A trip to Yeosu

Last weekend my boyfriend and I were celebrating our 1 year anniversary and therefore decided to take a trip to Yeosu. We went there together last summer and decided to visit it again. There's a train going from Jeonju to Yeosu, so my boyfriend didn't have to drive. We wanted to take the KTX, which is the fastest train in Korea. But there was no KTX going to Yeosu at that time, so we had to take Saemaul train instead.

In Korea, there are three main types of trains. The fastest (and the most expensive) is KTX. Next is Saemaul, a bit cheaper and slower than KTX. Third, the slowest and cheapest is Mugunghwa. We took the Saemaul and I think my boyfriend even paid a bit more so we would get more comfortable seats, but we ended up getting the worst seats ever. I have never had a more uncomfortable seat, even on Mugunghwa. It was one of those seats with a table, so we had to face another couple the whole time. And the seats were so weird, so hard and uncomfortable... I can't even explain, the back of the chair had a 90 degree angle, so you couldn't possible sit like that for two hours.

After a couple of stops a lot of people got off, so we moved to a 'normal' seat. The seats on Saemaul are nothing special, but compared to what we had before, they felt amazing. After about an hour and 45minutes we arrived to Yeosu. Yeosu is a city located in Southern Coast of Korea and is famous for hosting Worl Expo in 2012.

Last time we took a two day trip there, so we had time to visit downtown area as well, but this time we decided to stay at the Expo area and see the things we skipped last time. There is a huge aquarium in the Expo area, but it is rather expensive (as most aquariums are) and we went there last time, so we didn't go there again.

Instead, there was this Shark exhibition and we decided to check it out. There were many people at the ticket office, but apparently most of them confused the exhibition for the Aquarium, so the woman stepped out from the ticket booth and yelled out loud that this was not Aquarium and that there were not life fish inside. The exhibition hall was almost empty, but that was even better for us. And we didn't expect much, but we were positively surprised. There were displays of different types of sharks and other sea animals and I thought it was really well made.

There were also different activities for the kids - of course we had to try them all out too. :) For example, they had stamps with sea animals on them, basketball with sea creatures written on the balls. You probably had to check what sea creature it was and then throw the ball in the right basket, but we didn't go in such details. :P There was also origami and as you can see from the photo, my boyfriend made a nice fish. I on the other hand didn't do so well and just gave up... 

There were also this 'slippery' fish that you had to try and catch with your hands. There was one kid that was pretty good at it. My boyfriend and I were too afraid to even touch them. Well I had to touch one because I lost at the rock-scissor-paper game to my boyfriend. And there were those 'doctor fish' that eat the skin. I find it rather scary, but I eventually managed to keep my hand in there for a while.

After the Shark exhibition we saw a man dressed as a teddy bear and went to see what was going on. It was a teddy bear museum and since the price was 50% off that day, we went to look inside. It was quite cool. Hundreds of teddy bears in different themes. There was a dinosaur theme, American theme etc. It was nice.

Then we went to another hall to see another exhibition. I don't even remember the title, it was different stuff about pollution and oceans. It really wasn't all that interesting. There was also a 4D movie, but you had to wait for more than an hour to see it, so we skipped that.

The whole Expo Area is quite big and if you're a smoker, then you should know that the whole place is non-smoking. So you have to actually leave the area, go outside the gates near the road if you want to smoke. My boyfriend was a bit annoyed about that. :)

After that I wanted to visit the Odongdo Island again. It is this beautiful island with more than 70 different species of wildflowers and with a small lighthouse on top. We visited it last time and I loved it so much. I really recommend you to visit it, if you're ever in Yeosu.

But if you do go there, DON'T take the red train to take you there. There's this small red train that takes you from the main entrance of Expo Area to the Odongo Island. We probably waited for about 30 minutes for that train and so did about 30 other people. But when it finally arrived, it was FULL and only about 5 or 6 people got off the train. Meaning that the other 25 people there just wasted their time waiting for it, including my boyfriend and I. The whole things was a total BS. My boyfriend even called the person on the train to ask where we could get on, and the guy told him it was only possible at the main entrance. If that was true, then why wouldn't people get off the train. It made no sense at all.

We were fairy upset with the whole thing. It is much better to walk. It is really not that far anyway and it's less than a 30 minute walk to the island, but there was no way we could have known. We'd already lost so much time, it was hot and my boyfriend complain that his legs hurt, so we didn't go to the island after all. Instead we found ourselves a nice bench next to the sea, where there were almost no people around. We took a short nap, enjoyed the view and just relaxed. ^^ I wanted to walk more, but my boyfriend hasn't completely recovered from the cold yet and I know his legs hurt lately because of work. And resting on that bench near the sea was actually really nice too. ^^

 

In the evening we wanted to get some dinner first before getting on the train, but my boyfriend ran out of cigarettes. Since the whole are is non-smoking, the convenience stores also don't sell cigarettes. So we had to walk to the train station to buy some. And since we were at the station already, we went to buy the tickets in advance. And we were so lucky to do that, because we got the last two tickets available. There were only two trains left, A KTX at 9:10pm and a Mugunghwa at 11:40pm. It was only 7:30pm when we arrived at the station and we got the last two tickets for the KTX. I guess sometimes it's not so bad that my boyfriend is a smoker. ;)

The restaurants also started closing around 8pm, but we still managed to get what we wanted. Well, we wanted tuna, but got chicken instead. It was still quite good though. Then we sat down on a bench and watched the sea-life display while listening to music.

