Off to Ever Everland

As some of you may or may not know, Rachel and I are big fans of the show Once Upon a Time.  It’s a modern fairy tale show on ABC, and the second season’s finale (which just aired last week) made several references to Peter Pan. 

If you are at all interested, dear reader, I would suggest looking it up.  And if you are also interested there is a spin off that I am rather excited about, which involves Wonderland.  Feel free to take a look. 

Now what does this have to do with Korea?  With a day off from work, Rachel and I decided to take a risk and head to Korea’s (quite good) knock off of Disneyland called Everland. 

I love theme parks.  I know that they are overhyped, overpriced, and where I usually can’t get to them, but I have one thing to say about that…Shush!  There is a common belief that people who collect toys, play games, or do other such activities are trying to get back in touch with their childhoods.  I disagree.  I never lost it.  I don’t think that I ever lost that childlike appreciation of play or enjoyment of fantasy.  Just like when I was at Universal Studios Osaka, I may have been too big for a number of the rides, but my smile never left my face. 

Everland was a breath of fresh air… literally.  For a place that is all artificial, it was surrounded by green mountains and well decorated with flowers (more on that later).  The park is broken up into several parts.  There is Zooland, Europeland, America Land, Aesop’s Village, and the entry section.  Zooland is a massive zoo with tons of different animals.  The amazing thing was just how close we could get.  Most of the enclosures were open air, so no pesky glass to glare up photos.  We didn’t get the chance to get to the Safari thing, which from what I was able to gather is a bus tour through animal enclosures similar to Jurassic Park, with lions, elephants, and giraffes instead of dinosaurs.   But we did have a lot of fun with the dozens of other animals, and the petting zoo.  Europeland was an interesting mix of mock alpine buildings, expensive beer pavilions, and rose gardens.  

Aesop’s Village was a quaint little place for mostly little kids.  One thing that was fun that we did there was that Rachel and I saw that there was a stand for face painting, temporary tattooing, and hair braiding.  Rachel thought that it would be great fun, and so got a wrap of blue fabric woven into a small braid.  It looks really cute.  Americaland was strangely the smallest and most action packed of the areas.  What was amusing is to see what they included.  A Columbus Viking Boat swing, lots of 1950’s dinners, and cowboy paraphernalia. 

A few things that were quite different from American theme parks were the number of campers and picnickers there were.  Just outside the park entrance is a fairly large market with bottled water, beer, cookies, soda, etc. along with camping equipment.  Seriously, tons of camping equipment was for sale just outside the park.  I didn’t think that I would have ever found a business that expects and encourages camping out before they open the doors.  The park isn’t too far away from us either.  All in all it took little more than an hour or so by train, which went practically to the front gates.  I am sure there are a number of other people that are pondering the same thing I am pondering, but all I need now is a Tuesday or other such day that I can take off and hop the train back and have the park to myself.