Another day, another intercity bus. The weather remained as unpredictable as ever, which didn’t bode particularly well for us. Quick change to a local bus on arrival in the city and then get off when you see the massive B&Ms.
Day 3 – Gyeongju World?
What’s the situation? The ticket windows were open, with most people going for the water park. Admissions staff whipped out one of those charts with all the rides on and umbrella symbols next to the things that will ‘run in the rain’ – not much. “Any chance of the rollercoasters running?” In a far more endearing manner than the previous day: “mmmmmmmmmaybe, sorry sorry.” K. We’ll stick around then.
There’s a Starbucks on the other side of the road opposite the entrance, with an upstairs seating area that provides a good view of both B&Ms.
We spent a total of 5 hours up there watching the rain come and go. It’s a much more significant park today, they have to at least try to open right?
Halfway through their scheduled operating hours, we were about to give up and leave, writing off this portion of the trip as a complete failure, which was a depressing prospect as our main draw for covering this part of the country was this park.
Hold it. There’s a man climbing the stairs on the Dive Coaster. That must be a good sign. Never has watching a lift hill walk been so gripping. They climbed up and down, checking bits on the holding brake and the block sections. Hold it. The Invert just sent an empty train. We’re in.
Desperate to get the blood in our legs flowing again, we somewhat prematurely rushed back over to the ticket window, where the poor girl didn’t quite know what was going on in the park yet herself and we were excitedly gesturing that they’ve started running the rides. Let’s wait for a bit more confirmation.
Walked back out to the car park and stood watching for another half an hour or so. No further signs of the invert. Hold it. The dive just sent an empty train. The dive just did a block test. The dive just sent two trains. The dive just sent a train with people on it. We’re in.
“Tickets please”. “Rollercoaster OK!” <3
Gyeongju World
The park was predictably ghost town-ish as there had been nothing to do all this time and we headed straight over to the new boy.
#1 Draken
The area for Draken is rather impressive, you can walk under most of the layout and get a lot more intimate with the main drop than I’ve seen before with these rides.
There’s a new fancy castle and dragon for the queue and station, some back story taking place on TV screens. As far as I could tell, Peter Pan has the one true ring and a dragon wants to get it back from him. The ensuing chase is the ride.
Had another near spite while standing at the air gates as they were having teething troubles with their new ride. Guests got kicked out of the station again while they sent a couple more tests round.
Finally managed to actually achieve something for the day and Draken is good. Even if the ride type is getting rather dull to me in principle, it provided solid fun as always.
It contains a couple of good interactions like the bridge at the base of the first drop.
I like the way they took the second train off immediately after testing.
I (think) I like the way they’ve kept the old shoulder restraints on this, but haven’t personally confirmed the vest complaint yet.
I like the way the splashdown hits the track above itself, making the track wet. Wait, they don’t run rides when the track is wet? Huh.
#2 Dragon 2 Loop Coaster
Grabbed the powered dragon on the way back out of Draken’s area. About time someone bothered to run one for us.
#3 Phaethon
Time to see if the B&M Invert is still alive. It was. It had just been so quiet since that test train we saw long ago that nothing had been sent since. Managed to slither into the last couple of seats of the first train they had been waiting so long to fill.
Another impressive queueline for this one. The famous entrance with the big horse statue is followed by lots of rockwork before heading indoors where there’s a couple of dark sections and some scenery. Think it’s themed to Chariots of Fire and Thor 2.
This was my second big boy invert in as many months. It’s large, fast, forceful and enjoyable. It just lacked the slightly wilder edge that Monster had. There’s no snap at all in the cobra roll, all the transitions seemed more well refined but not necessarily in a good way. Maybe this is what I’ve heard others talk about with old school B&Ms being better. Never quite understood it myself as I’ve found there’s outliers on both ends of the spectrum.
You can get quite up close and personal with this one as well, so both coaster areas have some good interaction and theming.
Went back round for another go but it started raining a bit more and they decided to cease operation again, telling guests to wait a while.
Did the rapids while waiting. Everyone else was ponchoed up but it was already wet, what’s the worst that can happen? Plus, rapids are more fun with a bit of threat involved, and this one was no exception.
Tried to get back into Phaethon, just as the queue was being evacuated. Ah.
Well Draken is still running at least. Back to that for another couple of laps.
They eventually gave up on that as well, as the rain got slightly worse again. Oh well, got the creds, good on you Gyeongju World for trying at least.
Did the Ferris Wheel on the way out for the sake of it/some views. Plenty more of this hardware on the horizon.
Quite liked the place in the end. Wouldn’t be a huge amount to do even on a good day, but what they do have for now is solid and well presented.
Having set up camp in Busan for the next couple of days, we took one of their very efficient intercity buses up to this park in Tongdo. It rained on and off along the way, but upon arrival and following the 15 minute walk to the park entrance, the weather seemed pretty reasonable.
