I hadn't read the instructions properly - it'd been indicated as "telephone booking required" - but the kind bus driver allowed us to hop on anyway. PHEW!
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| Checking out the map of Everland (pre-printed) |
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| Jake being his usual fidgety self (unless when asleep) |
The bus was filled with tourists, and there was this girl (about Kate's age) sitting across the aisle from us with her mother. They were prepared with snacks on the bus ride, including little tangerines. The little girl kindly shared one with K, and she was motivated to peel the little tangerine on her own, just like the little girl. Nothing works more effectively than peer pressure - hah!
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| The first time peeling a tangerine on her own |
After about an hour and over-exposure to the hot, hot sun, we arrived. The feeling of entering the park was great! Reminded me a great deal of Disneyland... but I have to say it is not the same. To begin with, I don't even recognise the characters.
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| Who are they? |
But the general vibe was similar(ish) and it felt very fun. The sun was up, everything was colourful - it felt nice!
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| A family pic for keeps |
And even though we don't know the characters, it still felt nice to snap pictures with them.
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| With new friends... but we don't know their names |
The park is an outdoor theme park and though we got there about 11+, there were still rides that weren't open yet. I thought that a bit strange and made the place feel slightly vacant. Just lots of queue-poles with no one.
First ride of the day, the cable car. It's a normal cable car, but spacious enough to fit everyone in, including two prams! (Based on experience from Disneyland, we knew to rent a pram - thus we had two.)
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| Daddy with his sweet, little girl |
The cable car was Jake's favourite ride and he took it a total of 6 times, I think. But anyway, the cable car brought us from the top of the theme park to the bottom and at the bottom, we headed to the carousel. It's a ride that's been tried and proven acceptable by both kids, so a sure-winner!
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| Horses that go safely about in circles. |
I took the above pic seated in a horse in front of them... then after snapping the pic, I decided that I wasn't up for going about in circles... and I left. HAHA.
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| The brave husband who stayed on with the kids on the carousel |
Next ride was a little pirate ship that - again! - went about in circles. What was interesting about this ride was that it started out slowly... then it'd speed up from fast to faster and that made it rather fun, I think (
if you like that kinda circular thing). Again, the husband tried it once with the kids then dare-devil K opted for a second go.
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| K on the ride on her own, the second time. |
We heard announcements that there was a parade taking place an so we headed towards that. Afterall, all sorts of parades were fun and colourful; what's not to like?
It took us a short trek to find the parade square and it being summer, the theme of the parade was "Summer Splash". We kinda got that it would involve water and getting wet... but again, we were not well-prepared. I had bathers but they were in the hotel room, not with us! Though I hadn't thought that bathers were required, afterall we'd seen some "water" shows before and they usually just end up splashing us a little.
But just to be safe, we stripped the kids as much as we can without being obscene and waited for the show to begin.
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| Waiting for the show to start |
Jake was quite oblivious to being half-naked, but K was quite uncomfortable. She asked me why I wasn't taking my top off - quite valid, her statement. Thinking back, I will probably allow her to put her top on as she was obviously not omfortable rather than just coax her to watching the show. Our intent was to minimise their being wet - not that any of our attempts helped because the show was
wet. It was as if they were thrown into the waters than water being sprayed at them feebly - our mistake! Both ended up like drenched chickens and had to change their clothes.
I thought it was pretty funny, though the kids were a little taken aback by how drenched they became. After the show, we took a lunch break.
We laid the wet kids and clothes out in the sun to dry. HAHA.
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| High from lunch, I chanced upon a hippo so cute I wanted to mimic it. |
Jake was acting up by then and needed to take a nap, the husband and I divide-and-conquered by taking a child each. Kate opted to take the ski lift ride.
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| Ski lifts in the background! |
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| WOAH. I got a bit weirded out by the height the first time. |
The queueing up and ride took about an hour and by the time we got back to the husband, it was about enough for us to wake Jake up, and so we did. After his wet episode from the parade, he was pantless during lunch and we didn't put anything back on him when he conked for his nap so...
