Stop & Chat: April 12-16 - Lotte world

Wednesday was the last day of bowling for the bowling league. There was a lot of... I wouldn't say drama, but we had some difficulties with the same person I've mentioned before, N. In the end she was forbidden to come bowl on her team and I subbed for her. I did well! I got my highest score for a game ever - 135! The other two were okay, as well.



Thursday I helped a friend pack her things. It was an all day event and I was pretty tired by the time I got home, so I didn't do much else besides eat.

Friday was the get together/prize handout for the bowling league. I came for the socialization and food. Some of us bowled several games. I got to meet one of the women that got to Korea around the same time I did. It was really fun. I find, though, that the more I hang out with these guys, the more there seem to be issues between certain people. Snide comments made towards this person while they're not there, blatant and slightly disrespectful gossip about that person while their back is turned. It's kind of refreshing in the sense that these aren't all perfect people, but if it gets much more intense I'm going to have to back up from the whole situation. I don't want to get dragged into the middle of anything. Plus it makes me wonder what these people say about me when I'm not around. Doesn't really foster much friendship.

Yesterday started off pretty easygoing. I spent the first half of my day playing World of Warcraft with my Dad. We're leveling on a new server that is PvP based and has a high population so a lot of yesterday was us getting my little brother to come on his level 100 and protect us. He's really big on PvP so he quite easily obliged. After they both got off for the night I hopped onto Teamspeak with my online friends and played some Rust with them. They got bored pretty quickly and I switched over to YouTube and eating an elegant meal of ramen LOL.

It was while eating that C, one of the women from the bowling league, messaged me and a few other people asking if any of us wanted to hang out. I was the only one who didn't have anything planned and wanted to hang out so her and I went to Lotte World! C has been here before, several times, and she absolutely loves the night parade that they hold. She was ecstatic to be here for my first time.

WARNING: Pictures are all taken in poor lighting - so it's not going to look very good!
Okay, on to the pictures!

Lotte World has an indoor and an outdoor component to it. We mainly paid attention to the indoor component because it was pouring outside.
Inside there is a giant ice skating rink and there are several floors of stores and attractions that circle that rink. The 3rd floor hosts the entrances to most of the roller coasters and other attractions.

It gets really bright in here during the daytime. Next time I come, I'm bringing M and we're going to take lots of sunlit pictures!

While we were here I got to experience my first haunted house. This one was rather short and the scariest parts were the jump scares. C screamed for each of the jump scares. I didn't. I think it's because I'm horrible and have a diminished response to situations that scare me. I don't even scream when I get startled; Instead I inhale really sharply and make a sort of whining sound as I inhale. It annoys the ever living crap out of M, but he likes to make fun of me when I make that sound while on the computer because he knows I just got jumped by a saber or rex on Ark.

'Air balloons.' These circle 3/4 of the building.

A look of the entrance/exit to the haunted house.

 

This was in a covered area that led to the outdoor portion of the park. 

The picture I took from our safe covered section of the park. I had my umbrella and C brought a poncho, so we walked to the end of the sidewalk where there was a nice view to take an even better picture.

Ta-da!

I'm not sure what this was, but we could see it where we were standing to take the picture of the Lotte castle.

Just a view of some of the decoration.

Back inside walking around, waiting for the parade to start.

That shop is actually the tea shop C and I shared a bubble tea from. It was okay. To me it tasted like Grape Nuts cereal.

Just a car casually hanging out on the archway that supports the indoor castle. No biggie.

It was at this point that the parade started.

The castle began growing!

Balloons! There were itty bitty fans on the sides of each balloon so their direction and altitude could be controlled.

Oh, and the balloons changed color.

They were supposed to make an arch. There were two or three balloons that were being difficult and went off to do their own thing. :)

Now the main part of the parade!

This cart the constellation ball is on produced fog. It made for a gorgeous effect.

You can just barely see it, but this had a 4D Tinkerbell. 

Really blurry, but this showed the name of this parade: Dreams of Adventure. This is the main parade Lotte World does. Around special holidays or certain seasons they change up their parade to match whatever theme they need to go with.

Such pretty colors! 

Is this one knight, or five? :) 

A prince and dragon fight!

I should mention that a lot of the people that came through would make an effort to  interact with the kids along the side of the walkway. It was really cute.

C and I talked about this being a fantastic Prom dress. Walking disco ball? Sign me up!

At this point the parade was finished with some fireworks over the castle in the middle of the building, which I did not capture (how can you take a picture of fireworks anyway?). Then C and I went to explore the mirror maze! We had to wear disposable plastic gloves so we could touch the mirrors without ruining the experience for anyone who was behind us.

It got really confusing at times. I'd swear I saw someone only to realize I was avoiding eye contact with my own reflection. 
It's definitely an experience I would recommend to others, though. We very much enjoyed it!

It was after this that we went to the tea shop that I mentioned earlier.

Some of the decoration in the shop.

More ice skaters.

Wall decoration in the tea shop.

This was a viewing point for one of the water rides.

After grabbing our tea, C and I did a little shopping

Lotty and Lorry are the name of the two mice that are the mascots for Lotte World. If you're thinking this sounds awfully familiar to Disney and Mickey/Minnie, you'd be on the money.

A cat themed product stand! I picked up several things for my Mom and her upcoming birthday. And yes, she already knows what I got her. I'm not very good at surprises.

Chocolate. Yummy.

 C and I liked the tophat headband. I should have picked one up.

After shopping C took me to some of the higher levels of the building so I could get a better view of the whole place.

We found a viewing point for one of the roller coasters. We will have to ride these roller coasters the next time we come.

Oh, look! Someone was on stage! You can also see the monorail track.

A fun looking ball pit. There were guns along the sides of the pit that you could load balls into and shoot people with. It was child/guardian only, though. Phooey.

I would have picked up some ice cream if it weren't so darn cute.

We went to the stage so we could listen to the song.

 

Have I mentioned how massive this building is? It's huge.

This was part of the folk art museum. Unfortunately all the information was presented in Korean so C and I didn't understand any of it. I'm sure it was very cool and informative, though! 

Teeny tiny arcade machines.

After this C and I headed home, where we sat in the garage and talked for another two hours before I finally went home and to bed. M was long asleep at that point, since he had work the next day. It was almost 1 when I fell asleep. I'm still tired today. My sleep schedule has been absolutely crazy. But totally worth it!

Since I've been out of the house so often, I haven't really had a chance to melt any new wax. It's why my posts have been lacking. I should be getting back into it though. I want to blog, I promise you, I just find myself with no energy to at the end of these long days. Thus you get the behemoth of a post that this was. 

Have you been to a haunted house before? How was it?