There was a lot of activity in the resort hotel car park but absolutely nothing in the main car park. All the ticket windows were closed, only a little guest services building to the side showed any signs of life. In we go.
“What’s the situation?” We were pointed to a piece of paper with today’s available attractions listed on it. It had around 4 or 5 items on it, a couple of kiddie things, carousel and a haunted walkthrough. “I see. Any chance of the rollercoasters running?” “No. Not at all.” It was a weekend, it was opening time, they were open until 9pm that day, but because it had rained earlier that morning, they had already completely given up on life. Sigh. I should be used to this by now, but it never seems any less stupid.
Jumped on the next bus back to Busan to try our luck on something else.
Geumgang Park?
This potential +1 was another reasonablly significant walk from a nearby metro station, which got quite hilly near the end. It reminded me of the Chinese city parks with their greenery + amusement section combo.
There was a help yourself insect spray dispenser near the entrance accompanied by a warning sign filled with all manner of awful looking creatures. Better be quick then.
Powered up to the powered dragon and found a man in a hut. “Can we ride the cred?” “Nope, it rained earlier.” K.
Drowned our sorrows with album shopping and food then found a nice observation deck on top of a mall for the evening.
This is ‘Breathtaking Busan’. Not sure on that yet.
Here we go, back to my favourite part of the world.
Flew into Seoul with Asiana Airlines, who from my previous short haul experience with them could have been world beaters but they were a bit underwhelming this time around – the entertainment selection was miniscule and the default offering of beverages was a whole 2 times in 11 hours.
Had a Seoul 밤 (night) in the old faithful hotel from our last trip with the heated floor that nearly killed me. Then took the morning Train (not all the way) to Busan, no zombies included.
Daegu KTX station was a bit of a spite, having less big boy lockers than the nearby metro station which, with a lot of luggage in tow, managed to save the day for us.
Day 1 – E-World
Thought we were immediately screwed, as there was what looked like a closed ride sign at the ticket desk with pictures of a couple of creds. Too early for that disappointment, but what choice do we have other than to proceed.
Hmmm.
#1 Magic Castle
Magic Castle was a laugh. Always start strong on these trips with something high quality. It actually was, as they were sticking to the Korean tradition of female ride operators singing while kid’s rides are in action.
Highlight: Dangerously low clearance on the spiral lift hill. Lowlight: Somehow ended up with grease on me.
#2 Boomerang
The welded Boomerang was up next. Hiding well in the foliage makes it slightly less of an ugly sight. The most unpleasant part I find on these is when the train does a hideous stopping itself dead within the length of the station when you reverse back in, which seems to be a more modern feature. The ones that overshoot the station again and come in forwards are fine, which this one did.
Highlight: Surprisingly smooth. Lowlight: Just another Boomerang.
Poor operators.
Some intense swearing in dance music was occurring in the queue for Camel Back, which was somewhat amusing. Where’s the K-Pop though?
#3 Camel Back
I liked this thing. It has the common features of a Jet Coaster but packed a bit more of a punch than usual, with some sharper than average dodgy transitions and a rather significant layout. Might have even been some air time in there.
Highlight: Somehow being run like Tivoli Rutschebanan, with crazy locals on their feet and leaving the train while it was still coming into the station. Not something you’d usually see out here. Lowlight: No singing.
#4 Hurricane
Final cred in the park is Hurricane. False alarm on that sign out front it seems, everything running as expected.
The common Asian loop screw layout from an obscure manufacturer. It rode alright but it’s even more overgrown around here and I actually took a tree to the face during the ride.
Highlight: Tree to the face. Lowlight: Tree to the face.
This isn’t usually my sort of thing, but for some strange reason (seeing it on a Korean reality show) we decided to give it a crack. It was both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
I don’t do well with being held upside down for long and on the odd swing it just hangs there for what seems like forever while I’m shouting “please stop.” When it clears the top at a pace the result is quite intense and it’s a long old cycle. Sort of enjoyed it, could have been far worse.
Hit the log flume for some fun. The splashdown effect from the boars looked pathetically weak offride, but it had better theming than Tiger Rock.
Grabbed some food and headed up towards the big tower at the top of the hill. It’s situated outside the park as a separate attraction, where there’s a secondary entrance/exit gate, but they gave out a set of vouchers with the park tickets that can get you in for dirt cheap.
For the benefit of tourism branding, Korea like to stick an adjective in front of all their cities to give them a bit of a buzz.
This is ‘Colourful Daegu’, and that does actually make sense. Look at all those rooves.
There’s a 400-odd foot fall on your face in a harness attraction up here but it costs ~£50 and after watching someone else, I managed to tell myself that it looks a little overly controlled rather than freefall, like one of those shot and drop towers. Perhaps the most intense part is the fact you have to make the leap yourself, the moment of truth isn’t done for you. So no. SCAD was enough for me.
Took the cable car back down over the park just as it started to rain. Bit of a lucky escape.
