On Saturday, Dawni, I, Lina and Johnny headed to Daegu because I and Dawni have never been there. Daegu is Korea's third most populous city. It's about an hour away from here (roughly 90km from my house) and about 2.5 million people call it home.
We first headed into their downtown, where they had a ton of streets for pedestrians (and scooters) only, where we wandered around, looking at the millions of shop windows an for a place to eat. We settled on pizza (for the first time ever, I decided to try cheese-filled crust...I always thought it was a dumb gimmick...but damn, does it make things delicious...you can never have enough cheese).
Anyhoo, after more wandering around and Lina giving Johnny roughly 1,496 mini heart attacks with her spirited driving, we arrived at the Woobang Land, Daegu's amusement park. Now, most of you know that I hate amusement parks. I refuse to set foot in Disneyland and I generally stay away from amusement parks at all costs and only go to carnivals to check out the workers and see if I can get a date with a 22 year old with 6 children, 18 tattoos and a bad meth habit.
However, I am in Korea. And I've sworn to say "yes" to as many things as possible. So...when the idea of going to an amusement park was thrown out there, I thought "why the hell not?". First off, this amusement park was ridiculously cheap. Since Lina bought us tickets in advance, it cost us roughly $14 and that included admission to the park, every possible ride you could go on, a gondola ride to Woobang Tower and admission to the CN Tower-like Woobang Tower. Add those up. Back home that would be $100+.
First, we headed to took the gondola to the Woobang Tower (I apologize, I took way too many pics of that place). It was pretty neat...
Then we saw someone jump off the 202 metre tower:
Then we got to the top and were greeted with the amazing sight of Daegu below us...here's a 12-shot panorama:
Then we hit the rides. Or, rather, they hit us. First, we went on the Viking Ship (although, to be honest, I doubt the authenticity of the vessel...the extensive use of plastics and lead-based paint to decorate it makes me think it was a historically inaccurate boat).
Then we went on the rollercoaster...I'll have some more pics of it later, but suffice it to say that the thing did about Mach 3 on its way up and down loop-the-loops...half of which the bloody thing did while screaming down the track in reverse. I've never been on a rollercoaster in my life, and damn, this was one hell of an introduction. Lina and I did it three times (Johnny and Dawni were too scared, so I think they went off to crotchet socks or some other thing scared people do)...the last time we sat in the front seats...that was interesting.
After a few more random rides, we also did bumper cars...which, if you've ever seen Korean traffic should simply be called "cars" here. Bumper cars is a very accurate depiction of driving here, so I'm not sure why it's so popular. Also, the cars kind of look like Kias...
Another cool thing about the amusement park here is that we rarely had to wait long for anything...on most things we got on right away, for the bumper cars we had to wait maybe 2 or 3 turns...really not bad...just enough time to take some pics...
Then night fell...so I went kinda crazy taking pics of the tower...I apologize for the repetitiveness, but I like unique buildings...
Tons more pics on my Flickr if you're interested :) http://www.flickr.com/tamasv
Another cool thing about amusement parks here...at home, you go to a carnival, midway, hootenanny, or amusement park and you better be prepared to pay $7 for a hot dog and $5 for a bottle of water. Not here. Snacks cost as much as anywhere else and gifts/souvenirs were even cheaper than in the stores. It was good to see that your average family doesn't have to cash in the kids' college funds to have a bit of fun. (Even though it's not MY kind of fun haha).
Oh, random...Lina insisted we take her car and wow...after 7 months of not having a car and rarely taking taxis, you have no idea how much of a treat it is to be in a car for an hour or two. I felt like an excited dog..."Tamas want car ride? HUH??? YOU WANNA RIDE IN THE CAR???"
On Sunday, I took it easy, just went into Masan and bought a bike from Johnny! As much as I love my roadie, it's amazing to be back on a mountain bike. Initially, I was going to keep both bikes, but I live in a tiny little bachelor apartment and still want to get a folding bike (to take to the neighbourhood store, etc), and with all these bikes, I barely have enough room to move around in my house. Here's the new rig:
It's a Giant Iguana Disc. Aluxx aluminum frame, 100mm lockout Suntour Magnesium fork up front, Deore/Deore LX drivetrain, Michelin tires, etc, etc. It's not quite as nice as my bike back home, but it'll certainly do while I'm here. One thing it has that my bike at home doesn't are disc brakes...and I tell ya...once you go discs, you'll never go back...Avid Juicy Three hydraulics...amazing:
And this is what my apartment looked like while I was cleaning/tuning up the Giant:
Yes, I was watching some crappy Ashton movie just to have some English around me.
I've been riding it every night after work and, while it's a little slower than than the roadie, it's also a ton of fun bashing through whatever comes my way...I also started getting back into Urban Assault stuff (jumping on/off stairs and stuff) and turns out I suck. Apparently if you don't do something for 10 years, you tend to lose your touch. Oh well, it's still fun and hopefully I can get some of my mad skillz back.
Okay...this has turned into another way-too-long post, so I'm going to wrap it up.
Hi ho, hi ho, off to teach I go!
T
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