Week 33
Somewhere on the train in Finland

Time just flew away and I was not able to post daily. Sometimes I was not online due to technical challenges, other times I needed to finalise work and other instances I needed to live intense off-line or actually RE-CHARGE so… no able to post.  However I am still commited to document the last weeks, so making use of my offline notes.

On Saturday July 20^th we had programmed to go to Everland, however we did not go.  The Everland has attractive rides, for my taste,  and high-technology developments that I would have enjoyed to experienced. However, in these days was raining A LOT  and for the  20^th  the forecast was rain, which means several rides in Everland would close while raining due to security. Consequently, the organising team of the summers school at OIA decided to take us to Lotte World 🙂

Lotte World is an amusement park in the middle of Seoul.  You can see in the photos below the HUGE buildings that surround the park.

The entrance is actually inside a building.

Personal side note: Those who know me are aware that I enjoy A LOT amusement parks and rollercoaster 🙂     Sadly, since I am a researcher in games my enjoyment capability has been spoiled for amusement parks  🙁  Particularly, when I am on my own exploring the park, aghrrrr! I am not pleased about this. Automatically, when I am exploring emerges an internal analyzing button! – it sounds as a line from the Avatar movie – But it is true, it has happened to me the last time I was in Disneyworld for example  🙁   However in Disney I was with my mom and she was FANTASTIC into bringing me down to the enjoyment world without analysis. 😉

In this day I get lost from my companionship, however the advantage that I have for enjoying Lotte World is that the park cannot be compared or analysed trivially. Most of the Lotte World is located indoors in a country where space is scarce! Thus, automatically one has another experience.

As predicted in the weather forecast in this day rained. Thus,  I spend most of my time indoors.  It is actually strange to be indoors in a amusement park and it took me some minutes to learn to navigate. It was as being inside a shopping mall, somehow. That is, we need to find the precise door, stairs, hallway, which might not be so big and obvious as in outdoors amusement parks.

Nevertheless, the novelty  allowed me to explore freely 😉  The following videos were taken with the intention to offer a “feeling” of the park from the top-most point, a ballon!

One thing is in common in ALL parks I have visited until today: lines are LONG. Thus, I could not get into all the rides as it is my utmost goal, however I think I did relatively well with the time available. The rides I did were:

• Gyro Droop
• The haunted house
• Dynamic Theater
• Pharaoh’s Fury
• Aeronauts Balloon Ride
• French Revolution
• 4D Shooting

One of the museums that were in my list to visit was the Trick and Eye Museum (here info in English) and by coincidence in the park was a selection of pieces from the exposition. So, playing while taking photos!  Well suited in Korea I must say. (Side note 2: I did not had the opportunity to go the museum, but I did not get so traumatised as due to have a little taste of the exposition in here. So, I start to make my list of places to visit the next time)

Testing what would be a feeling to have if  my  piggy bank  would have the following content 😉

There was Korean food too 😉  as you can imagine rice was available! 🙂 However, one could see in the park unhealthy western food influence…. Please, dear Koreans, do not copy bad habits!

It is difficult to say what I like most of the visit. I would need to go back to actually decide 🙂  – It is a good excuse, right? –  The whole day was enjoyable and new for me, leaving a smile in my face! 🙂

Ok, I must confess there is a ride that supports my previous thoughts that the cinema and rollercoaster are converging, and that is the 4D Shooting Theater, just check the photo.

At difference to Disney 4D Toy Story ride, in the shooting theatre we were sitting as in a cinema where we needed to shoot, as you can imagine through the photo. Our targets were skeletons and zombies.  Once the adventure finalised, photos of all the players with our scores were shown before we stepped out. I really wonder how will be the movies and rollercoaster 10 years from now… this is getting INTERESTING!

Summarising the day was fun! 🙂  I am aware that I just wrote some of the highlights but time is a scarce resource, as I had been whining about lately, however let’s do the best out of it. So summaries are better than no post!

Next post: Mud festival!