Introduction

In 2005 I visited Japan with the European Coaster Club travelling around most of the large theme parks on Honshu and you can read all about it here (but not right now please!). In 2009 a second trip was organised this time including Kyushu and prior to visiting Japan spending a week in South Korea. In addition to all of that I also decided to spend a few extra days with a mate post-trip to visit Hokkaido, the northernmost island.

The plan would see us taking in around 30 theme parks in 21 days, and for me doing an end-to-end tour of Japan, and here's the report of the holiday which hopefully is informative and amusing, although I admit there are some pretty awful puns buried within.

As ever, what I write isn't meant to cause offence, some of it is intentionally written in jest. Please take it in the spirit in which it was written. Should you be interested in obtaining high-res pics let me know.

Travelling to Seoul

So the flight to Seoul was pretty uneventful, with us stuck on a plane for about 10 hours and spending most of it watching the in-flight movies. Korean Air were superb, with very professional service, some nice food (the spicy Korean sauce livened up the journey somewhat) and tri-lingual service announcements that would test your frustration levels as you found the previously mentioned movies being paused constantly.

As I don't have any photos of the flight you'll have to make do with my movie reviews instead.

Fighting:

This piece of trash stars the jug-eared twat from one of the Step Up movies, Channing something I think his name is. In this Oscar winning performance he plays a young man who can't sell pirate copies of Harry Potter (not something I'd ever want to purchase on impulse to be honest) and decides to become a fighter on the illegal underground circuit instead. Along the way he falls in love and has a run-in with an old best-friend. I'm sure there are some other cliches that he encounters along the way. Prior to watching this I had to watch a trailer featuring some Korean guy drinking Irish coffee in Dublin.

Adventureland

This is a movie about a guy who has to work a Summer job and does so in a little amusement park. Along the way he falls in love and has a run-in with an old best-friend. I can't remember if there's much fighting however. The main reason for watching this was that it was filmed in Kennywood, a quite nice park in Pennsylvania where I thought I'd broken my neck after a tickling incident on their wooden coaster back in 2006. The film was OK even if it did feature Ryan Reynolds (although in this one he'd not wielding a sword). Prior to watching this I had to watch a trailer featuring a Korean guy drinking more Irish coffee in Dublin.

Push

This was a movie I wanted to see earlier in the year but eventually missed due to me realising it was going to be a cheap rip-off of Heroes. It stars that awful Dakota Fanning brat as a psychic girl who hooks up with Ryan Reynolds (not wielding a sword) and some other people to evade the authorities who are tracking all the mutant-hero-people down. I don't think she falls in love along the way, being a bit too young still for that. I do recall falling asleep part-way through but thinking the ending was quite clever in the way all the Hero-mutant people unite their powers to thwart the baddies and save the day. Prior to watching this I had to watch a trailer featuring a, now annoying, Korean guy drinking his third Irish coffee in Dublin.

Sniper

Having had enough of the Hollywood fodder I usually enjoy I decided to give the foreign movie section a go and chose a Korean movie about Snipers. This was actually really enjoyable and tells the story of two best friends who are at Sniper academy and eventually fall out. One remains with the police force and the other goes rogue and starts doing bad stuff. It builds nicely to a superb climate which features a sniper shoot-out across a warehouse. Along the way we're given tips on how to be a good sniper (controlled breathing etc), something I'd look forward to putting into practice one-day. Being devoted to his sniping career I don't think he fell in love and it didn't feature Ryan Reynolds with a sword. The trailer however did feature Irish coffee #4 being consumed by a now buzzing Korean lad.

The Escapist

I can only assume I'd subconciously chosen this as I'd been cooped up in a metal box for quite some time. This was a British (read "miserable") film about an old guy and his escape from prison so that he can see his crack-head daughter and sort her out. This film contained the usual prison cliches (corrupt cops, governor who doesn't care for this inmates, murder that doesn't get investigated, stupid escape plan etc.). Even though the film was bleak I did successfully make it all the way through. Prior to watching this I really wanted to track that coffee-addict Korean guy down and given him a smack after he was now enjoying his fifth caffeine laden drink.

So having watched all that the plane landed at Incheon, the city's international airport out to the west of Seoul and upon leaving the plane we were greated by men in white coats and face masks. The H1N1 virus that the media and government had turned into a means to keep the nation scared back home was being even more seriously here. Everyone entering the country from abroad would have to pass these guys who'd put some device up against your neck, I'm assuming to check temperature. Having passed that we then had to walk in front of a thermal camera, which would check core body temperature. Upon successfully getting through that we were then handed a packet of wet wipe tissues. Beyond that immigration was extremely smooth and efficient, and in no time at all we were on our way to Seoul in our Karaoke themed coach.

En route from the airport, the city's attempt at the Golden Gate bridge had suffered a Spinal Tap unit-of-measure complication.

