First, Lotte is a giant conglomerate corporation. They have their own department stores, super markets, ATMs, Credit Cards, fast food restaurants, hotels, oil interests. They're Procter & Gamble with retail stores. They even sponsor a baseball team here in Korea. They also own Lotte World, their own amusement park. It is a strange concept, the most similar thing in America I can think of is Hershey Park. A company with a somewhat unrelated product has an amusement park. But Lotteworld was not a business diversification themed park (Although that would have made for some very interesting rides and attractions). Its theme is... interesting.
We took the train to Lotte World, which was pretty easy. Although the ride was about 35 minutes, it was just one transfer. We got off the subway and made our way towards the exit marked "Lotte World."
We reached the exit and it opened up to a an underground courtyard with some shops and food-court style restaurants. There was also an entrance to Lotte Department Store because you may as well cover all of your bases in this one prime location. Oh yeah, this was there too:
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| Trevi Fountain |
I can't make this up. There was a fake Trevi fountain in this underground complex. Here's the plaque proving it. Our friend had forgotten to mention the replica of one of Rome's most famous landmarks. We laughed pretty hard at this because we were going to an amusement park in Korea which has a German name and now we see that it has a fake Italian fountain. Our friend had also been in Rome before coming to Korea, so he laughed extra hard at that.
We then walked into a large corridor that led to kind of a shopping mall. It had stores on either side and plenty of walking space in between for people. There was one store that sold crazy hats. I mean insane hats. Some were baseball hats but with brims 1 inch long, others had really high upturned brims that were almost vertical, and others were neon colored with cartoon faces on the head with the brand "El Stinko" written on them. It was like a combination of rave gear and 80s tackiness. It was right up my alley.
Across from that store was a Dickies store. Dickies, the work clothing brand. Incidentally, I've seen A LOT of people wearing Dickies clothing, primarily hats and sweatshirts that say the name and some vaguely American slogan like "Liberty" or "Rugged Tough." I was puzzled as to why all these Koreans were into practical working clothes until I saw the store. They sold khakis all right, but they were capri length. And on male mannequins. And in pastel colors. Yeah, they have these kinds of pants in the US, but I'm pretty sure you don't need such a skinny fit on work pants. Clearly it was a fashion store and one that sold a bizarre style: American. I guess they hit the nail on the head with this one, I wear Dickies pants and love freedom.
We kept walking down the hall and saw more shops, a HUGE food court, and finally the entrance to Lotte World. There was a waterfall that was hooked up to lights and a controller so it would shut off the water to do patterns and spell words in English, Korean and Chinese. Yeah, science. And there were the two main characters, Lotty and Lorry sitting right on the fountain just asking to get photographed. So we took a picture.
We had a special admission deal, so we got into the park for the low low price of $9 as long as we got there after 4PM. Unlimited rides and general admission. For $9. Hell yeah. I was curious if they had some sort of Flash Pass style "Money Can Buy Happiness" system of not waiting in lines, but I figured there were no monster rides that would have 2 hour long lines. Plus, it wasn't 6 Flags in the summer and I wouldn't be getting sunburned, so I decided against it. Also, getting into an amusement park for $9 is pretty impressive in and of itself.
We walk past some character statues and head up an escalator and we are finally inside Lotte World!
These pictures don't do the room justice, The place was HUGE. The ceiling was enormous and grey with a big sky light to let as much sun in. It would cost a fortune to light the place otherwise. There was a monorail running the perimeter of the room and a balloon ride on the ceiling offering a good view of the park. There was a TGI Fridays restaurant there too. I guess a Friday's can open anywhere as long as you can get a microwave working.
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| Ceiling about 4 stories tall. You can see the balloon in the top right |
This park had a theme, but it definitely escaped me. It was like someone frankensteined Disney World together with a carnival. This place was not Disney in the same sense that Mega Bloks aren't Lego; similar, yet 100% different. This place also wasn't the shittiest thing ever, so the Mega Bloks comparison is slightly flawed. If you don't understand this comparison, build a Lego set and then just try to fit two Mega Bloks together. You'll know then. Back to theme. Lotte World didn't have the Magic Kingdom, it had the Magic Island. They didn't have Epcot, they had a bunch of European style buildings, like a Dutch Windmill and houses with Spanish tile roofs and some Swiss looking chalets and German hot dog stands. It took me totally by surprise.
