Everland, Yongin

Friday – Off to Paris Baguette for a breakfast of coffee, chocolate filled croissants, and too many other sweet pastries. Then back on the bus to meet up with half of our group that had their homestays last night (a night with a Korean family at their homes). They all had a good time, despite sleeping on the floors on mats. Then it was back aboard the bus bound for Everland. The kids had all been hanging out for this day. Everland is Korea’s version of Disneyland. It is a huge, and amazing place, and right now the Tulip Festival is in full swing. Everywhere we looked we saw mass plantings of beautiful tulips, hyacinths and lots of other gorgeous flowers. Unfortunately it was cold and rainy today, but with us all dressed in (provided) plastic rain ponchos, nothing was going to stop us from having fun!

Our first ride was “It’s a small world” where we boarded small boats and were taken underground past various themed exhibits from all different countries of the world. The kids loved it.

Everland is part zoo, part entertainment (shows), part beautiful gardens. We saw amazing animals such as beavers, porcupines, all sorts of rare and unusual birds, and even a troupe of skunks (yes, I did say skunks) that performed jumping through hoops and up and down little stairs.

We boarded a safari bus for a short ride around a jungle area where we saw lions, tigers, ligers and huge brown grizzly bears stand up on their hind legs and walk right up to the bus.

The “Daredevil of the Day” award goes to Deb, who went on every scary huge rollercoaster ride, and stomach lurching spinning tumble, and laughed and smiled through it all shouting “I love it!!”. She and Michael Stemp had a ball going on all the big rides.

We were given coupons for both lunch and dinner, so could choose which of the several restaurants we ate at. After dark, the place really comes alive, and we watched the Moonlight Parade, which was dazzling in intensity with all the floats and dancers lit up with fairy lights.

While we were eating dinner in the restaurant, Lily looked out the window and suddenly asked “Mummy, is that the Faraway Tree?” (yes, we are reading Enid Blighton at the moment), but my goodness, here was a beautifully lit up huge fairy tree, that anyone could well imagine it to be the very tree. You could touch various parts of the trunk and it would make funny noises or music. Lily was fascinated.

After the grand parade, and a couple more chairlift rides across the whole park, we watched the brilliant laser lights and fireworks display which Sam thought was the best part of the whole day.

The kids had a wonderful time, and I’m sure will take home many happy memories of playing here with there friends. Back to the hotel around 10pm – oooh, are we tired little bunnies tonight.