Seoul Land

Heading south out of Seoul we made our way to Seoul Land, a rather nice park out located up in the mountains. Along the way our local guide had made us aware that due to the risk of spread H1N1 school groups had been barred from going to theme parks. A bonus for us that would ensure we'd have no issues queueing for rides, the downside being that there wouldn't be many people in the park to interact with.

The park is dominated by a large yellow corkscrew coaster which stood over the rear-entrance to the park. We only realised later that we weren't entering through the main entrance and were initially confused as to why there was no main street as big parks usually have.

The park mascots at Seoul Land are two pre-pubescent turtles. It's not known whether they grow up to become Ninjas or not.

A rather peculiar cartoon that doesn't really describe the rides that well, but as a fan of Asian art it was good to see. Other parks later in the trip would feature similar pieces.

Following a quick go on the log flume (which featured a laughing pirate captain that would pee on you) the first coaster opened up. Called rather imaginatively "Kiddy Coaster" the ride proved to be a bit of squeeze, for some members more than others.

I have absolutely no idea if this is a real show being advertised here but having a mole with a turd on its head can't exactly be quality television or mainstream. In fact you could say its underground shit.

The park has the most realistic recreation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa I've ever seen. Having seen this I don't believe I ever need to see the real thing.

A good job on the Epcot too, and if memory serves me correctly the attraction inside it was way more interesting than the Florida one too. It was a sex education walkthrough thing that included graphic footage of abortions and had the tools involved in the process laid out for you to play with. Pretty powerful stuff, which certainly hit the message home. I'm never going to get pregnant now having seen it. Something that Thorpe Park might want to consider adding, if only to keep the chav population down.

The haunted walkthrough was more a guided tour through a few set pieces. There were no real scares in this. They would be hard to top the abortion footage to be honest so perhaps they don't bother trying.

A view of the mountains around the park. Although there weren't many school kids visiting today there was a coach party of ninjas and you can see some of them here...if you look hard enough.

The second coaster was "Crazy Mouse" and it wasn't the usual mouse coaster, in fact bar the final turn which knocked us a bit this was a really fun ride.

The same can not be said of this rotating tin-of-sardines ride. I'd ridden one of these in Cardiff and I can only assume it was peer pressure that made me ride it again.

Next to the Sardines ride was a powered dragon coaster. Exciting stuff!

The big yellow coaster has the strange name of Black Hole 2000 and I couldn't really understand why. Although it looked structurally impressive it wasn't much fun to ride.

The park has dodgem football. First time I'd seen that! Much more fun than going going round in circles.

Move along people, there's nothing for you to see here.

Could this be the coolest kiddie ride ever? I don't think so Michael.

A lot of theme parks have a spherical rock fountain feature. This park has gone better by having a massive stone ring that rotates round. Show offs!

Oh no! It's the pigs...

Another view of the park showing the two big coasters. The yellow one has already been mentioned. The blue one with the loop is called The Columbia Double Loop Coaster and I don't quite understand why.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it has something to do with the colour of the ride track matching the colours of the Columbian flag. If I'm wrong then it must be because riding the coaster is like taking Columbian drugs - both get you high, and on that note I'll grab my coat.

On the right is Flora, our Korean Tour Guide. In the centre is Andy and unfortunately due to Andy's exuberant posing I have to guess and I think its Cal.

Bizarre topiary, liking the peace sign though.

Seoul Land was a pretty nice park with a good mixture of rides but none of them were particular spectacular. It was ironic that the best coaster was not one of the big two, the mouse coaster was the only one I rode more than once so that gets my vote.

The drive to the next park took us past some massive developments. As Seoul becomes more and more busy developers are building entire housing complexes outside the city and workers are commuting in. Having seen tower blocks fail as a social project in the UK following their popularity in the 60's it would be interesting to see if they work here.