The river that runs through the city isn't natural. It came about following a burst water main incident 20-years ago that they never fixed. You can still see the burst main here!

There's an awful lot of development going on in Seoul. A good sign of the city becoming more and more successful. To make the best use of the land a lot of the new developments become tall buildings...

...or very tall buildings. The one on the right is the DL63 building and its over 20 years old. Currently the 3rd tallest skyscraper in the city.

Incheon

For the first two nights of our trip we were staying in the Hamilton Hotel smack-bang in the centre of Incheon, where the Westerners tend to hang out. I use the term "smack-bang" because if you wanted smack it wouldn't be too hard to find a dealer and if it was a bang you were after the city's red light district was 50-metres up the road.

Here's a view from the hotel window, overlooking the main junction with plenty of Western-chain restaurants. Those less adventurous in the club wouldn't have too far for dinner here. The hotel had laid on a really nice Korean meal for us, where I got to try Kim Chee (spicy pickled cabbage of some sort) for the first time. Very nice too!

Kim Chee in the 80s courtesy of the WWF

Kim Chee today

"Shut your mouth and look at my wad" said Harry Enfield in the early-90s. Well here's my wad of Korean Won; one million's worth. I had brought around £550 worth of currency to spend in South Korea, which the bank had nicely gift wrapped for me. I had planned on just bringing £500 but when I saw that I was not far off being a millionaire I had to go for it. As it turns out I could easily have survived with a fifth of that amount. The currency rates on this occasion had been extremely favourable.
Here's another view from the hotel window. This time overlooking a very busy pool-party on the roof of our hotel. It wasn't particularly hot, but it was humid. I think the crowd were making the most of what I discovered later to be the last pool-party of the season (this was September).

Following check-in and before the meal a few of us decided to go out for a small walk to a nearby bridge. The Banpo bridge is just a bridge that goes over the river but last year the city authorities decided to turn it into one of the world's largest fountain displays, with fountains firing out horizontally along its length. It was just a mile away from the hotel so we thought we could easily do this.

This is what the display looks like.

A wonderfully simple mural.

I would come to realise later just how physically fit the Korean people are. This multi-gym set up in a small park was a hint. I have only ever seen this in one place in the UK I guess because in most locations it would get trashed.

So in researching the Banpo bridge I'd written to the company that had installed the fountains and asked them what time the display would be at, 2000 supposedly. Here's David stepping out over the side of the bridge in preparation for the display starting. We waited and waited and waited and well nothing happened. No display tonight. We jokingly suggested we may had got the wrong bridge and would see it going off up the river, but that was not the case. It turns out that the display was at 1900 and 2100, having been changed a few weeks prior. So did we come back an hour later? Nope, we'd written the night off as a dismal Malcolm-failure and were back at the hotel enjoying the meal.

The sign isn't saying "Danger - beware of ill prepared tourists walking on this bridge"

At night Incheon comes alive. Close-by is an American military base and this is where the soldiers come to "let loose". Because of this the area has a bit of a bad reputation.

Having said that they do tolerate Ginger folk.

and they don't hold back on their advertising.

Having explored a little of the Incheon area it was time to succumb to the long flight and rest up for the next day, which would take in two parks and a rather fun morning side-trip.

Korean War Memorial

Before the club headed to park #1, myself David and Jeppe decided to heed the words of the Pet Shop Boys and "Go West" out of Incheon to a nearby war memorial. It was only about 20 minutes away on foot from the hotel, 40 if you have little legs, hours if you have no legs at all.


Along the main road in Incheon are these little plaques in the floor that teach you how to say "Yo" in many different languages and state what the capital of that country is. Seoul was my 29th capital city :)


There were also these little pieces of art too. I think the logo has something to do with the city of Seoul but not being able to read the writing below I can't confirm that.

I had tried learning the Hangul writing system prior to the trip but realised without knowing the underlying Korean it would be pointless. Japan borrows a lot of western words and has a writing system that caters for it; Korean doesn't. The writing system however is lovely and very well designed. It looks confusing to those of us familar with A B & C but once you get around the concepts, it quickly falls into place and you very quickly realise just how crap our western systems are.

The Hangul writing system is so straightforward that the country prides itself on having a 100% reading rate. Our tour guide had also told us that Indonesia have now adopted it for their country.


In the centre of Seoul is this large hill and atop it stands the main communication tower. Some of the Americans on our trip who'd arrived a couple of days ahead of us, went up it to get a good view of the city but found it too overcast to do so.


Soon after we arrived at the War Memorial and it wasn't obvious whether we were going to be allowed in. The road that this is situated on houses a number of Embassy type buildings each with their own armed guards, and the memorial site had some of their own too. But once we clocked some elderly people having a morning stroll on the other side of the gate, we made our way in, the guard not reacting at all to us doing so.


