These days, 어린이대공원 is full of life and overactive kids, it’s a great place to meander through and see some animals along the way (or kids behaving like animals, if you prefer). This was taken just outside the entrance – just try and walk past without buying if you’re bringing a kid to the park… Not pictured just a few meters past was a street vendor offering food and alcohol.

A portion of the park is under construction, mainly near the entrance and just inside. It should be finished up in the near future – in the meantime, avoid getting into the obvious things like big piles of sand or stacks of bricks and you’ll be fine =)

A picturesque pond with a pavilion.

The entrance to the more unusual area of the park – two snakes perhaps?

Exhibit A: Uprooted tree stumps?! Sure, why not? From a photographer’s point of view they were exciting enough, and I’m sure kids have never seen anything like it before.

Exhibit B: A big snake hanging from a tree? Sure, why not? I’d love to see some parents lift their kids to the snake’s eye level and see what happens…

A few pictures of Korean fairy tales and some signs (only in Korean) probably giving a synopsis.

A playground! Needless to say, a large playground at a large children’s park was swamped. It helped that today was a fairly nice day, the first in awhile where one could wear an unzipped jacket without freezing.

A fairly unique climbing ropes thing… I’ve seen this design in many places; getting to the top requires some determination and no one else in the way.

A slide helps kids escape the lion’s mouth… Of course, they climb the stairs from the other side… I’ll just leave that one alone right there…

A rather large botanical center. I’m sure there’s lots of wonderful flowers… but I’m walking past it…

…to get to the zoo! I heart wild animals in impenetrable cages.

Welcome to the Children’s Grand Park Zoo, where a strangely similar Sphinx advertises for something quite obvious from the statue:

Camel rides! No telling if there was a weight limit, but for 5,000 won I wasn’t too interested in being on the back of a tired animal quite bored of being on a leash and walking a circle.

The monkeys always seem the most animated… or lonely… The latter picture shows the lone monkey in their area – if only he could jump over the wall and party with the crazy monkeys in the former picture…

A beautiful tiger looking through the food door, possibly wondering where lunch was.

Beautiful shades of turquoise blue in this peacock.

For some strange reason, this brown bear liked to pace inside a shallow pit. Maybe it made him happy or maybe he thought of it as his own wrestling arena…

An obligatory statue: this one’s of Cho Man-Sik, who dedicated his life to nonviolent resistance against the Japanese colonial movement. After Korea was liberated from the Japanese, he was recruited to be the premier of North Korean civil politics (just try holding THAT job today). Killed in 1950 by communists in Pyeongyang during a purge – one of Korea’s patriots honored in statue for the rest of time.

Look carefully – it’s feeding time, and it’s not the white mice’s place of living… The snake barely moved, even as the crowd abound the snake gathered larger hoping to see nature at work. Mother Nature, it seems, works on her own timetable – nothing happened during the 10 minutes or so I stayed to watch.

More monkeys inside! This one had arms as long as its body, and barely stood still long enough to get a picture. This is important when there’s little light… He would swing his arms, swing his body through the ‘trees’, and even dance a little bit…

A wallaby walking around decided to come close to the glass.

A few stone structures are all that’s left of the tomb that once sat on this land.

I’ll be making a trip back home once the spring warms things up or in the fall, when I’m sure the trees will produce some beautiful colors. As long as you’re able to walk outside, you’ll find something of interest here. Free admission means the price is right, and it’s a great trip for a weekend afternoon, or a weekday evening if you live close enough.

Directions to Children’s Grand Park: Take line 7 of the Seoul subway system to the Children’s Grand Park station, then take exit 1 to street level. Walk straight for 50 meters and you’ll see the main gate on your right.