This week’s destination was Seoul Land – a medium-sized amusement park part of Seoul Grand Park. Although I’ve previously blogged about Seoul Grand Park, but the area is simply so massive that even seeing everything in two (or perhaps even three!) visits would be impossible. Instead of trying to cram everything in, Seoul Land would be the focus since it’s a bit more self-contained than the rest of the park. My friend Jennie deserves the credit for choosing Seoul Land – she was in the mood for some roller coasters – and this was supposed to be the place to go.

As part of a tourist-friendly (and LARGE) destination like Seoul Grand Park, Seoul Land is easy to get to and approach. Unlike the amusement parks with acres and acres of parking lots that must be navigated on the way to the park, the subway station connects the walkers in a straight line to the entrance of the park. You’ll pass by the parking lots on either side, but you don’t have to navigate through the cars nearly as much.

After making it to the park entrance, we approached the information desk, which was…. closed! On a Sunday afternoon, all I had to say was ‘HUH’? In any case, a sign pointed left to Seoul Land, and forward to the tram station. It’s either a 20 minute walk from the Grand Park entrance or a 5 minute tram ride (800 won each way). Arriving via tram, we walked into the park, paid our entrance fee (although we had some options):

The left columns are for a ‘one-day pass’ bracelet for all the rides you can ride (a ‘twilight’ ticket saves a few bucks if you enter after 5pm); a ‘Big 5 pass’ gets you a paper ticket that lets you ride up to 5 rides; ‘Admission only’ lets you into the park only. Near each attraction are places to buy one-ride tickets (between 3,000-4,000 won for the most part). A little more complex, but still pretty intuitive.

Seoul Land is 20 years old? Looking good.

Part of the corner facade – remind you of any place you’ve seen before?

Does THIS remind you of any place you’ve seen before? Western-style elements were cloned well, although the Koreans have their own quirky view of things. As with most theme parks, there are the beautiful gardens, the souvenir shops (which didn’t seem too overpriced for most stuff), and restaurants and snack shops every 25 meters (which again, weren’t overpriced for the most part).

An unnamed Korean-looking warrior / king figure with a killer stare:

Yikes.

Exhibit B of the quirky walk: a 4 meter tall (12 feet) sword-carrying man that looked like a version of a Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft character….

Like most amusement parks, a smorgasbord of music played through the hidden speakers / rocks throughout the park – mostly Disney songs or American musicals (Hairspray, anyone?). At first glance, Seoul Land seemed a little smaller than my memories of Six Flags, Cedar Point, and other amusement parks based around rides and thrills. Instead of having more space at their disposal, there was something happening / something to see around every corner. I was able to walk around the park essentially twice in the day, and probably still missed some interesting sights.

As far as the rides go… We were actually disappointed a bit by the rides. Granted, this place doesn’t make any ‘top 10’ lists for the fastest / biggest / most screams, but then again the rides seemed well-received and enjoyed by the Koreans. A couple of them offered enough flips and loops to hear more than a few screams, although there were a few duds. To make it a little more exciting – and to experiment with some new angles – I took the camera on the rides with me! Take a look at several throughout this post.

The Double Loop Coaster offered riders to get soaked or stay dry – with my nice camera sans waterproof bag, we opted to stay dry – although we did get misted a bit.

One of the kids area – the white thing everyone is on is a plastic, trampoline-like surface. Climb the hill and roll or jump back down! Lots of fun, but for kids only (dangit…)

A dragonfly decided to rest near the same time and place as I did – and the camera performed beautifully 🙂

Peter Pan isn’t just a western name – apparently there’s at least one ride dedicated to him in Korea.

A Log Flume ride – the wait was almost an hour long…

A comic to keep us entertained while waiting in line… Entirely in Korean, of course…

This waterfall brought to you by a major Korean cell phone company.

After about 2 1/2-3 hours, we had seen most of what there was to see – and Jennie decided to head home. I stuck around, knowing if I dug around a bit longer I’d find some interesting sights. As it turned out, I found quite a few:

(This picture taken earlier in the day, when the two of us visited the Tilt House – described below)

The Tilt House – your fairly standard house of visual / spatial illusions, complete with an odd mirror in the front (see previous picture)

To the left is a mirror. To the right is a series of Christmas-tree style lights with mirrors behind it. Combine the two, and the optical illusion makes the room looks much larger than the hallway it really is.

One of my favorite photos. The red and yellow lights rotated around the room, while the platform you walked on was tilted.

The classic room of mirrors. This one was incredibly easy, since there was plenty of light, and at the baseboard of each mirror was an arrow pointing towards the way out.

Just a couple of this Korean park’s oddities… I thought of posing with the characters, but decided against it.

At this point, I was riding a couple rides by myself – keep reading to see some fun views of the rides / park / area…

The 5D exhibition was truly incredible – but a little too short for yours truly. Although the show was 6 minutes long, it seemed shorter… The journey was an incredible one – receive a pair of 3D, er, 5D glasses, then walk into a room with a 360 degree screen, sit down, and put on your 5D glasses and wait for the show to start. Several shows were shown based on the hour – the one I ended up getting into was a nature show of some sort. Complete with sharks that seemed to bite you, snowflakes and insects you could reach out and touch, and flying dinosaurs that breathed a fireball which ended the show, it was put together surprisingly well. There was a minimum amount of Korean narrative, as the primary interest was visual with characters actually appearing to fly out towards and/or through you. More than one bird or snowflake appeared to pass right through you, and the very end featured a fireball that essentially exploded in the ‘middle’ of the room!

Just one of several classic amusement-park-style games cloned for the benefits of Koreans.

An art exhibit / entertainment asset which was really some big balls in nets that hung from the structure. Since the structure was strong enough, more than a few kids would run towards the net and hang on for dear life while physics dictated how much they would swing.

All in all, a fun day – although this is one place in Seoul that you really can see in one day. If interested in rollercoasters, it may not be the best place in Seoul for them (I’ll let you know as soon as I see Everland for myself).