A large sculpture I think made to resemble a missile that has been split to symbolise the end of war.







The sculpture that surrounds the missile which beautifully captures the impact of war on both those involved with the fighting and those unable to do so.


Beyond that a massive hall, which I think contains much more on the history of Korean War. Unfortunately at 0630 in the morning when the three of us were walking around it, it wasn't open.


Is this a your's or is it a mine?


Another stunning sculpture that captures the plight.
As well as remembering WW2, the memorial also strongly remembers the more recent Korean war between the North and South started in June 1950 and officially hasn't ended although there's little fighting these days.
The West came to the aid of the South and China the North and between them over 2 million people were killed the majority on the North side.
The 2.5 mile no-mans land now between the two countries, referred to as the DMZ is a popular tourist attraction although I don't know why.
I couldn't visit it due the itinerary but also because if you visit it you can't give blood back in the UK. I guess because no one is responsible for that area.
For more on the Korean war you can click here

Beyond the statues lie a massive display of military vehicles, from tanks to trucks, planes to submarines and the rest of this page is going to be full of them. I had decided to come here based on seeing a few planes in Google Earth but only visiting it in person was the scale of it appreciated.








A parade square at the back of the complex. That speaker system in the top-left is actually a sonic weapon, the sort of thing that Leftfield use to play their dub and that the KLF used to kill sheep.


How is that dangerous exactly?


A very pretty ceremonial drum, I have no idea what its purpose was here in amongst all the military stuff.


TUO YAW is Korean for "exit" supposedly.


This is a sonic weapon. The sort of thing that the KLF use to kill sheep and Leftfield use to vibrate your bone structure.


A cool looking boat that is actually a submarine, either with that soft top!

Despite the humidity, the museum was pretty cool and I'd never seen such a huge display of military hardware in one place before. Having had our fill of big guns it was time to head back to the hotel for breakfast before heading out to the first park of the trip.

Childrens Grand Park

The first theme park of the trip was Children's Grand Park, a small theme park within one of the largest public parks in the city of Seoul. The main park was fairly busy with a number of school parties who gave us a nice greeting of "Welcome to Korea". My Korean was nowhere near as good but I was able to put together a "An hyeung a se yo" which means "Good Morning/Day/Evening".
I have no idea who these characters are but I'm guessing they didn't come from the same show as each was drawn in a different style.
A small children's playground with a rather peculiar upside-down house playhouse. Obi Wan Kenobi appeared and told us that "This was not the park we were looking for" and we felt an overwhelming urge to move on. Bloody Jedis and their cheap mind tricks.
A very nice large pagoda type building, the banners also displaying the same cartoon characters as seen earlier led me to conclude that if I wanted to know more about those characters I'd have to go inside, later!
The park has two roller-coasters. This was the first one called Crazy Mouse, called as such due to the paint-job that looks like Mickey Mouse has taken too much LSD. Due to the rain, this ride didn't open.
One of the unique rides from the last Japan trip, and it was nice to see them here in Korea too. The animals are coin-operated and play music whilst moving the riders very slowly around the park. The giraffe looks a little bit odd!
One of those rides that is just asking for trouble.
The graffiti in the station of the second coaster. Cute! We'd come to realise that most of the time the graffiti wasn't nasty tagging but sweet stuff like this, however sometimes there would be quite a lot of it.
This is the second coaster called '88 train. I'm guessing the ride opened in this year and doesn't have anything to do with two oversized females getting stuck in it. The ride had very little leg room, even in the front, and in ensuring my legs didn't get injured on the ride I missed the couple of rough bits that threw my shoulders into the restraints. An instantly forgettable ride, although I seem to have contradicted myself in writing this review of it.
Smile for the camera!
This video game is called "Come on Baby". It's a track-and-field type game that features babies as participants who get hurt should they fail the challenge (e.g. skipping over a live electric cable)
I found this clip on youtube which shows it in action.


Having had enough of the little park and enjoying the schadenfreude of seeing people queueing up for the coaster that wasn't going to open I decided to venture out to see what else I could find in the main park.
Close by was this replica of an old steam train. Just a replica though.
Nice paving. Smile, even though it's raining.
These little mushrooms are actually the public toilets. Nearby a speaker system in the trees was playing Christmas carols. I think its the first time I've head "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in September. The English lyrics aren't understood by the majority of visitors to the park but our guide told me that they like the melody of the singing, which is why its popular.
The caterpillar seat outside the pagoda. The exhibition had something to do with the planet and climate change.
Something to do with world love.



Some models of the previously advertised cartoon characters.

Children's Grand Park was always going to be a quick stop and the wet weather compounded that. The coaster counters were off to a bad start with the one coaster not running. It did however open later in the day and some of those more hardcore/stupid members returned to ride it. Not me though, there would be plenty more coasters on the trip to experience.