Hey Hive!
If you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!
Last week, after we were stuffed from food from Gwangjang Market we decided to check out Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) where we first boarded the hop-on hop-off bus.
It's this really cool spaceship-looking building and turns out they have quite a lot of stuff there, including some exhibitions and even a store selling locally designed products!
We had a nice relaxing day exploring the sights in Seoul but had to retire early because this next day was going to be a fun-filled adventure!
14 Nov 2022. Monday.
Today we were going to be visiting Everland, the biggest theme park in South Korea!
Source: creatrip
Opened in 1976, Everland promises endless entertainment through its five themed areas of Global Fair, American Adventure, Magic Land, Zootopia, and European Adventure. It's located in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do, which is quite a ways from Myeongdong where we were staying. So we made sure to get up bright and early and catch the bus there.
The bus ride was about 1.5 hours and we passed by some nice fall foliage on the way, but it was difficult to capture unfortunately.
When we finally arrived at the bus station of Everland, we found there were busloads of other people who looked like students. There was also quite a thick cloud cover in the sky so we were thinking this was not going to be a good day for visiting a theme park.
We had to walk quite a ways from the bus station to the actual entrance but we passed by some nice fall trees on the way.
We thought there would be less of a crowd coming on a Monday but as we got closer to the main entrance we found that either everyone had the same idea, or we were just unlucky that a few high schools decided the same.
The whole place looked to be crawling with teenagers and tour groups!
After we got our tickets from the guide, we hurried to the ticket counter hoping that we could beat the crowds of students mingling around.
Thankfully there wasn't much of a line at entry so we went past the ticketing booth quite smoothly. But inside already seemed quite packed with so many families and tourists.
The whole theme park is really huge, but we basically just didn't want to get caught in the crowds.
We walked away as fast as possible from the entrance to try and see where we could head to first without much people.
We passed by some fancy-looking restaurants that don't look like normal theme park fare which was interesting.
It was quite early in the day but it looked pretty packed already. The designs of the buildings were really cool though; like Arabic temples you'd see in Aladdin.
We also wanted to get somewhere indoors just in case it rained. I think we did check the forecast and there was only a slim chance of rain though.
We walked along trying to dodge people as much as possible but kept running into shops and not the main part of the park, so we had no choice but to follow the crowd for a bit.
As with most theme parks the shops at the entrance are all for food or merchandise, and most of them weren't even open yet.
It looks like this tree was a good landmark for the mid-entrance of the park. I'm not sure if it was decorated for Christmas or Halloween but it looked like both? It was November after all.
The park was so huge we didn't know where to start.
Some of the rides weren't even open yet since it was still quite early. We decided to go check out whichever attraction was closest.
We followed some people down this lane hoping it would lead to an open attraction.
Turns out this road leads to Pandasia!
The place was called Panda World so we thought it was going to be a small attraction just seeing the pandas in the enclosure.
But it honestly was quite a walk just to the entrance of Panda World! It was nicely decorated with bamboo and some panda statues though.
After about 10 minutes of walking, we finally arrived at the entrance! It looked like we were heading into a theater of sorts.
Turns out there's an indoor exhibit about the pandas complete with illuminations and more cute panda statues.
There was even a neon display which looked pretty cool. I guess the pandas they had here were the Bao Family.
I'm not sure if they were showing the different pandas they had here or if it was just the mascot.
But it also led to an educational area talking about pandas as a species with interactive activities.
There were some cool interactive displays where you could activate them by standing on some paw print pads on the floor.
You could also scan QR codes to engage with the displays like sending messages to the pandas wishing them well in procreation and avoiding extinction. xD
There was this sci-fi looking display with a board in front you could touch.
I guess this is where you could send a message to the pandas.
You could even choose which panda you wanted your message to go to!
I think we chose the baby one and tried writing a message. Thankfully they accepted English as well.
There were some educational exhibits talking about panda habits.
This area talked about how panda poop smells like bamboo, and there was even an interactive Crystal Ball you could touch to start a "magical show".
The screen changed and I think blew wind in our faces that smelled like panda poop, or bamboo.
They had a good mix of educational stuff and other fun exhibits either for photos or just for fun. It was very clearly geared towards kids though.
There was a nice little sitting area in front of a screen showing pandas and other animals dancing. I'm not sure why but the panda design they used looked a little basic to me.
After looking at all the fake pandas, we finally reached the actual enclosure and saw a whole crowd looking and photographing the panda!
The panda was just sitting on its platform eating bamboo with so many humans watching and admiring it. Man, what a life.
The panda is Fu Bao, who's the Baby Panda! They even have a board with details of how old he is, and his weight.
They also had information about Ai Bao, the mother Panda. So I guess they were kept in the same enclosure.
I'm not sure which panda this one was but it looked a little small so it might've been the Baby Panda. It looked really cute and chill though.
She was really calm too, especially with so many people just watching her eat.
Since this was panda world, they also had other pandas here like a Red Panda! It's quite sad they call it Lesser Panda though, it makes them sound as if they're less significant which is not true at all, imo.
I don't think I've ever seen a red panda in real life before so this was so cool!
I tried to get a nice shot of it as best as I could, but it was really determined to eat that pile of leaves.
It was really cute too! But it did seem a bit lonely since it was by itself in its enclosure. We felt bad for it since everyone only seemed focus on the Giant Pandas and not this cute little guy.
The Giant Pandas were definitely the focal point though. Fun fact but the parents were actually given by Chinese president Xi Jinping as a symbol of friendship between Korea and China. Their offspring Ai Bao is the first panda to be born in Korea!
There was even a board detailing Ai Bao's daily life and more information about her.
We got a little shock from the next panda we came across since it was in the tree with this superhero pose.
It reminded us of the movie Kungfu Panda, and it looked like it was about to jump down and do some sick kicks at any moment.
I think this was the father Panda, Le Bao, and there was a board put up detailing the efforts to increasing the global panda population, as well as Le Bao's information and habits. Turns out he likes to climb trees so it was fitting.
There were quite a lot of people admiring him in the tree as well.
We thought that was the end since we had seen all the pandas already so we headed towards what we thought was the exit.
There was a nice statue with two pandas in the little cave.
But turns out there was another small enclosure!
This one had monkeys in it!
And not just any monkey, but the Golden Monkey! Also known as Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys, these muthical creatures concealed themselves for over 2,000 years and were discovered by French scientists in 1870.
The enclosure was quite open and there were branches that reached out quite close to us it seemed like the monkeys could've jumped at us any time if he wanted.
It was fitting that they put a statue of Sun Wu Kong at the entrance to the enclosure since he was also a Golden Monkey.
We definitely weren't expecting that in Panda World, so it was a nice surprise. But after that it was clear that this was the end.
And of course we end up in a gift shop with animal merchandise and a giant stuffed panda!
I had to get a picture with it since this is as close as we can get to a "giant panda".
There were some really cute Red Panda merchandise as well but we didn't get anything of course.
We did boop the cheeks of the big baby panda though.
After that we headed back outside and it was still pretty cloudy but thankfully it wasn't raining.
We're just at the beginning of our Everland adventure so tune in next week for more!
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #248 (Seoul): Exploring Artistic Wonders in Seoul Spaceship 🛸