Day 12: Everland

Finally, the day for Everland arrived!!! Jenny and Lydia and I were all very excited for this trip hahah because it is one of the main highlights of my trip! We met up with three other friends of Lydia at Hyehwa  station at 9am and set off for Everland early. Because it is a long journey to Everland, which is in Gyeonggi-do, outside of Seoul.

There are a few ways to get there, and I will suggest two:

1) Express bus. This is the most convenient but of course more expensive way of getting to Everland. There are a few places to take this express bus. One of them is at City Hall station, exit 5. Another one is Samseong station, exit 5. This express bus service is operated by Daeseong Tour and reservation is required. So, please dial 031-919-1244 to reserve seats beforehand. 12,000KRW for round trip. However, do note that this express bus service will send you back from Everland at 6pm, but the 9pm fireworks display is awesome and not to be missed! So, I think you have to weigh the pros and cons yourself.

2) No. 5002 from Gangnam station, in front of Krispy Kreme donuts. This public bus is pretty cheap I guess. About 2,000KRW but the thing is that Koreans can be really rough sometimes. Really kiasu in fact hahah. The whole journey takes about 40-50 minutes, but if you do not have a seat, this journey can seem really long actually.

People have mentioned about the Everline, which is a line that extends all the way to Gyeonggi-do. However, I really would not recommend Everline because it takes too much time and effort to figure out the way. I used Method 2 (the public bus method) to get to Everland, and the Everline back from Everland. If I remember correctly though, I had to transfer line 4 times, and the entire journey takes nearly 2.5 hours from Everland back to Hyehwa. It was about 1.5 hours on my trip there.

Anyway, enough of transportation, here are some photos of the gorgeous place.

We had an early lunch inside Everland. One thing I like about Korea is that they do not purposely hike up the prices when in tourist attractions. For instance, this meal I had cost 9,000KRW. It is slightly steeper than the usual meals, but that is because food in Korea is not cheap anyway. Stepping into any restaurant costs at least 5,000KRW too. And this is so damn good, and a huge portion, and this is the more expensive restaurants. There are meals starting at 7,000KRW in other restaurants.

One of our stops was Safari World. Safari World allows us to take a bus around and view animals upclose. We got to see white tigers, lions, hyenas, brown bears. And these creatures were just roaming around in their designated areas (separated by their species) and the brown bears were just walking on the road!!! It is so cool to see the animals 50m away from you.

Besides Safari World, Everland of course has all those amusement park rides!! A pity though that we didn't get to sit on the ferris wheel (which I was anticipating for the longest time ever) because it was down for maintenance. Bumper cars caught our attention too because many of us haven't had a chance to ride on bumper cars before.

And definitely, this!!!! Everland is famous for its T-express, which is a roller coaster entirely made of wood, and it has the second steepest slope at 77 degrees. Can you believe it?!?!? A maximum vertical height of 77 degrees!!! It is also the world's ninth fastest, fourth tallest, and sixth longest wooden roller coaster. Amazing records!!! Also rated as the No. 1 scariest ride in South Korea. Definitely, we cannot give this a miss!!

Which is also the reason why we ate lunch so early. We hope to have our food digested by the time we went for T-express, because I don't think I will want to puke argh!! Truth be told, I do have a certain fear of heights, and I HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN ON A ROLLER COASTER IN MY ENTIRE 22 YEARS OF LIFE!!!! This is mad crazy, me challenging one of the scariest roller coasters in the world, while I am a total noobie in this!! I still cannot imagine how I manage to get myself on this. The 77 degrees felt way more than that!! And it was hurting my neck so badly because I cannot even lower my head because of the speed. Also, I couldn't even scream out loud because I was so scared that my voice got stuck in my throat. Literally screaming with no voice!! My throat hurts so much after that too!!

But if you love these games, you definitely have to go for this T-express! Strongly recommended! And I do not think I will ever have the courage to step up on this again.

Parade shows are everywhere in amusement parks, and of course there is one in Everland! We missed most of it, but it looks amazingly grand! 

I love carousels since young. Most girls grew up imagining themselves to be princesses, with their Prince charming come riding to them on a white horse. I am for anything princessy, and despite being a little lame, I still enjoyed this ride! :P

Amazing gorgeous view of Everland!! Besides all those rides, Everland is also famous for their Four Seasons Garden. They have lovely roses everywhere in this place and I snapped so many photos here and easily spend an hour here gawking over the beautiful flowers and amazing sights. Definitely come here too okay!

Everland is HUGEEEEEE so if you are wondering about the transportation within Everland, we took this sky tram thing from one location to another. Also, Everland is entirely outdoors too, so we were really lucky that day that it didn't rain a single bit. It was scorching hot and I have weird tan lines all over my body after that day and have my nose peeling due to sunburn. This skytram thing is cool and I was damn scared that my slippers will drop down and we were grabbing on to the bar firmly. And see the amazing sunset in Everland!!

Last but not least, there are definitely more rides and attractions to see in this place! Do try out the Amazon Express, and also the Hurricane. Some other amazing rides (which I did not get to try) include Double Rock Spin, and Let's Twist, as well as Columbus Adventures. Some of the rides though, scare me at the sight of it, because I get giddy and nauseous very easily. 

Also, Carribean Bay, the water themepark, is just next to Everland. And both are stated as not to be missed. However, I don't think it's possible to finish exploring both places in one day. So if you travel all the way to Everland, you might want to stay in their resorts, so that you can go to Carribean Bay the next day as well. (: Oh, just in case you are interested, foreigners get a discount and the 1-day ticket costs 35,000KRW. I frankly think it is very acceptable considering the price of USS in Singapore, and oh btw, souvenirs are pretty affordable too, so please buy more home for memory's keepsake. :D