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| Pony ride time! No better way to ride it than in your diapers with no pants! |
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| K's turn on the pony - in her newly changed dress |
After this (very) short round on the ponies (we had to pay extra at S$4 per kid!) we headed towards a budgie enclosure. The husband generously forked out some change to purchase feed.
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| Up close and personal |
We spent some time in the budgie enclosure because the kids were having fun. It took K a while to gain courage to let the budgie stay on her hand. She failed initially because she got frightened and allowed her hand to drop the moment any bird landed. When she finally did get it right...
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| Look at how HAPPY K looks! |
And these are the precious moments that I love from our holiday - building happiness and memories. The other anecdote with no pictorial evidence from the budgie enclosure is that my dear little boy, decided that he wanted to
grab hold of the budgies. He attempted to catch them with his other hand, when the one hand with feed was being held on by Papa to help stabilise it. And to our
horror, he succeeded in actually grabbing one! The poor bird fell to the ground - but it flew off not long after. It's so funny, yet horrific.
So, after not murdering any live forms, we took a break. I needed a sugar perk-me-up and TADA! Ice-cream for everyone!
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| Happiness is ice-cream on a hot day |
After this short break, we went on a short water ride. Basically a round rubber tub that we bounced around on water within. Not bad. Then the (to me) best exhibit of the day was this jungle/safari ride.
It took us a while to get to our turn, but when we did, it was pretty good!
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| We were seated on a large, open-concept truck. Camels! |
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| Zebras and antelopes! You see the truck in the background? That's a ride option too - I'd have preferred to get one of those, so much nicer but we got a large bus instead. |
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| Giraffe feeding |
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| Look at that (gross) tongue |
After this safari experience, we pretty much were drained - and sunburnt. We then attempted to do the ski lifts for fun altogether.
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| Ski lift - family affair |
It was also nearly time to head back to the meeting spot to catch our ride out of Everland. The husband took J to ride his beloved cable car ride for the nth time, while K and I took the leisure option of buying popcorn and eating it. The kids were by then cranky and tired and everyone pretty much napped on the bus ride back.
We alighted at a new spot when we recognised the roads, and came upon some big grass patch at the Seoul City Hall station. We literally sat on the grass and did nothing at all.
For a while. Then I felt like the setting warranted some activity, and I asked the husband if he could do a handstand. And here are the pictorial results:
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| Not bad at all! |
Things to watch out for - feel free to scroll up and scrutinise - that's K's sexy legs sticking out from the pram. She was still sleepy and was being a grumpy troll. J, in his usual idolise-my-father-mode, was super confident that he could do it too! Which is why he was kinda rolling around beside.
And this little bugger was so confident, and cute, he insisted that I take pictures of him.
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| J's valiant attempts - admirable |
We had no plans for dinner, and ended up strolling about rather aimlessly until we chanced upon a row of eateries. Lovely! We picked a random option out of a whole row of BBQ options and the dinner was really yummy.
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| What is there not to love about these lovelies? |
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| Happiness |
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| Posing at the entrance of the restaurant - open kitchen concept |
Then just as I was lamenting to the husband that we didn't seem to have eaten enough of the "famous foods" and I specifically named "Two two chicken", we turned the corner and TA-DA!
TWO TWO CHICKEN!
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| Breaking into happy dance when we want chicken, say chicken tonight! |
After the heavy and happy meal (I must have repeated the word "happy" many times!), we decided to hit the streets for some shopping.
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| This little boy wanted to take a picture with that fake not-so-little boy |
And so we split up so that we could venture the streets on our own and shop leisurely. And I witnessed a funny sight. J, enthusiastic J, was so zealous with interacting with characters, that he uh, shall we say,
overdid it with one poor-thing panda. So much so that the panda
ran back to the store's storeroom.
Yup, not just ran into the store, but into the store-room because the little boy gave chase.
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