch the video and enjoy the ride.

There was a little Korean girl sitting next to me and her mother gave me a thumbs-up for taking the video.

After the roller coaster it was time for a ride on the Black Pearl with Jack Sparrow. Unfortunately Jack Sparrow had too much rum and couldn't join us.

The girl in the middle didn't think this ride was fun at all. She was screaming an opera singer on a cactus leaf for a the first half or the ride and then she stopped. I thought she had passed out or died. Her friends had to help her out of the boat afterwards. Shame, I hope she had clean underwear in her bag.

The next ride was a peaceful flight on the back of a bird. To our amasement, we were only foreigners on our part of the ride.





My birdie.

I had the chance to take a nice shot of the roller coaster and the ferris wheel.

The next ride might look like fun to you, but I can assure you, it isn't. It was the longest ride and the most terrifying.

It's not moving. It's standing still, or hanging. We were definitely hanging
there for what seemed to be a lifetime, a to make it worse, the bar over your
lap doesn't really help. Luckily there was an external cage as well, but it
look too trustworthy while we were hanging there.

After this one we decided to stick to the children's rides. Whoohoo!

Shame, I think he carried a heavy Korean kid.

Just before closing time we went to the restrooms for the first time after getting to Tongdo, and when we came out the whole place was empty. Not one person in sight.

We walked back to the bus stop to get a bus back to Ulsan and found that we were taking the last bus to Ulsan for the night. The busdriver got into the bus and left the station without picking anyone up. We all started to panick at once. We didn't feel like staying in the ghost town for the night. The place was a little creepy. Jean decided to run after the bus, but with no success. It was gone. After a few minutes it came back and picked us up. Now why the heck did he leave in the first place? I felt like smacking the driver when I got on the bus, but I still wanted to get to Ulsan so I thought it best not to.