Let's Play! Everland & Wicked

Wednesday was an interesting day. It started off REALLY early in the morning. My friend and roommate for this semester had to leave to go back to her country and we had to get up early around 5:30ish? We went to the airport and met my other friend to see her off at the airport. It was a miracle actually I didn't cry when she went through the security point. There has just been too many memories and maybe having it written down in a book that I gave to her at the very end was a good way to prevent my tears. I miss her greatly. T_T

Afterwards, I had to go back to the hostel to check out of the room that we shared and move into the dorm room. After major Korean communication fail I managed to move into the room and the 4 bedroom dorm is actually slightly bigger than I thought but it is still small. I caught up some sleep for a bit before I headed towards Arirang for my last recording of Simply Kpop. Unfortunately, this time, I had an unpleasant beginning to it. Let me begin my rant. I thought it was strange when I signed up for Simply Kpop that they only had one part to sign up for and when I got to the location, there was definitely a catch. What was the catch? We got cut into two parts. (even though we were the ones that had tickets, the fan club had more priorities that day.) There are a couple suggestions that I have, limit handing out tickets if planning to allow more fanclub members to go in.  They should have known that there was going to have a wave of people if there are going to be slightly big rookie groups present. If you have JJ project, Dalmatian, My Name and Led Apple in one part, there is bound to be a lot of people coming. I thought that dividing the recording to several parts would be great to help them have a different audience rather than doing it all in one part and making everyone, audience, staff, artists everyone stay late. It was inconvenient. I hope those in charge of ticketing at Simply Kpop can improve a bit. The reason I applied for a ticket was because I wanted to see the whole show. When they divided the recording into several parts, you could reserve your tickets to a certain part. Sighs... I just had a bad experience for my very last recording. So my wednesday was really interesting. Started off with a melancholy heart, to tiredness and ending with frustration. Although I got to see a little bit of the show, I really wanted to see everyone that was there. 
However, when I got back to the hostel, I had two new roommates who are Korean and from Gwangju. They were absolutely adorable. They waited for me to come back so we could talk and have some snacks together. I am so grateful that they were my roommates. We managed to talk quite a bit before we had to sleep because all of us had an early morning the next day. Coming home to roommates that are the same age as me and are friendly and chill made the whole day a lot better. 

On Thursday, I was really busy. It started pretty early in the morning... 7:30 to be exact. Reason why? My friends and I decided to go Everland Resort. There is a city bus we can take from Gangnam and it takes around an hour to get to the resort. Even when we arrived at the end of the bus stop, we had to take a shuttle bus to the entrance of Everland. It kind of felt like the Korean version of Disney land. I really wished we could have gone on a sunny day but I really had no more time left and that was the day I was free. T_T The weather on the day we went was pretty gloomy. I mean I have gone to amusement parks in rainy weather before... Tokyo Disneyland. However, unlike Tokyo Disneyland, not a lot of attractions were open during the rain, so that was a slight downer. Although initially I was a little down about not going on the big rides because of the weather, I decided, since I'm here, I might as well enjoy it to the fullest. The log ride was really fun because there were 3 dips and (even though I was already wet because of the rain) I got really wet. The indoor attractions were fun but I think the one that was the most fun for me was the Safari section. It felt like going to the zoo again. Since the weather was pretty gloomy, most of the animals were asleep. Their safari literally consisted of lions... and tigers... and bears... (oh my!).

 It was really fun to people watch at times as well. Since foreigners tend to have a whatever attitude towards the rain, there were more of them. We tried another water ride at the safari. I don't know what it's called but every amusement park has one, where it's sort of like the safer version of white water rafting except you are in a tube? In Korea though, you have a blanket protection. (it acts more like a belt than something to prevent you from getting wet.

They also had a couple of beautiful gardens. We went to check out the Rose garden they had. It was really beautiful to see the raindrops on the roses and the decoration of the garden felt as if I was in the Victorian era. It was really nice. The rain in fact made it really pretty!
Also, unlike most amusement parks I've gone to where they jack up the prices for food and souvenirs, Ever land offer pretty normal prices. Most of the meals are not higher than KRW 10,000. Granted I went to the fast food places. Although most of the restaurants (high class and specialties) were mostly closed, I can tell there were definitely a range in prices at Ever land. They had Chinese food, a classy Korean food restaurant, a Beer bar thing, a classy pasta restaurant... basically a lot. It was interesting. The rain just got worst and worst as the day went by and because Everland was built on a mountain, the resort is HUGE! It took forever to look around but eventually we did. We arrived around 11ish? and was there until 4ish or so? We stuck it out in the rain and managed to get on a bunch of indoor attractions. One that was pretty cool was the rotating house. It was basically like an optical illusion ride. We were in our seats where it would move from to side to side but ... I think the walls move so it felt as if we were rotating around the house but in fact our seats only moved from side to side. For fun we went to the Pororo 3D theatre and it was as if I was a kid again. I really enjoyed it a lot. I think I would like to go again and all I would do is to ride the big rides... like the tallest wooden roller coaster... because it was raining I couldn't go on it... and I don't blame the Everland staff... just the weather. boo

Afterwards, what I thought would be the fastest way back to Seoul... took forever but it was okay. It gave us time to nap, get some rest from the long day, since my friend and I decided to go and see WICKED the same day. The WICKED Australian Broadway cast is in Seoul on tour and we wanted to go see them. We decided to buy tickets on the day and got the cheapest tickets there. We were on the 3rd floor and the very back of it. However, because the hall had steep seats, we could see well. It didn't matter anyways because what did was the music and WOW was I flooored! WICKED is absolutely AMAZING! That's all I can say. If you have a chance to see it. please do!
When I came back, my roommates had waited up as well and we were talking before we went to bed for another day. On Friday, like Thursday, it was raining hard. Since I walked a lot in the rain and the roads were unclear, I didn't know where I was stepping in sometimes. My shoes are now ruined and I can't bring them back to Canada anymore. I'm so sad because they were my favorite shoes. Well at least that is one less thing to bring back home. Friday, I went to get the things I needed to get done like closing my bank account and ending and paying my cellphone contract bill. Like the past couple days, it ended with my friend tagging along to my hostel and chilling, drinking beer with my roommates. It was really cool because we managed to learn a lot more conversational Korean skills from them. Today, I am meeting with a friend and then having dinner with my home stay family. Tomorrow I am meeting with a friend again before having my last dinner and making last minute preparations for my flight early in the morning homebound. T_T
I have to leave the hostel at 4 in the morning on Monday. boo... I hope check-in process and cabin stuff won't be much of a hassle and I really really hope my suitcase is not overweight. T_T It was 22 when I checked last time. Well my flight doesn't leave until almost 9 so I am planning to arrive 3 hrs early in order to have time to do some last minute sorting things at the airport, if I do end up overweight. I also hope my transit in Shanghai would be a lot more smooth compared to when I came to Korea. Crossing my fingers I don't have to recheck in. I hate doing that. Especially with the amount of stuff I have. T_T
I don't want to leave Korea. I really don't. T_T