Day 2 – Korea, 24 December 2006
Rise and shine at 7am and breakfast starts at 8am. It’s such a bad start for the day with unappealing breakfast. Hotel Robert served toast with jam, some cold cuts and plain porridge with Korean dish, same dishes as last night’s dinner. Oh, and hey also serve yucky coffee….. I didn’t have much and the coach left for sightseeing at 9am sharp.
1st sightseeing stop. Suwon Fortress.
It is about 1 hour drive from Incheon. Suwon Fortress is a UNESCO heritage site. It was built by one of the Korean kings in ancient times out of filial piety and he built a fortified wall (similar to Great Wall of China) along the boundary to protect it. This wall is actually to guard the tomb of the king’s father. But this father never made it to the throne and thus when the son succeeded the throne from the grandfather, the son built this fortress as the resting place for his father.
2nd sightseeing stop. Everland Theme Park.
It was almost 11.30am when we arrived at the theme park. This is one sightseeing I always dreaded. Because I don’t play all those roller coaster rides ! I’m scared ! And because it’s X,mas Eve, it’s definitely going to pack with people to the brim.
Everland Theme Park is in fact the largest in terms of size that you can find in Asia. It’s an outdoor theme park and I’m going to spend 6 hours out in the cold !!!!!! Luckily, throughout the whole afternoon, there wasn’t much wind.
We had our first tour group photo taken at the entrance. Rosa led us in as admission tickets to the park are included. True enough, it was VERY VERY crowded. Everywhere is infested with people. We had to purchase the BIG 5 ticket as it is not included in the package. It cost us W25,000 (approx. S$ 42.50) per person. With this ticket, you can take any 5 rides. The ticket in fact consists of 3 categories. Pay as you play, Big 5 and unlimited. It is actually a waste of money as I do not take any rides. In addition, when you look at the horrendous queue at each ride, you will give up. The minimum waiting time at each ride spanned between 30 minutes to 2 hours !
In the end, we took a chair lift ride to the lower portion of the theme park, spent 30 minutes waiting to watch a 5 minutes stimulator movie. Then, we had lunch. All the restaurants, even roadside snack stall were snaked with LONG LONG queue. In the end, we ate Korean fast food (burgers and fries). I guessed fast food means people eat fast so finding seats will be easier.
After a full meal, we strolled the whole theme park thinking what we can do with the rest of the tickets. We chanced upon THE VIKING and Alvin decided to give it a try. In terms of size and height of swing, it’s the largest I ever since. While waiting for him, I have my ice-cream in Korea ! See that person waving, that’s him on THE VIKING !
Those speciality shops sold so many cute animal hats that I couldn’t resist trying them on and made Alvin took pictures for me.
There’s a X’mas themed parade marching off at about 2.30pm. It was pretty massive with the number of floats and people involved. The whole parade took about 30 minutes. I managed to ‘choop’ a place of the slope so managed to catch a good show.
We wandered around the park again waiting for 4.15pm. This is the meeting time with the rest of the group as Rosa had booked our Safari World ride for 4.30pm. Rosa had actually wanted to bring us to go Safari World when we entered the theme park at noon. But the wait was 2 hours, so she pre-booked the seats for us at 4.30pm. By the time, we reached Safari World, we were told that those waiting in line has to wait for at least 3hours by now ! Gosh !
So, what’s so good about this Safari World that people are willing to queue 3 hours for a 10 - minute ride?
It’s the only place where tigers and lions in captivity can stay together in harmony. And also the rarest breed of animal – a pair of Ligers (pronounced as Lai Ger). It took the Koreans 12th tries to breed a tiger and a lion. This is their off spring. I tried to give a short commentary on the video but the children’s screams covered my voice. Watch out for Liger when you heard Rosa’s voice !
Then, there was also bears that were trained to ‘say hello’ and another one to do the ‘Gong Xi Gong Xi’.
We left the park at 6pm. By then, the sun had set and it was total darkness in 15 minutes time. We had BBQ for dinner tonight ! The marinated pork chop was SO DELICIOUS that we couldn’t help but keeping asking Seven to top up for us.
Enroute to hotel, the group stopped at 1 of the ski shops to rent their ski suits and ski equipments for their ski next day. Although, Rosa will be giving 4 hours to ski, Alvin and me decided not to do it. By the time we learnt the ropes, it’s time to pack up and go. Furthermore, the price of rental (which is optional) is not cheap either. It costs W75,000 (approx. S$127.50) per person for the rental.
We checked into Daemyung Resort which is near the ski resort which we will be going the next day. This is such a contrast to yesterday’s hotel ! A spacious bathroom with big towels ! The floors are heated because the triple rooms are Tatami – style. I had a good time walking around the room barefooted as the warm floor made the feet so comfortable !
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