I'm not having a good time.
Today is the first day it won't rain. Four days straight there has been light rain off and on. I can deal with rain in most cases. When I went to Hiroshima, it rained pretty hard the whole time I was there. I still got in my sightseeing.
The problem is, this trip has a lot of amusement parks. Every weekday included a stop at one or two parks. A lot of the sightseeing is done, because when I came in January 2013 I visited all the museums and temples and palaces.
Light rain at American parks means fewer people, but the rides still run. Light off-and-on rain in Korea shuts everything down.
Lotte World on Monday had manageable crowds. The rain was consistent but light. Everything outdoors was closed. I missed one of the coasters and three rides because of that. And two of the indoor attractions I wanted to ride were closed for maintenance. I stayed only half a day - despite the lack of available attractions the crowds got fairly heavy and I had ridden everything I could. So I did a little shopping at the Seoul Folk Flea Market. At least I picked up a couple cool things.
Tuesday, I went back toward the Busan area to visit two other parks. I had gone to Gyeongju World before, missing their best coaster because of the cold weather in January. The woman working the ticket booth said all the rides were closed because of the rain. It wasn't raining at the time. But whatever.
Saving my money and leaving the park, I got a bus toward Tongdo Fantasia but I missed my stop. That's okay because it started raining and I'm sure the park would have told me the same thing. So I wasted an entire day. At least I could go to the baseball game that evening. There were occasional light sprinkles in Masan but that was all.
My plans included another return to an amusement park in Daegu, called E-World. It rained in the morning pretty hard but I got there just after the rain stopped. The ticket lady had difficulty communicating with me and she seemed to indicate all the coasters were open now, but if it started to rain around noon (expecting another wave to move in?) they'd close. Well, turns out nothing was open. At all.
I walked around and took pictures of empty rides. The skyway ride to the observation tower started running so I spent about an hour at the tower area before heading back to the park. I realized she meant that the rides would start opening around noon. Okay, I can deal with that.
And true enough, several of the rides opened by 1pm. But only one of the four coasters ever opened, and while I rode the kid's coaster on my last visit that still leaves the two best coasters at the park closed and un-ridden. Again, the baseball game was fine.
So now it's Thursday morning. I had planned a return to Lotte World because I had known at least one of the rides was going to be closed on Monday. And I was really looking forward to today - sunny skies, but it's a weekday so crowds should still start light at the park so I can quickly ride all the attractions I missed on Monday.
Wrong.
Everybody and their best friend are at Lotte World right now. The automated ticket machines don't seem to be working (again - they didn't work on Moday either) and there were absolutely massive lines at the regular ticket booths. Don't Korean children have school? Are they skipping school? Is there a holiday? My only thoughts as I was walking toward the ticket gates were "F this".
I expect some setbacks on a trip. But this is downright depressing. There have been some good things: the food, getting to see all the baseball games so far, and a little bit of good shopping as I mentioned before.
Two trips to Korea. Both of them supposed to be filled with thrilling rides. I want my vacation back.
I'm heading south, back to Daejeon. Hopefully I can ride a couple coasters at at amusement park there before I catch another baseball game, this time in Gwangju.
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