Today is our last day as a family of five. Tomorrow we will welcome Alex into our family. So today, we headed over to Lotte World - a fairly long 15 stop subway ride from our hotel. Lotte World is an indoor/outdoor theme park with the indoor part reminding me a bit of Mall of America's indoor attractions, but more comprehensive than Mall of America. The ideas seem like a knockoff of Disney's - I'm pretty sure I saw Goofy out on their ice rink. There's another theme park that is popular in the Seoul area called Everland, but that one is outdoors only so with the temps starting at 10 degrees in the morning, we figured the indoor option would be nice. We're not sure if Lotte World's outdoor portion was even open, but we didn't bother finding out.
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| We thought this was funny - socks in a vending machine in the middle of a mall! |
The Lotte complex, which includes a Lotte Department store and other stops, is off the Jamsil subway stop - you don't even have to go outside. We stashed our coats in a locker and went in. We arrived not too long after opening and the park wasn't too busy and got on a few rides rather quickly. Then we waited in line for about an hour for this hot air balloon ride that takes you around the roofline of Lotte World. It was a fun ride, but the wait took its toll. We grabbed a bite to eat at a hot dog place called New York Hot Dogs. Most of the theme park food was very western - corn dogs, churros, popcorn, but there's a Korean twist in some cases. For example, the hot dog called New York Hot Dog and Coffee had a bulgogi hot dot and a "w garlic crispy" hot dog. Ben said the bulgogi dog was good and Dana enjoyed the garlic one.
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| Bulgogi and "w crispy garlic" hot dog at New York Hot Dog |
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| Funny signs at the amusement park - no drunken ride and not allowed to pregnant are my favorites! |
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| View from the balloon ride at Lotte. We were in a balloon like the yellow one in the middle of the picture. |
After lunch we rode the bumper cars and Ian did a few rides more for younger kids. Then we went to the Korean Folk Museum in the park. This is not the outdoor Folk Village in Suwon that we had considered visiting, but it gives a nice overview of Korea's history with some nice scale model military parades, palaces, and everyday life scenes. There are also various Korean made arts, crafts, and souvenirs. Near the exit of the museum, we saw a painter who turns your Korean name into a work of art. We had him make a scroll for each of kids using the Korean spelling of their name. The kids were enthralled watching him paint their names and wondering what kind of picture the artist would paint. He painted a dragon on Ben's name, a tiger on Ian's and some love birds on Cami's. We didn't get one for Alex because we weren't quite sure how Alex would be written in Korean and the artist almost spelled Ian's name wrong until Ben caught it and corrected it.
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| Getting on the balloon ride |
After this, we started wrapping up our day. We had all gotten chilly sitting and watching the artist paint. Apparently, Korea has a national campaign to reduce energy usage and Lotte World is doing their part by keeping the temperature below 20 degrees Celcius which is less than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not bad when you're moving around, but gets chilly when you're sitting for a while.
Lotte World is open until 10 or 11pm, but we didn't want to stick around that long. We went on one more attraction, a mirror maze. Oddly, this attraction and several others that we didn't go on, required a special ticket even though we had purchased a "passport" that covered "Free
usage of all facilities, Includes admission(Game attractions
excluded)". I guess the mirror maze was considered a game attraction as were several other attractions that didn't seem like games.
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| Ian with the artist who pained his name in Korean -이안 |
On the way out, we stopped at a vendor and sampled a bunch of Korean treats - things that looked like rice krispy treats and other sweets. We ate those on the subway ride home. When we got back, I took the shuttle over to Itaewon to get my suit while Dana and the kids got a bite to eat. Then it was off to bed so we could get ready to move on to the getting Alex and coming home stage of our trip.
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| Ben in front of the vendor selling Korean snacks |
The Lotte complex, which includes a Lotte Department store and other stops, is off the Jamsil subway stop - you don't even have to go outside. We stashed our coats in a locker and went in. We arrived not too long after opening and the park wasn't too busy and got on a few rides rather quickly. Then we waited in line for about an hour for this hot air balloon ride that takes you around the roofline of Lotte World. It was a fun ride, but the wait took its toll. We grabbed a bite to eat at a hot dog place called New York Hot Dogs. Most of the theme park food was very western - corn dogs, churros, popcorn, but there's a Korean twist in some cases. For example, the hot dog called New York Hot Dog and Coffee had a bulgogi hot dot and a "w garlic crispy" hot dog. Ben said the bulgogi dog was good and Dana enjoyed the garlic one.