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| Left: little Spain. Right: The beginning of the little Alps Center: The geographically correct French jungle ruins |
Another thing that surprised me was the price of things in the park. The food was priced extremely fairly. Less than $2 for a corn dog, as well as less than $2 for corn on a stick. Just a corn cob on a stick. It was really popular. Unfortunately there were no enormous turkey legs like in America. I guess Koreans don't love the taste of freedom. There were fruit stands, coffee shops, noodle places and pretzel stands. All of which were fairly priced. I can get a full delicious meal with all you can eat rice in 안암 for about $4, so technically the snack food was expensive, but for America prices? Forget it. You can't even look at food for less than $3.50 at 6 Flags. This made me happy. Very happy indeed.
So after looking around and taking some pictures we decided to head outside before it got too cold. But we were quickly shepherded out of the main walkway because a parade was about to start. I assumed it would be some kind of unique Lotte World character parade with some Korean twist. Nah. It was an Alice in Wonderland Parade. There were dancers, and a big bus with the Cheshire cat and the worm on top. Inside the bus were a ton of cards.
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| Queen of Hearts |
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| This male rabbit blew me a kiss. It was very off putting. |
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| A lot of the performers were white, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee |
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| The cards were all parents and their kids. It was pretty cute. |
The parade ended pretty quickly and we finally made our way outside. That's when we saw
It's clearly different than the one in Disney, right? There was also a Canadian Mountie guarding the bridge to get there. Their jurisdiction is insane.
Inside the castle was this suit of armor (Above) with a monstrous erection and a knight on a horse. There was also a shooting gallery with no attendant and rifles that looked a lot like M14s. I guess people take carnival games seriously when they're trained marksmen.
Our first ride was the Gyro Swing, a large pendulum that swung you over a river and then over the park, all while spinning the seats around in a circle. It was terrifying because of the look straight down at the pavement and river (Which lasted forever, the hang time on that ride was unsettling but awesome), but also because of the EXTREMELY small clearance between the bottom of the pendulum and the other rides. They say it's supposed to be thrilling, my friends and I just found it hilariously dangerous. Also, the seats had wind shields on the harnesses so the wind didn't blind us. The wind coming off the river was so intense I couldn't hear myself scream, and I can only imagine what it would have been like without the shield. Despite the 45 minute wait time, it was still really fun.
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| Side view of the Castle from Gyro Swing line |
The next ride we went on was a lot stranger. It was called Comet Express. The line was also long, but moving really fast. The strange part was, we couldn't see the ride. The line went into a building, but there was no visible ride. We were joking that it was going to be an underground roller coaster. And that's exactly what it was. Our Korean friend forgot it was underground. So we entered the building and it's a space themed ride. Awesome, because space. Naturally my friend and I just started pointing at stuff and start yelling "Space" to make the time pass quicker and because we're 8 years old. The cars finally pulled in and we see the seats spinning. Awesome.
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| Space Chairs |
We're gonna spin AND get whipped around a metal track.I hopped into the seat and my friend James sits next to me. James is about 80 lbs lighter than me, which led to some complications on the ride. So we got propelled out of the gate and are going pretty slow. The ride is all black lights and strobes and space decorations like UFOs, rockets, and planets. Then we hit the first drop and start racing around this building. So we just yelled SPAAAAAACE the whole ride and pointed at stuff. The weight difference between us caused us to spin REALLY fast as we got whipped around. Our other friends, who weighed about the same, were facing forward for pretty much the whole ride. Their loss, or so we thought. One of the last turns was extremely tight and my friend and I started spinning outrageously fast. Then the air brakes came on and we stopped spinning so fast. We had such aggressive whiplash from that ride we had headaches the rest of the day. I mean it was bad, our neck muscles and our heads generally hurt from all the spinning and speed. But it was totally worth it.
We stumbled off the ride and headed back indoors because it was starting to get cold. We came back inside just in time for a light parade! Just like the one at that other American amusement park whose name escapes me right now...
Sorry the pictures are so blurry, the floats were moving pretty fast and I was kinda far away.
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| There was also a huge carousel that looked really pretty when fully lit up |
We then got in line for the log flume. The people getting off the ride weren't too wet looking, so we figured it would be pretty tame. False. This ride's drops were so aggressive they had to have attendants at them telling us to hold on extra tight and not to raise our hands. The picture that they were trying to sell us captured me in the middle of a word that rhymes with "Luck" right as I saw the length of this 80 degree drop. Surprisingly, we didn't get too wet, but we got water on us. There were also dinosaurs on the ride which made everything OK.
Lotte World was a really fun time and I'll definitely be going back again. There are lots of rides left to well... ride, and plenty of corn dogs left to eat. I just hope someone closer to my own age calls me handsome.
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