Love the Lotte

As promised, I took a little trip down to Seoul with some girls from my work to see the amusement park mecca that they call Lotte World. Well let me tell you, it might just have been the best time I've had in Korea yet. I'm not sure how to narrarate my experience to you so that you might fully understand how awesome it was, so I'll just spew out some verbal diarrhea and hope it flies (bad visual). Alright, here goes...

We started the day off at the Express Bus terminal at 10ish (we were of course late for our bus and had to grab the next one). So we were off for our return to childhood at about 10:30am. It only took an hour to get to Seoul on the bus which is actually quicker than the train (less stops). We then took the subway from the bus terminal to Lotte World and we were on our way (time of arrival 12pm). Then here's what happened...

Mary, Jaime, Kelly, and I got the regular pass for $24 while Marcie got the special pass for $30 (what's the difference???). We made a bee-line through the inside of the theme park (more on that later), and we hit the outside for some Extreme Riding! As Marcie and Mary had been there before, they knew where the good rides were. The first stop: a sweet roller-coaster ride through water and tunnels. One problem though; Lotte World is like every other theme park in the world and there was a huge line to get on the ride. The sign said the wait time was 60 minutes and it was almost dead on. By the time we got to the front we were like kids in a huge theme park. As we went through the gates to get on the rides, we were stopped by the resident ticket agent. It seems our penny-pinching had cost us an hour; the $24 ticket was only for admission and shows, for a measly extra $6 you can actually get on the rides. The girls were steamed... enter Super Cocky Celebrity Ron. I talked to the ticket agent and asked her to let us on once and that we would then go and get the proper tickets. Her expression let me know that she had heard this before from the likes of me, but a little smile and a little wink and we were on our way. The ride was super awesome and we were having a great start to our adventure. Then, something else heppened...

We got off the ride and we went to go and get some water. Screaming at the top of your lungs has a way of drying you out. We then went to go on what would be one of two free-falling rides. The first was much shorter than the second and served as a sort of training tool on how to scream while falling at about 200 feet a second. Also, Marcie said she would not go on the super tall free-fall so it was a ride that we could go on together. After, the first one we had an insatiable thirst to get on the second one. We all gave our cameras to Marcie and ran to the line for the "Gyro Drop" on account of it spins while you are going up. It so sweet because it is so tall that you can see much of Seoul as you ascend the monster. When we got up to the top I looked down and I nearly crapped my pants. I couldn't even make out individual people on the ground, they were all just a mass of people I imagined that I would use as a crash mat at the bottom. We dangled at the top for what seemed like an eternity and then.... OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH SSSSSHHHHH********TTTTTTT! Wow, what an adrenaline rush. We must have falen 600 feet in 2 seconds, it was amazing. Then we took a 180 degree turn....

We were hungry so we decided to go for lunch. We were all talking about trying to find a neat little restaurant. Whadda ya know, the first restaurant was little mexican pad. It was my first time having mexican in Korea and it was awesome. I had a taco/enchillada comkbo topped of with a Corona. It was real Corona too and the food was really good. One problem though, it was soooo filling and it had tons of beans in it. I was a walking loaded weapon. We walked around for a bit to work off our full stomachs. We must have walked around for an hour or two before we decided to hit more rides. Then the penultimate moment of my trip came to fruition....

We decided to hit the "Gyro Swing". This thing was massive and super intimidating for me on account of I get sick on rides that spin. Not only did this ride spin but it was like a pendulum and reached a pretty substantial height at the top of its swing. What this meant was that sometimes you were going down face first and sometimes backwards, coupled with the fact that your feet were about 2 inches from the ground upon re-entry. I'll tell you right now I have no qualms in saying that this ride was "THE BEST RIDE EVER"! After we got off, my legs were shaking from being pumped with so much adrenaline. I felt like I was going to trip down the stairs. I figured that I had also gotten a bit dizzy from the spinning and I had to sit down for a few and collect my wits through the help of my friend Beer. The story should end there, but....

We went inside with every intention of leaving this bastion of enjoyment. Kelly really wanted some candy so we went in search of just that. We were pleasantly surprised that it didn't take long to find a candy store. Imagine that, a candy store in an amusement park. I loaded up on $6 worth of Jelly Belly's and fancy chocolates. Now we were ready to go right? Not even close. When we were walking a little behind the scenes we came acrosss more rides that you would never know were there unless you went for a little snooping around. The first ride we went on was "Jungle Adventure" and it was just a little tubing down some rapids. ASSAH! (Korean for Awesome; Also my new Favourite word). We then found a little roller-coastert action. Do you remember when I said I would come back to the inside. Well, I opted out of the roller-coaster on account of I was still a little sick from the Gyro Drop, so I went up top to check out the girls and I realized that the inside of Lotte World is modeled almost exclusively on Galaxyland in West Edmoton Mall. They look almos identical to each other and the only difference between the Roller-Coasters is that this one had one loop to the Mind Benders two. Crazy that I would get the most nostalgic about back home in an amusement park. Then, something amazing happened....

Being totally spent on rides we were now ready to leave. But wait, what is this... a show? It sure was, and it was spectacular. They had a huge stage on one side of the park and they had a bunch of dancers putting on a show. Guess what? They were all white! They were quite a spectacle to watch let me tell you. There was good dancing, a chick made of rubber(she did these moves where she contorted her body, I think she was an alien), and a trapeze artist. God times, and a great way to cap off our evening. It was now 9:30pm and time to go. This is where the story ends right....

Wrong, when we got to the bus terminal the last bus back home was sold out so we had to book it across town to get the last train home. It is weird but buses and trains quit running at very early times in Seoul (around 11 - 11:30pm). We got to the train station at 10 minutes to 11pm and was ablke to wrangle standing room only tickets on the last train back home. We had made it by the skin of our teeth (I don't really know what that expression means, do you?). We got back to Cheonan at 12am and I said goodbye to the girls. We agreed that we had all had a great time and that I was the most amazing man they've ever had the chance to hang out with. Okay, maybe I made that last part up, but it was a super awesome time. End of stroy....

You can check out my pictures from the Lotte World Experience on my flicker site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronniea/

Bye kids