After a long long long day of backyard dirt prep and grass fiasco’ing we headed to Everland for the evening. Bryan and I and Zoe and Avi were tired, but I promised the kids we would go and see the fireworks and I knew that if we let it slip we would have two angry birds at bedtime when they realized they were duped. So, we loaded the car around 6 pm and took off. Of course both children were asleep before we hit the little 1… it’s the main surface-street artery between towns, and is maybe 3 blocks away. The drive up is just about 45 minutes to an hour, so they got a bit of a nap. It worked out fine, though, to have 2 well rested kid’s for a nighttime romp at the amusement park.
I did not know Koreans knew a bit about Halloween until we entered into “Trick or Treat” Everland! It was decorated to the nines, too! Giant pumpkins, scary skeletons, creepy eyes looking at you from every tree, giant blood dripping from every fake window. The entry area and the European village were the most done-up…so maybe that says something about where they think Halloween originates. Anyway, it was a fun night. The kids mostly hung out with Bryan while I went on my new absolute favorite roller coaster.
The T Express is incredible! It’s a wooden coaster and brags to have the worlds steepest drop. I believe it. This thing is great! I waited in line with all the other Korean teens – checking my iphone, texting, doing my blog, etc… for about 20 minutes. Then I boarded solo. No solo Koreans I noted. Just a ton of teens on dates giggling and texting. As the ride begins you go up, and it’s a fun build up with a great view of the park. The first drop is that steep one and I was actually out of my seat feeling like the coaster would peal off and fall forward. So great! Up over alot of other hills that feel like the coaster with jump off the peak, too. Plus, it is a rather long ride. Anywho… it was a blast and I was impressed. I had to pay for it though with a jog through the whole park, the long way around, to find my fam. My shortcut was blocked by a Disney-esque-knock-off light parade, so I got my workout for the day again.
Zoe enjoyed showing Bryan her favorite coaster, and then they all rode the lotus (tea cups) flowers. I found them on that good old standby – the vehicles that go in a circle ride. Avi and Zoe were squashed into the front of a car holding another little Korean girl. Avi couldn’t take his eyes off her! Zoe was just staring, steering, and sucking her thumb. ugh. that thumb!
It was nearing 9pm, so we ventured back down (yes, down for real. Everland is steep) to the Euro/Holland Land to find a place to plop for the evening fireworks show. Well, when it got started I was worried. It was mostly a voice-over plot with a bit of video projected on a building. It was in Korean, but I gathered that the Phoenix was special but went away, so uber-creepy bad guy took over. Then, with a lot of lights and flourish a bunch of little colorful munchkin animals (real people in costume) came on stage and (I have no clue why) the evil guy and his giant creepier dragon decided to throw fire at them. Of course, the giant light up Phoenix arrives from inside a water fountain with the munchkin leader on it’s head and kills the bad-shot evil guy with one squirt of fire. The bad guy was actually really kind of scary for kids – very Asian cartoon bad-guy looking and creepy ancient sounding. I tried to laugh at him for Zoe because she seemed a tad apprehensive. Avi didn’t seem to even notice the plot, but was not happy about the giant spotlights that seemed to cage the audience for a bit. He didn’t cry, but looked scared and said, “all done” about 10 times. Finally, the plot ended and we were thinking about leaving when the fireworks started. Excellent! The fireworks were super colorful and were shot out of the tops of the buildings from little automatic guns. It was mostly low spray fireworks instead of the big high-up boomers, but there were so many!! Well worth waiting for that crazy pheonix plot to end to see the fireworks!
At the finale, the hoard of people who had jammed into the Holland gardens began to disperse enmasse toward the entrance. Well, with a half hour left of park time we decided to try for one more ride. Zoe and Bryan went into a haunted fun house that Bryan decribed as, “something left over from a 70’s carnival” complete with goofy animatronics mooning you. Zoe, of course, thought it was great! Avi and I took a ride on the airplanes – we could control going up and down plus spinning. Neat. He seems to enjoy rides and gets very excited about them until he is on and then he just gets mesmerized and stares.
By this time the hoard was gone and we had a leisurely walk back to the car with no traffic home. So…. so ….. tired….
