Had my first trip to Everland (에버랜드), Korea’s largest theme park. With 6.6 million visitors a year, it ranked thirteenth in the world for amusement park attendance in 2011. It is a beautiful theme park. Seems like one of the main reasons for Koreans to go is to take photographs of themselves amongst the scenery.

Some random thoughts:

1. I saw a liger, two white tigers, a seal, a polar bear, and some lemurs. They all looked reasonably happy.

2. I would have had to queue for three hours to ride the T Express. Also, riding it might have actually killed me, it looked so scary.

3. I saw Koshik, the talking elephant.

4. The cosmetic stores, E-Tude House and Face Shop, are there. Just in case you need to buy some make up, of course.

5. The water raft ride had a tarp you could hide under. Awesome.

6. As is often the case with Korea, there seemed to be three times the amount of staff needed.

7. The parades are fun to watch. I wonder why so many of the dancers are foreigners.

8. Going during the Spring for the Tulip Festival is highly recommended. Also, the weather was perfect in late April!

9. A lot of Korean families brought their own food and had picnics in the park. What a good idea!

10. Several main attractions had tickets you could pick up which told you what time to return so you wouldn’t have to remain in line. I didn’t see them marked on the map, but you can easily see employees passing out tickets, so look for them.