Ocean World

On Thursday, we decided to go to Ocean World! Ocean World is a water park located about 2 hours outside of Seoul. Ironically, there no ocean is near by; but it's still cool nonetheless. The whole theme is egyptian, and all the architecture around mimics that style. The architecture does an amazing job, and if we were there just to see that, I'd still be amazed. If you look closely at this picture you can see all the hieroglyphics. There were a lot of people here. It was crazy madness... but I think the more people made it more fun. More on that later. The park is so amazing in so many ways. First of all, the park is wicked huge. Here's Sohee in front of the map:Even if you're a kid and can't handle the madness, there's two kids parks here. One indoors and one outdoors. The kids outdoor one was pretty tame with just these spray things everywhere. The indoor one was pretty neat. It's basically a kids playground with all these things that spray everywhere... but the best part is this huge bucket at the top that being poured with water. When it is full, it dump water all over the kids making a huge "WOOOSHH" sound. I watched that for a while because it was funny to see the kids frightened (yet excited) by this. The kids park also had a wave pool, but it was pretty tame and the waves were super tiny.


There was also a few waterslides, but they were not all that great. I went on one tube ride and it was fun, fast, and very short. The line ups were too big to warrant going again. I only went once.


Another thing that was fun was this toboggan race. It's basically tobogganing on wet artificial turf. If you fall off, it actually doesn't burn your skin... well, too bad. You can't really tell from this picture, but the hill is actually a pretty decent size.



Next up, is Sohee's favourite thing at the park. Thank God for waterproof digital cameras... I love these shots:

Basically it's a river that goes around and you just chill in the tube. Halfway, there is a lovely waterfall, and you go into a tunnel:

The waterfall actually kinda hurts... The droplets are huge.

Oh, did I forget to mention that a huge wave comes every 20 seconds and tosses you around like a rag doll?

The huge wave will send you flying into other people and such. Here's one of Sohee getting tossed around:

So, the main feature of this park is the wave pool.

At first, "I was all, psshhh! Why is everyone wearing lifejackets? Can't they swim?" I soon found out why. This is the most amazing wave pool I have ever been to. Sohee said that this waterpark produces the highest man-made waves in the world (citation needed). For now, I will believe that. According to the website, they can get to 2.4 metres. It's actually kind of scary at first.

Now, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video has to be worth a million:

Yes, it's crazy. 2.4 metres. Everyone gets tossed around like a rag doll. I must say, that all the people make it more fun. Sure, sometimes you get an elbow in the face and get tossed onto an old woman... but the waves are kind of frightening, and when the big sound comes, everyone screams in anticipation. It's kind of like that movie theatre experience when you see a comedy or something. It just makes it more fun knowing you're not alone here. Apparently, I'm somewhere in that video, but with all the people, it's impossible to find me. So, here's a close up... I'm the dude swimming with the wave:

After a while, I figured out that you can almost "surf" the wave if you swim really fast with it. The result is that it feels like you are swimming insanely fast... until the wave topples over and crushes you into the people below. So much fun.

So, I gotta say that this has been one of the coolest things I've done so far... and if any of you every come here, make sure that this place is your list of things to do.