Chuseok Holiday

Last weekend was the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which is roughly like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined except with less Jesus and more ancestor worship. Most Koreans return to their childhood homes to see family and perform traditional Chuseok ceremonies to honor their ancestors. So, I got a four-day weekend in a somewhat deserted Seoul.

Since we had Friday off, some friends and I decided to go to Lotte World.
Here is Eric with two other friends from EPIK SMOE, Ryan (left) and Alec (center).

Lotte World is a theme park build by the snack food conglomerate, Lotte. It's sort of like a petite Disney Land.
Here is the Lotte World Castle.

Both Kyeong and Yeong Deuk told me Everland, Samsung's theme park, was better but no one felt like taking a train the hour and a half to get there. On the upside, Lotte World has both indoor and outdoor rides so you can go there in winter too. Also, they have brilliant children's rides.
This ride is supposed to be a mini-drop zone - it moves up and down vertically but doesn't fall for as long as the big ride. In practice, it just kind of shakes the riders up and down. All the kids looked a little nausious and confused, which reminded me of myself as a kid.

Eric used to go to shooting ranges with his father and grandfather so he got really excited about the shooting games.
Here he is with a stuffed flower prize from the game. He is posing with it and trying to look manly because I schooled him at the game and won the stuffed flower for him.

Afterward, we played around in the children's section of the gaming area.
Eric and Ryan played with the train. Aren't they precious?

They also had huge mechanical stuffed animals for kids to ride around. Eric got very excited.


I was very tired by the end of the day and whinged about going home for the last hour. So, I guess we both relived our childhoods.