The ride back was much more comfortable with KTX. Since we got the last tickets we didn't get to sit together. I was in the first car and my boyfriend in the fourth, but a girl who got a seat next to my boyfriend was kind enough to switch places with me. ^^ KTX can go as fast as 300km/h, so it should be almost as fast as Japanese Shinkansen. But the thing is, there are a few stops between Yeosu and Jeonju so it can't go really fast for a long time. We used the gps to check the speed and we went about 200km/h. We arrived home around 11pm. Not everything went as we'd planned, but we had a really nice day anyway. ^^

Everland

My boyfriend didn't have to work last Saturday, so we decided to visit one of the biggest amusement parks in Korea - Everland.

This was our second time in Everland. We were there last summer and even though we arrived early in the afternoon the place was really crowded and we had to wait a lot for each ride. That's why we decided to leave a bit earlier this time. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as we had planned.

We woke up early enough to go to the car wash first. It takes about 2~3hours to get from Jeonju to Everland so we wanted to be as comfortable as possible. It was a self-service kind of a car-wash and we finished fast. Then we got home, took a shower and were ready to leave by 12 o'clock. But then one of the fuses (or something) died in the car and it took a while to get it changed without the right tools. After my boyfriend finally got that fixed, the car's computer program showed many errors and had to be reprogrammed (or something, I really have no clue about cars). Anyway, you can't do this without special equipment so we had to drive to my boyfriend's father's workshop first. Then it turned out that my boyfriend didn't have the right key with him and we had to wait for the security guard to come and unlock the place for us and then... after all the programming and test drives... it was already almost 3pm. Oh and for some reason, on top of everything, the door to our building got stuck and wouldn't open, so we were kind of locked out for a while... :) And yes, there was a lot of traffic that day too.

Well, what can you do. It's a long drive and who'd want to have some problems on the way. It's better to be safe than sorry, so... we had no choice. We left around 3pm and there was sooo much traffic that we didn't arrive to Everland before 6pm. It wasn't the way we'd planned it, but since it couldn't have been helped, I tried not to get annoyed and decided to have a great time anyway. ^^

We bought the night ticket (after 5pm) which is a bit cheaper, but still expensive. With a little bit of a discount it was still 36.000krw per person. But all amusement parks in Korea are rather expensive and this is one of the biggest ones.

Well, the good thing about arriving so late was that there were really not that many people. Last time we were there we had to park really far away form the actual amusement park and had to take the park bus to the entrance. Which is kind of annoying, 'cause the bus is always crowded and you have to wait for it on the way back too. This time we parked right in front of the entrance. :)

The park is really big and beautiful, so even if you don't like the rides, you can still have a nice time. Actually, my boyfriend and I aren't really big fans of roller coasters and other scary rides. We always joke that we're like grandma and grandpa when it comes to amusement parks. We look at the ride and check if there are any old people riding it. If we see a grandma or grandpa on it, then it's okay for us. :)

The first ride we took was this small roller coaster. Not one of the scary ones that turns you up-side-down. A much smaller one, located in the "kids" part of the park. It still looked really scary to us. So as we were waiting in line, I noticed this grandma riding it and just as I said to my boyfriend: "look, that grandma's riding it and she looks... emm... never mind" I was going to say "just fine", but the truth was, she didn't look fine at all. Her face was really pale and she looked terrified. :) But we were too embarrassed to step out of the line filled with kids, so we took the ride anyway. I think we were the loudest... it was so fast... but luckily it was done in like a minute or something. :)

Then we headed toward the Peter Pan, which we both love. :) But on the way, we saw another ride with almost no people in line, so we decided to check it out. We had no idea what it was, but there were many kids and old people so it couldn't have been anything scary. And it wasn't. It was kind of boring actually. :) It was called a global village and you're basically just watching this Chucky-looking dolls representing different countries of the world. :) I think we'll skip this ride next time. ^^

Then there was Peter Pan. The lines were not too long, so we never had to wait for more then 20minutes. But for some reason, on almost all the rides that day, there were never enough seats for the two of us. Every time people started to get on the ride and we thought it was our turn too, the person working there said: "till here" just as it was supposed to be our turn, so we had to wait one more round. We were really not lucky that day.

Then it was time for our favorite ride in the park. A bit scary, but still not too much for us: the magic swing. However my boyfriend wanted to find the smoking area first, which was really far away and it took a while to find it. So before taking a ride, we went to get some burgers. And good thing that we did, because almost all the restaurants closed right after we ordered. I think we were among the last couple of people who still got to order. And while people were still eating, they suddenly turned off the lights, so we were basically eating in the dark. :) It was so weird.

As we left the burger place, it started to rain. We wanted to get an umbrella, but they were way to expansive, so we didn't buy one. It wasn't raining that much anyway, so we were still able to get on the magic swing and bumper cars. :) And after that we spent a lot of time in the gift shops. We didn't really buy anything, but it was fun just looking around.

Well, we only got on five rides this time and it was raining a bit... but despite everything we still had lots of fun. ^^ It was a really nice day. Then after a long ride home we arrived around 2:15am and went straight to bed. We were exhausted.

We said that next time we'll try to leave really early in the morning and stay in the park all day. We'll see if we have more luck next time. ;)