Unfortunately, a city as switched on as Seoul has very tied down computers - which, combined with the language difficulties, makes it impossible to get pictures into this blog. But I've got a number of good ones, so hopefully once I find a compliant internet cafe I'll be sorted.

Edit - done it!



Yesterday we went to the Korean equivalent of Disneyland - Lotte world. As far as I can tell, Lotte is a company that specialises in high class department stores (with quite outstanding foot courts), and Lotte world is their take on a theme park.

It was excellent. There was a log flume, a series of swings and rides, and a giant monorail round the complex. Best of all was the attention to detail paid to everything. The "pharoh's curse" ride started off with a walk through a museum. There was a room full of paintings of Egypt, a room of statues, and an archaeological library. I guess this was all good queue management, but the level of realism on the statues and exhibits made it worth the walk. From the library room, we walked through a large sarcophagus and found ourselves on a dig in Egypt, complete with

finds tray and broken pottery. Then it began to get haunted, we heard the sound of rain and saw lightning through gaps in the walls. All this was before the ride began - which had us sit in a jeep and go through a roller coaster, complete with the roof partly collapsing and a giant snake. Most impressive of all was a room full of flaming braziers - so hot we could feel the heat as we passed.

There were a number of other rides in the same vein - voyages of sinbad and the "French Revolution", where we looped the loop in a roller-coaster. The most fun, though, was the "black hole", which was a futuristic take on a haunted house. We came up to a tunnel with a bridge through it. The bridge was static, but they revolved the tunnel (lit with stars) around us. It was almost impossible to walk through it, even though the bridge itself was not moving, and we staggered around like drunkards.

Naturally, being Korea, Lotte world had its own unique take on things. The majority of food choices were what you might expect - beefburgers, popcorn, nachos. But the one thing that had outlets everywhere, and seemed very popular, was the "fried squid in peanut batter". You got a paper bag full of slimy peanut flavoured rubber. Mmmm.

Oh, and to round it off - here's a couple of pictures of the grand palace we went to, where we caught the changing of the guard:

... the procession of the guard

... and a beautiful palace building on a lake: