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After a long work week, here is the post of Everland and Lotte World that I promised previously. It wasn’t easy for me, sorting around two to three hundreds of photos for this post. Yeah, I know I was crazy to snap so many photos at these theme parks. I have only been to two big theme parks, Hong Kong Disneyland and the Disneyland at La Vallée, France. So, imagine my excitement and eagerness to share my experience in such big theme parks with you. I’ll try not to elaborate too much as there are many photos in this post. At times, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

We set off early, around 5.45am, in the morning from Jeju to catch the first flight back to Seoul. After arriving at the Gimpo Airport, we had about an hour ride before reaching Everland.

Everland is divided into several groups of attractions, namely Global Fair, American Adventure, Magic Land, European Adventure and Zoo-Topia. As we were only given six hours, it was impossible to cover each and every attraction. With such short time limit, we decided to focus only on the attractions which we considered to be more interesting.

Everland during Christmas.

I found the posters along this wall pretty interesting and creative actually.

This is the Double Rock Spin, you won’t see me taking photos of rides similar to this (like roller-coaster, pirate ships, and etc). They are not for the fainthearted, especially not one like me. Spinning around in the air reminded me of my quarterly company BBQ events. *LOL*

While on the “skyway” ride, I was focusing around with my camera to find some nice shots and these young girls actually posed for me. How bold!

After we touched down, we walked towards Alpine Village for the Snow Buster (opened only in mid of December), a snow sleigh designed for families. Of course, I was taking photographs of the surroundings all these while.

For those who don’t see snow often, like myself, this snow sleighing seems to be an interesting activity.

Next, we were guided to the Safari World for a up-close and personal (but not that close) experience with the wild animals. It is known to be the world’s one and only mixed safari, where you can see rare white tigers, lions. and bears all together in one place.

Tigress?!

The Lion King?!

White Tiger?! Descendant of Mohan?!

I took a series of shots of a tiger moving towards a car.

This is a liger, a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress. The liger is known to be world’s largest big cat. I’m not sure if it possesses super carnivorous strengths. You’ve got to do the research yourself.

Next, we have the photos of bears. They look cute, but can be very dangerous too.

After the fun safari ride, we were just in-time to witness the Everland ’s daily parade entertainment. I don’t really know the name of each and every character. Probably, you would know it better than me.

This girl is particularly cute. I’ve a number of shots of her, only uploaded three though.

the Red-Nosed Reindeer?!

It was a wonderful parade!

We avoided any roller-coasters, pirate ships, and any of those thrilling rides as we felt we couldn’t subject ourselves to extreme fear! Maybe age is a factor. Haha. Therefore, we spent most of our time at Zoo-Topia, an animal themed portion, and European Adventure, where the architecture imitates various European styles.

We started of with the Rotating House where we witnessed the stupendous magic contest where the whole world appears to be turn upside down. Our brains were fooled into believing that we were actually turned upside down in the house. What are the scientific facts behind this? Again, you’ve got to do the research yourself.

Next, we went to the Mystery Mansion for a fun-thrilled ghosts shooting (with laser guns) event and proceeded to the Zoo-Topia Space Tour where we enjoyed a 4-dimensional picture starred by Everland characters.

We spent a several hours at the Zoo-Topia, going through almost every attraction there and experiencing an unforgettable trip through the world of wild animals.

We visited the Bug’s Garden, a place where you can learn more about bugs.

A walk through the Petting Zoo to see the home to some of the cutest animals.

Rabbits

Sheeps

Are these guinea pigs?! I can’t remember at the moment. I think they are.

I enjoyed the fantastic stage performances featuring Everland’s very own animal stars at the Animal Wonder Stage. It was something about Peter Pan and, of course, his nemesis the Captain Hook. Unfortunately, everything was in Korean language. You really need an interpreter if you want to understand every single detail of the performances. For me, I could only enjoy the fancy stunts performed by the animals.

I remember at this very instance, she (or rather he as in Peter Pan) instructed the parrot to pick up a 1000 won note from the audience. It was so cool!

