Pilgrim with a Passport

Tuesday, 5 February 2013

Adventures in Magical Lotte World: Part 2

Click here to read Part 1 if you haven't already.

Back in the main park, we watched a parade of colourful carriages, zany characters, and...bubbles. Lots of bubbles.

This monorail runs around all of Lotte World, including Magic Island, providing great views of the theme park.

The French Revolution, a fast-paced roller coaster that winds across the main length of the theme park.

Exploring the second floor, we came across these cool "Trick Eye" paintings.

And I bet you thought she couldn't possibly be any more angelic.

This one's my favourite.

The return of The Stinker, which I saw last month at the Toilet Museum

We ate some really defensive hotdogs for lunch. It's okay to be junk food, hotdogs, we still love you!

Here we are experiencing the awesome (if slightly headache-inducing) thrills of the 4D cinema.

Back outside in Magic Island, where you can see the main park building's exterior.

We climbed halfway up the fairy castle.

The Gyro Swing.

The Gyro Drop.

Angela made some new friends.

The park was very well-lit during the evening.

In the queue for the Jungle Adventure ride.

Though we didn't get to ride as many roller coasters as we'd planned to, Angela and I left Lotte World extremely satisfied with the day we spent there. There was plenty of stuff to keep us entertained, and our theme park cravings were easily sated. As for the rides we missed out on? Well, there's always the summer time. Next time we'll visit on a weekday though!

Adventures in Magical Lotte World: Part 1

I've always been a great lover of theme parks. Just looking at a map of one makes me long for charming, artificial villages, whiplash-inducing roller coasters and the smell of hotdogs and candy-floss. The sense of wonder and excitement that these places inspire in me hasn't diminished a bit since I was a kid. So naturally, I was always going to try visit at least one or two of them during my time in Korea.
I thought I'd start with the country's most famous and most visited theme park: Lotte World. It's the largest indoor amusement park in the world, and a perfect place to visit in the winter while it's cold outside:

A view of the park from just above its ice rink.

I was lucky enough to have Angela along with me for the ride (we've become pretty regular travel buddies recently, as you may have noticed). We went on a Saturday, which may have been a mistake on our part as the queues were ridiculously long and we only went on a few rides in the end. But we still had an awesome time exploring its many different areas and revelling in the irresistibly tacky theme park atmosphere.

We left in the morning from Angela's apartment in a quaint, quiet area of Gangnam.

From Jamsil Metro Station, we followed several tunnels towards the theme park. As we got closer to it, the tunnels became more and more fanciful, with pretty fountains and cartoonish architecture.

The theme park is owned by the Lotte Group, which is actually a Japanese food and shopping conglomerate. It is, however, also very active in Korea, running supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, and many other services across the country.

Entering the busy theme park.

Though famous as an indoor theme park, Lotte World also has an outdoor section called Magic Island, which mimics many aspects of the Magic Kingdom in Disney World, such as the castle in this photo.