I liked E-World enough, it had a general degree of charm to it, even though the rides aren’t anything to write home about. Not a bad little place for a cred run.
Pago Land?
Jumped back on the metro and headed to a reasonably nearby station before taking a leisurely half hour stroll in search of a powered dragon.
Some sights on the way.
It was a wasted journey in the end though. The ‘park’ was a weird little place on the side of a road claiming to be part of a major tourist resort and a complete ghost town. There were a couple of staff milling around the area giving us the usually Chinese look of ‘wtf are you doing here?’ Undeterred as always, we walked up to the cred, money in hand. The guy sitting on a plastic chair with his feet up on a second plastic chair in the station indicated something along the lines of ‘why should I bother getting off my arse to run the ride?’ And that was that.
It was time for the first major trip of my life, flying to the other side of the World to take in the culture and coasters of Korea and Japan. I’d been interested in visiting Japan for a while, their way of life had always intrigued me and some of their coasters were living legends. Korea was a different story, I’d just only been introduced to K culture and was dying to see it for myself.
Day 1
Despite this being my first ever long distance flight everything went by quite fast and soon I was in Korea with the first of now many stamps in my passport.
We picked up our T Cards (prepaid transport card) and took the high speed train from the airport to Seoul Station, then checked in to our hotel which was just across the road.
After finding out on the day that a coaster at Lotte World was down for maintenance, we quickly changed our plans to visit Everland today and Lotte World at the end of the trip. We hadn’t planned for this, so we weren’t quite sure how to get to the park from Seoul Station. Thankfully I was able to ask a friendly lady at an information desk, who couldn’t have been any more helpful in setting us in the right direction.
We topped up our T Cards in the station, which takes all of 2 seconds and is all done on a machine that you can set to English, so there’s no excuse. From there we took the subway to Gangnam and then caught a bus to Everland. Quick word of warning, bus drivers in Korea are on tight schedules and any hold up sets them right off, so be prepared to get shouted at if you aren’t quick enough when paying.
Everland
Everland is probably Korea’s most loved amusement park, it’s featured in many forms of entertainment and has an almost cult like following, this has lead it to be one of the most visited amusement parks in the World. The park is located in the mountains and is surrounded by trees, which is probably the best setting I can think of for a park. Perfectly complementing the beautiful setting is the theming and upkeep of the park, both of which are fantastic. It’s easy to say Everland is Korea’s most beautiful park and it’s clearly something the park themselves are very proud of.
After using our T Cards to get 30% off the entrance price, we made our way into the pretty and very hilly park!
Dragon Coaster – While this is just your standard Zamperla Twin Helix coaster, the members of staff working on it were putting on such a show you couldn’t be help but be impressed.
Rolling X-Train – Me and Heartline started laughing at how just wrong this Arrow Looper was as soon as it left the lift, by the time we reached the final brakes we were laughing so hard it prompted an emergency trip to the bathroom.
T Express – Much like the park name itself, the name of T Express is on the lips of everyone in Korea. This coaster is an icon of the country and it damn well should be. Easily one of the greatest coasters on this planet, this Intamin prefab is a spectacular piece of technology and it’s sole purpose to eject you into orbit. Featuring one of, if not the most intense drop in the World and several moments of insane sustained ejector airtime. If like me you demand your woodies to feature insane amounts of ejector air, then you cannot do better than T Express, unless you go to Six Flags Great Adventure.
Live Hologram Theatre – If you’re into Kpop, then trust me when I say it’s well worth the upcharge fee to experience your favourite idols in hologram form!
Rotation House – A madhouse type attraction, where the only thing I can remember is how loud the preshow was.
Rapids – This rapids ride features full body covering plastic sheets but you somehow manage to get soaked regardless, extremely good fun.
Everland also features a large zoo that includes 2 different vehicle based ways of seeing the animals and the traditional walk around enclosures. We went on one of the vehicle based ones (I forget the name) and it was great fun, helped massively by the ethusiasm of the staff members.
Everland more than deserves to be regarded as Korea’s top amusement park, with it’s beautiful aesthetic, wonderful atmosphere, friendly and hard working staff, solid and wacky ride line up and the existance of T Express, it really is a hard park to fault.
I’m not going to pretend the journey from the park to our hotel wasn’t a struggle. After not sleeping on the plane and having now been awake for nearing 35 hours I couldn’t wait to get back and finally get some sleep.
Day 2
Today was sight seeing in the morning and a Kpop show in the evening.
Heartline decided he’d take charge of the sight seeing after the planned tour bus didn’t exist and he did a great job. We saw many pretty looking and probably quite important buildings and never stayed long enough to get bored.
Long story short the Kpop show (Music Bank) is a must if you’re into Kpop and more than worth the amount of hassle you’ll have to go through to get the tickets.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 3 of my report where we fly to Japan and spend the day at the lovely Greenland.