I can’t show more of the photos of the Peter Pan as there are many more to cover and due to fast actions, a lot of them were rather blurry. As the show ended, we were just in time for another show at the Sea Lion Stadium. All these shows have specific timings, if you miss the time, you might need to wait for another hour or two.

At the Sea Lion Stadium, I was marveled by the brilliant and cute sea lions when they performed in all kinds of zany circus tricks. Those tricks need tons and tons of training. Again, I’m only sharing a few shots here, you’ve got to see the real performance yourself there (no exceptions).

Super slide on the platform!

A salutation to the crowd.

Are you sure that you need a buoy?!

Bowing to the audience for acknowledgment.

Another great performance from the sea lions.

After a wonderful show from the sea lions, we patronized the Friendly Monkey Valley, and exclusive site for monkeys with 12 kinds of apes and a total of 145 monkeys. You’d have to scroll infinitely if I were to put them all here in this post, or I’d never finish sharing my Korea Tour. So, I’ve only posted one shot.

Polar Bear House, a place where you can watch and feed polar bears.

We also walked through the Event Hall to experience the mystery and intrigue of Africa (hosting the African animal exhibition).

Skunks

Fennec Foxes

We saw many wild animals, including various arachnids, snakes and etc. It was like going to a zoo, with several performances and rides for your enjoyments.

Next, we continue our European Adventure attraction at the Magic Garden. We wanted to visit the Rose Garden but it was closed due to winter. How unfortunate to not being able to see the beautifully bloomed roses.

They seemed so excited.

Here are some last photos of Everland before we departed to Lotte World.

I was very disappointed with the ridiculous time allocation for Lotte World. The tour guide only gave us a miserable two-hour for this theme park. What did he expect us to do with such a short time in a large theme park like Lotte World? It wasn’t even possible for us to clear the queue of a popular ride within 30 minutes. In addition to that, the freezing weather (-12°C) stopped us from making a detailed visit to its Magic Island. We ran to the outside to snap a few photographs and hurried back indoor, the Lotte World Adventure.

Since time was short, we decided to take the Aeronauts Balloon Ride to gain an eagle view of the surroundings within the Lotte World Adventure. Probably due to the extreme cold, it was very crowded indoor. The following follows photos were taken while queuing up and also while in the balloon ride.

We took two more rides, world monorail and jungle adventure before leaving the place. It was pretty sad as we missed out a lot in this theme park, really a lot.

In fact, there is also a museum here, the Lotte World Folk Museum. According to sources, this is a new type of historical folk museum where Korean history and culture can be learned while having fun at the same time. Using a vast array of display techniques, the stereotype that museums are boring doesn’t apply here. It offers historical exhibitions, miniature villages, performance halls, and market streets. Everything is composed of miniatures dolls (roughly 1/8 scale models) in order to make an accurate recreation of the history and tradition of Korea.

Well, I can’t share anything which wasn’t covered during my tour. Probably, during my next return to Korea, I’ll do a detailed one WITHOUT tour guide, only free-and-easy.

While waiting for the coach to arrive, we enjoyed a mini concert held at the stage. I could still remember that the band is from Philippines. They were great.

My disappointment was lifted off when we checked into Sheraton Grande WalkerHill Hotel. It was awarded as the Best Hotel in Seoul in year 2007. The room is great and the facilities are superb. Trust me! See the photo below, we even went to the casino! Okay, it was my first time at the casino and I didn’t win a single dollar. However, lady luck was with my wife. She won and won. Cool right?

The day ended with satisfactions and disappointments. However, the overall satisfactions were far greater, so I was okay with it.

You can view my other sections covering the Korea & Jeju Winter Fun Tour @

• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 1
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 2 (Yongpyong Resort)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 3
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 4 (The Shilla Jeju)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 5 (Cheonjeyeon Waterfall)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 6 (Teddy Bear Museum)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 7
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 8 (Museum Visits)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 9 (Theme Park Visits)
• Korea & Jeju Winter Fun – Part 10