Gyeongju World - 16 October

As usual our plans changed again and we decided to skip the caves and go to Gyeongju World, an amusement park in Gyeongju. It had been a while since we did something exciting. The bus ride to Gyeongju took about an hour, and then we took a taxi to Gyeongju World.

The tickets were cheaper than Tongdo Fantasia, but most of the rides were much better! And best of all, no waiting in a long line to buy the tickets. 

Another Hello Kitty shop. Lindie and I bought porcelain soju cups here and
we all got free key chains because we are foreigners.

Lindie and her little mascot.

The whole park was filled with fairytale statues. They looked really cool.
We realised a bit later that they weren't really statues...

Before we went home I played some "cowboys and crooks" and won a little
puppy key chain.

Jean tried to go inside, but the troll who lives there wouldn't let her in.

Lindie was dying for some mushrooms - it had a strange effect on her.

This scroll looked really cool. It even had an Afrikaans swear word on it!

"Droll's wizard train" - sounds like it's gonna be a shitty ride.

After Jean saw what the magic mushroom did to Lindie, she had to try it for herself.
She took a few bites, turned into a garden gnome, kicked me on my shin and ran away.



We saw something odd on the Ferris wheel and zoomed in to take a better look.

It doesn't look like they are racing...

There is a track in the sky with paddle cars, or in this case animals, that goes
through the entire park.

We found Jean in the Wizard Garden, but she got away again.

We finally caught Jean in this garden. She pretended to be a real garden
gnome. I stuffed her in my backpack so she couldn't escape again.

I bought some magic pumpkins at the shop. I thought they might come in handy in class.

Unfortunately Jean ate some of the magic pumpkins that I had put in my backpack, turned into a squirrel, gnawed a whole in my backpack and escaped, again.


 The monkey in the tree told Lindie that he knows where Jean is, but it turned out that he was a con-artist and stole Lindie's handbag. Lindie got furious and threw him with a magic pumpkin which turned him into a chicken. We killed the chicken and ate it for lunch.

The last picture of the monkey before Lindie got to him.

The Talking Tree. Though he talks in riddles, he is very wise.

The little bear living in the tree helped us solve the riddle the Talking Tree gave us
and we found Jean...

...hiding in the very same tree.

It took us a while to get her out, because she kept throwing us with nuts.

These two decided not to help us get Jean out of the tree. They were mad
because we killed the chicken... I mean monkey.

I still don't know what that is. Maybe it's SpongeBob's brother?

Mr duck showed us where we could find help to turn Jean back into herself.

The Jackal and the Pig were able to help us.

We stuffed Jean into Aladdin's lamp and let Jackal and Pig work their magic. A few rhyming couplets and a swing of Pig's magic wand was all it took to get Jean back.

Mr Pig.

Something tells me you don't use toilets in this restroom...

As if we didn't have enough excitement with Jean running away, we decided to check out the Ghost House before starting with the other rides.


Already scared out of her wits just by the looks of it, Lindie told me to go in first
so that she and Jean can have enough time to run away if I get attacked by some weird
creature. How thoughtful of them...

 Just as we entered Lindie got hold of my hand and didn't let go until we got out. It still hasn't recovered...

The following pictures don't need many comments.

Recruiting the girl from The Ring was a great idea!

Lindie wasn't very nice to her and she decided to leave us alone and rather kill
the next group of people.



We already had chicken, so we skipped this 'feast'.

I always wondered what happened to Barbie - now I know.



This ride was super fun! We did it four or five times.





I had the chance to be a hero. Lindie and Jean didn't know the horse was about to step on them, so I ran, jumped and grabbed them like the guy in the movies and saved them.

The Phaethon - a super cool roller coaster!

We need to take a three day hike to find the lost city with the roller coaster, but it was worth it. We some really cool stuff on along the way.





At last, the lost city.



Pikachu!

Like in Tongdo Fantasia, we had to take a picture of Lindie on the kiddie rides. Pikachu looked extremely happy with Lindie on his back, but one of the park officials didn't find it funny at all and started shouting at Lindie until she got off.

There was some kind of 3D show in this building, but we kept missing the
start of the show so we just gave up.

We had absolutely no idea what was in this building, and boy were we in
for a surprise.

From the outside it looked super cool.

We waited in an insanely long line for about 40 minutes. There were these discs on the walls with lightning bolts in them. I found that fascinating, because if you touch it the lightning gathers in the point where your hand is.

I touched it so many time that I am now able to shoot lightning from my hands.
I use this power to punish my students when they are bad.

When we finally got to the front of the line we were in for a surprise. It was a roller coaster of some sort. You get in a little car the size of a shoe box and off you go. Lindie and Jean shared a show box and I got in the one behind them. Two seconds after the ride starts you go around a corner and go up hill into total darkness. Literally pitch black. That lasted for about three days and three nights, probably because it's called Space Tour. Then you go around another corner and that is where things get a little shaky. Suddenly you are in a huge, poorly lit room filled with roller coaster tracks. At first I thought it was going to be the most boring ride ever, because the trip that took three days and three nights was at the speed of a Ferris wheel - insanely slow. Boy was I in for a surprise. My shoe box started to pick up speed like Bugatti Veyron and the corners on the track were sharper than a Minora blade, and don't think for a second that the shoe box reduced speed before the corners. As I was trying to take everything in while being thrown around in my shoe box, I realised that the only two thing keeping me in the box were a flimsy seat belt and a toothpick thin chrome bar. The shoe box was going so fast I thought it was going to derail. Seriously, the corners on the track weren't banked at all and the shoe box was giving the Veyron a run for it's money around them. After what felt like an hour I finally made it to safety in my trusty shoe box. It took me a few seconds to realise what had happened in space and when I saw Lindie and Jean outside waiting for me we all burst out laughing.

These talented young Koreans did something like High School Musical. The choreography was really good! They didn't actually sing the songs while doing the dances, but it was still very good. They did Mamma Mia at the end. They were all oozing confidence and the girls were sizzling. 

I think this was the first ride that we went on, and like most of the others
it was great fun.

 

The Tower Of Terror

 Now this one was so much fun! You get on, they strap you in and then they hoist you into outer space just so they can let you fall towards earth at the speed of white light. Just before you hit the ground they apply the emergency brakes to counter-act gravity and get your internal organs totally mixed-up. Jean decided to pass on this one, but Lindie and I just loved the feeling of moving organs. I think I tasted my liver once on the way down.

Lindie, ready to go.

Up...

...and up...


While Lindie and I were in outer space, I saw this ride in the corner of the park. I was amped to get on it, although Jean and Lindie didn't like the idea of getting wet. You get in a little round boat, and float through the canyon. The catch is this: the current has no mercy and with waterfalls around almost every corner there is not a snowball's chance in hell that you are not going to get wet. Even with raincoats on we still got wet, and Lindie hit a dent in my arm afterwards because the ride was my idea. Like my hand, it still hasn't recovered.

That was the last ride we went on and called it a day. Well not quite, actually. We left Gyeongju World and took a taxi to a place called Love Castle. Someone told Lindie about it and we just had to check it out. What we found there was something I did not expect to find in Korea. Though I am not going to put the photos on the blog for obvious reasons, they are available on request.