Crowds and Coasters

Hello everyone,

So it's been 2 weeks since the last post, but you didn't really miss anything. Last weekend was a quiet one with no big adventures because Ali was sick. The only excitement was Ali getting a new haircut, which was a big change but that we both like now. This weekend, however, Ali and I went to the self-proclaimed happiest place on Earth, Everland.
Ali's new haircut

Now, probably like you, we'd never heard of Everland before we came to Korea. Once here, we heard that it was a big amusement park similar to Wonderland. However, when we read about it, we were surprised to see it regarded as one of the top three amusement parks in the world in terms of attendance. We'd been eager to see it for awhile, and this month they have a whole halloween theme going on so we thought now would be a good time to go. Korea doesn't really have Halloween. Some big grocery stores have in recent years put up decorations and starting selling costumes but there's still no trick-or-treating on the actual day.

Using the subway and a bus, the quickest time to get to Everland is about 2 and a half hours so we didn't make it there until 1:30pm. Once inside, it quickly lived it up to its repuation as one of the most visited theme parks in the world; there were thousands and thousands of people. We walked around for awhile and when we came near the Halloween parade, we were jam-packed with people. Ali started to lose her mind a little bit. It was the first Halloween parade we saw, though. We also saw a really nice garden with every color of flower, with halloween decorations everywhere. It did feel very un-Korea and a lot like home to be around Halloween stuff so that was nice.
Jesse in the rose garden

After some more aimless walking we decided to make our way towards the world's largest wooden roller coaster (according to Everland). We got in what looked like a long line up, but was moving at a normal pace, and waited for our first ride of the day. Well... after every corner we rounded, we saw that the line kept going, sometimes twisting and turning through railings, and never seemed to stop. Every time we thought we were close, our hopes would quickly deflate as we would see that what we thought was the end of the line was really just the beginning of a new even longer line. Definitely, the longest amusement park line we've ever been in. It was slightly longer than 2 hours and you would think that no 2 minute roller coaster ride could live up to that hype... well... as we suspected, it didn't. But it was a really good roller coaster and now we can kick off the "Been on the biggest wooden roller coaster" item from the bucket list.

Afterwards, we walked around some more and checked out some animal exhibits. Everland is also kind of like a zoo with several themed animal areas to look at. We went to a bird zoo and an African animal zoo. We saw lots of cool animals.
Jesse and some birds

After some dinner, we made our way to another ride called the Amazon Express. This was around 7pm and rides were now down to 50 minute waits. The ride was the standard, eight people sitting in a circular inter tube, bouncing off walls down a raging river.

We then went down to the Alpine Horror village, an area where the "ghouls and ghosts" come out at night. It ended up being people dressed up in various Halloween costumes, none of which seemed to be a ghost or a ghoul. By this time, it was 8:30 so we made our way back home.

The amusement park itself didn't have that many rides, and was probably comparable to Wonderland except for having way more people and way fewer rides. Not sure if we'll ever see that many people again in an amusement park. Ali's kids once told her that she should be there at 9:30 when it opens. Now we know how true that is.

Ali's school has finished building a new kindergarten floor so she'll start teaching in her new and amazing classrooms tomorrow.

In other news, school has been going good for both of us. Next week is Halloween and we're not sure if we'll get up to anything Halloween-related but we'll soon see.

Anyway, hope all is well at home,

Ali and Jesse