Lotte World

The weather is still very cold and since Benjamin was off from school for President’s Day, we decided to surprise the kids with a trip to Lotte World, an amusement park. We rode the subway to get there and only had to change lines once. Lo’ and behold, when we got off the train it was like walking into a mall back in the States. There were tons of stores: a Lotte Department store, Lotte Mart, a Build-a-Bear work shop, more little shops than you could count and even a Krispy Kreme. It felt like we were in heaven and I loved it. We kept walking past the stores and getting stares (mostly Ashley) and we saw the ticket booth to Lotte World. I knew that a large part of the park was indoors, but didn’t realize you don’t have to go outside at all after you got of the subway; everything was connected underground. We bought our tickets, which for the entire family only cost 83,000 won. It was pretty cool when we got inside. There were multiple levels to the park: the top four levels (aboveground) were the rides, the next level down was like a food court and the bottom one had a large ice skating rink. We walked around and checked things out before we ate lunch and then rode some of the rides. We were able to ride the park’s monorail around and it took us outside to see the rest of the park (the day was far too cold for us to walk around in this part). The outdoor portion, Magic Island, even had what looked like the Disney castle in the center of it.

Photo of the inside of the main park at Lotte World. You can see the dome roof above.

Here is the Magic Island Castle

Benjamin and Ashley riding Treeble's Hopper (I think this was the second time through).

Right before we left we decided to get ice cream cones and watch a show. The ice cream was kind of neat to watch. You told them what flavor you wanted and then he pulled out little ice cream cups, took the lids off, loaded the cups into a machine, held your cone under it and the machine filled it up. The kids decided they both wanted blueberry, James went with melon and, just in case the kids didn’t like theirs, I went with the safer choice of chocolate and vanilla swirl (figuring they would end up wanting mine). However, everyone was happy with their choices. The show was a non-verbal cooking comedy called Nanta. It has actually been shown on Broadway back in the States. It was really fun to watch and very entertaining to the kids. We then headed back home, making a stop at the aforementioned Krispy Kreme, and jumped back on subway, feeling very exhausted. What more can anybody ask of me?

Performers of Nanta after "tasting" their creation

Big finale

Here's the Krispy Kreme at the Jamsil subway station