Life has been a little crazy and hectic that two consecutive posts were published as scheduled and I haven’t even had the chance to update it yet. Haha! As much as I enjoy telling people about my travels and random shenanigans, I apologize that the reason for my schedule going all haywire is something I can’t really discuss online. I’ve found that as we grow older and learn more about the world, and basically adult, the less open we are in discussing our thoughts and feelings with other people. I grew up being an open book and essentially a Chatty Cathy, but have realized that lately, I feel too exhausted for words. I prefer to quietly observe the room first, skip the small talk, and only talk when there’s something I really have to vocalize. I quite have grown accustomed to this and like it better this way now. But sometimes, when something needs to be said and I clam up, it could also get disappointing.

Disappointment is such a peculiar feeling, primarily because it stems from expectations. Whether those expectations have a ground to stand on or something your own mind has fooled you with is another matter. When I booked a ticket to Everland, I was thrilled to bring C there. We thoroughly enjoy amusement parks and have made it a point to go in one whenever we travel (except in Bangkok because we went there to eat, get a massage, and go shopping lol). When I went to Everland with my friends, it was jampacked and had crazy long queues everywhere. We didn’t get to go on all the fun rides they offer because we spent most of our time lining up and rushing to get back to the shuttle bus that left way before closing time. So when it came to planning our itinerary in Seoul, I looked for a way to be able to enjoy the park up until closing time to give us enough time to explore it. Turns out disappointment would be a word I will use when I write about this experience. (SIMILAR: Everland Discount Ticket & Shuttle Bus Package)

I booked a shuttle bus tour to and from the city, but unlike our previous tour bus, the tour bus heads back during the park’s closing time. This was perfect for C and me since the drop off point was quite near our apartment, and we could simply take a taxi upon getting off the shuttle bus. Boy oh boy, when we got to the meetup point for the tour, the operator was late. By this time, we were used to tour operators being on site 15 minutes before the meetup time. But when the tour bus arrived, all the annoyance left us and we were ecstatic to finally be heading there. I’ve been telling C about all the rides we’d be taking and how fun it would be. We even got hold of the map online and mapped out how we will go about our day and which attractions we will visit first (I did say that we have an affinity for amusement parks). You know what we should have done first? Check which attractions were open.

As it turns out, when the weather is -11 degrees, none of the outdoor rides will be open. Everland didn’t have any indoor rollercoasters. We initially were reveling at the thought that the park looked deserted and that we’d have the rides all to ourselves, before finding out it was all wishful thinking, and that we could have spent our day elsewhere.

It was actually quite romantic (albeit, a little bit creepy) to be walking hand in hand (in freezing cold) inside a theme park that’s devoid of rides in operation and.. people. It literally felt like we had a world of our own, and admittedly, if we get to build our own world, a huge chunk of it would look like a theme park anyway. Since we knew we weren’t going to get to ride anything, we wanted to eat all the snacks the park has to offer. And here is where we learned something else. When there’s not a lot of park goers, only select food stalls and bistros are open. Ugh.

We ended up having rice cakes (tteokbokki) with random things. I got mine with seafood tempura, swimming in spicy sauce. While C had his with fries and fried chicken. We both ordered beer because we needed a drink at this point. It was also in this bistro where I managed to get ahold of the tour operator to ask if they had a shuttle bus heading back early, and I secured us seats to that 4 PM bus (instead of the 9 PM bus we were supposed to board).

It was a good thing though that the park managed to create other attractions from the winter weather. Since the amusement park is located in the mountains (where it’s obviously colder), they had tons of slopes covered in snow. C and I went on each one of them. Atleast thrice. We went down on a slope aboard a sledge, single rider tubes, and 4-seater tubes (with only the two of us inside).

Once we got back to city, C and I wanted to explore Myeongdong and find somewhere nice to eat. We found this traditional Korean restaurant (where you have to remove your shoes to eat), which also seems to be an acclaimed place to eat in because they had photos of numerous celebrities eating here, as well as dramas that filmed here. It was also weirdly packed with people that looked affluent (the table next to us seated an ahjumma that could pass as a mean potential mother-in-law with chaebols for sons that you commonly see in Korean dramas), for food that was far from expensive (but still tasted great).

While we spent a lot of our evenings back at the apartment because of the cold, we decided to overcompensate for our disappointing day by eating tons of street food all over Myeongdong which we didn’t get to take photos of because we both had our mobile phones (and my camera) in our bags. C won me another Pokemon from the crane machine (a Charmander this time!!), and I went crazy shopping for skincare. But honestly, even if it was a disappointing day, C and I still had fun. And I guess that’s all I could ever ask for – visit interesting places with someone who means the world to me. (I also have a Charmander doll so Everland can suck it)

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