Roller Coasters in SeoulLand

Korea has a lot of amusement parks.  A few are pretty big and then there are a bunch of small ones.  I found a coupon for us to get into one of the smaller ones for less then $10.00 each for the day so one day when the girls had off school and Russ was off work we went and checked it out.

The first thing we noticed was how beautiful it was.  There were fall flowers everywhere.

They don't really celebrate Halloween over here like we do in America, but they still decorate for it.

We went straight to the roller coasters and were all very happy when we saw Lucy was tall enough to ride them.  This was her first time on a "big-people" roller coaster.  She was really excited.

Ok, maybe I was a little excited too.

While it wasn't a huge amusement park there were plenty of rides to keep us busy.

The girls were tall enough to ride some of the ride by themselves.  They thought that was pretty cool.

Waiting in line for the pirate ship.

They had the boat divided into two different lines.  One was for the middle and the other was for the ends.  Since I am deathly afraid of heights and because the line was much shorter we went into the middle seat lines.  It was a pretty good idea, we only had to wait a few minutes to get on.

Here is the story behind this picture...the kid in the blue and white shirt was not tall enough to ride the ride, but his parents or who ever was with him wanted to ride, so they left the poor kid sitting beside the ride BY HIMSELF and went on the ride.  Now on occasion, I have been accused of being a little un-compassionate, but even I would not let my child sit on the side and watch while everyone else rode the ride.  He didn't seem to mind though, he was perfectly content to just sit there and watch.

This was one of those rides that seemed like a good idea at the time but we all quickly realized was not a good idea at all.  Remember I'm very scared of heights...so what was I thinking when I agreed to a ride that would suspend me upside down for minutes over and over again a few stories in the air?  It was a horrible experience, I can't even say what it looked like to be upside down because I had my eyes closed the entire time.  Both girls rode this ride as well and both hated it.  Only Russ got off the ride with a smile. 

Plotting the path to our next ride.

This was a very funny "Korean" experience for us...we decided to go through the haunted house.  What we didn't think about ahead of time was that anything that was said would be in Korean.  We figured it wouldn't be to big of a deal because ghosts and headless men look the same no matter what language they speak.  Well, we were totally wrong about this one.  This was a walk through story haunted house.  The entire thing was narrated and from experience I can tell you that if you can't understand the story it really isn't all that scary.  This picture was of our "tour guide".  He really did a good job trying to scare us, but when you have no idea what the story is it just loses some of the effect.  Based on the Koreans reactions, I think the story must have been scary because they seemed scared.

Outside of the haunted house.  

This was a cool optical illusion house with a mirror maze. 

Waiting in line.  Taylor photo bombed us.

I'm pretty sure I have seen one of these somewhere else.  I just can't put my finger on where.

A family picture before we headed home.

Ice Gallery

A couple of months ago I heard about a place called the "Ice Gallery".  I was told it is basically a huge walk-in freezer that has a bunch of ice sculptures in it.  I looked it up and it said that the freezer was kept around 35 degrees and if you don't bring a coat they have some there for you to borrow.  I wasn't really into wearing a coat a ton of other people had worn, but I thought it sounded like a fun hot summer day adventure.  So we dug out our heavy winter clothes to put on over our summer shorts and t-shirts and headed out to find the Ice Gallery.

My directions were pretty good but the signage for the place was not...

I don't know if you can tell but that arrow points directly to a huge brick wall.

We were so excited when we found it, but our excitement was quickly squelched when we realized it was closed. :(  We had no idea why it was closed but sometimes Korean businesses just close down when they feel like it.  So we had to put the Ice Gallery adventure off for another day. 


Fast forward ahead a few months to last weekend and we decided to give the Ice Gallery another try.  It has cooled off quite a bit here, so we already had jeans on, but we still packed up our winter coats and headed out.  We were all very happy when it was open this time.

We passed this cool looking new traditional house on our way.

We got all bundled up and were all immediately hot, it is in the upper 70's low 80's here right now--cool but not winter coat and hat weather.  Thankfully, they didn't make us wait long before they took us to the freezer.   They opened the doors and told us to take our time.  It was so cool-figuratively and literally.

There were huge ice sculptures everywhere.  Right now it is the 100th birthday of Oreos so they had an entire display of Oreos.

It's an Oreo birthday cake.

All the Oreo packages are frozen in ice.

They also had a display for the Olympics.

There was a small ice slide that the girls had a ton of fun on.

At the top of the steps.

You would go pretty fast and she flew out at the end.

They had a different rooms in a house made out of ice.
The bedroom...

The kitchen...

This was the refrigerator in the kitchen.

The living room...

Playing the ice piano

Talking on the phone and using the ice computer.

Warming themselves by the "fire"...Lucy's tush was a bit cold after going down the slide so much.

And of course no house would be complete without a bathroom...

Yes, that is an ice toilet.

Caught Russ at an awkward moment in this picture. :)

I hope people realize the toilet isn't actually real.

After the ice house they had an ice school scene.

Sitting at the ice desk

Listening to the ice teacher.

The ice whiteboard.

Next were a bunch of Korean landmarks.

An ice Buddha

One of the gates that surround Seoul.

This was a massive ice dragon.  It was so big we couldn't get it all in the picture.

It's a dark picture, but it is a huge 2012 behind us.

 Next an ice igloo and aquarium.

They were all inside the igloo.

The lights kept changing colors so it was a little bit difficult to get a good picture at times. 

The fish were a bit sluggish at this aquarium.

By the time we got through everything we were all pretty cold and ready to be done.  We left the freezer, took off all our winter clothes and went back upstairs to the main level.
For a few extra dollars you could carve your own cup out of a block of ice.  The girls thought this sounded like a lot of fun so we paid for them to do it.

Giving us a demonstration how to carve our cup.

He did it so quick and made it look so easy.

Eager to get started...

Quickly realizing it isn't as easy as the demonstration made it look...

And guess who did most of Taylor's cup...

And who did most of Lucy's.

It didn't matter who did most of the work, they still had a great time drinking soda out of their ice cups.  By the time we got them carved the cups had really started to melt.  The girls asked to take them home, but quickly realized that was not going to happen.

 For the most part we had the place to ourselves, but right before we left a huge Japanese tourist group came in and pretty much took over the small place.

At one time in this small room 3 different languages were being spoken-Korean, English and Japanese.  What a culturally diverse life we live right now.  So awesome.

Before we left we snapped a few family pictures.

Sporting the Eagles jersey at the Ice Gallery.  On the subway during the trip home a Korean boy asked me about my jersey.  He knew a lot about Philadelphia and America in general (He knew the state capital to every state...I quizzed him on most of them.  It was pretty amazing.)  He was excited to use his English on us and I was of course excited to talk about the greatest state in America with him.

Definitely one of our more unique adventures since getting to Korea.  This city has a ton of cool things to do.  If you come visit we will take you with us on our adventures.  :)