TacoCat’s Travels #250 (Seoul): Exploring Zootopia in Everland! 🐅

June 2024 · 10 min read · Yongin-si

Hey Hive!

If you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!

Last week, we started our adventure through Seoul's biggest theme park - Everland! It has 5 different themed areas spanning across 99 hectares and includes a Zoo as well where we explored for a bit last time and saw some pandas!

Korea received 2 giant pandas from China and they have since given birth to a baby panda! The zoo also includes an educational zone with information on panda living.

They also had red pandas there which I thought was really cute and unfortunately overshadowed by the giant pandas.

14 Nov 2022. Monday.

After we left panda world, we thought that was it for the Zoo section but turns out there was still a lot more to Zootopia here! I really liked this leaf sculpture that they made on the floor to resemble a giraffe!

We saw lots of nice fall foliage here as we walked down from Panda World to Zootopia!

There was a Bird Paradise area that was unfortunately closed at the time due to the cold weather. I guess they're mostly tropical birds that can't take the cold since most birds are migratory and fly south when winter comes.

There was a Tiger Valley with a fake research camp and some tiger standees. I'm not really sure what this building was for, but it looked closed.

We just went down the path to the actual Tiger Valley where there was a crowd around the enclosure.

I don't remember the last time I went to a Zoo but it must've been at least a decade. The tiger looked mighty impressive in real life.

It was walking around quite a lot with all these humans pressing their faces up to it. Thankfully people knew not to knock on the glass to disturb it but we were all in awe of the giant cat as it came up to the glass.

Something funny happened when it did though, I think it farted right in front of all of us as it walked by. It reminded me of that video with the gorilla where he slides up to the glass to fart in people's faces.😂

Turns out this is an Amur Tiger and they're endangered. In the wild, they could be found in Russia, China and initially North Korea where they have since been extinct. It's probably because of poachers sadly, but thankfully these zoos are keeping the tigers safe.

The next place we came across was Penguin Island! They looked so cute but they were all huddled together in the back. We wondered if they were cold or if they were waiting for snacks.

These are the African penguins and they usually live in warm coastal areas where the water is 10-20°C. That's probably why they were huddled together. Unfortunately this species is also endangered.

It was quite unfortunate that the bird enclosure was closed. It looked like they had an area for bird shows with the macaw parrots.

We headed to another section called the Lost Valley. We were surprised how big this Zootopia was!

This are looked like it was modeled after African safaris.

Here, the first animal we encountered was a porcupine!

Called Cape Porcupines, these animals ruffle up their quills which are connected to their strong muscles. I think this animal was probably the one they referenced in the movie Sing.

We felt so bad for these animals since most of the porcupines were huddled under this small shelter near the heat lamps for warmth. They were probably pretty cold too and not used to the cold weather. We were wondering why they couldn't keep them indoors with central heating so they would be more comfortable.

This area had a really cool design with the fake rock formations.

In the walkway, there were little windows with smaller enclosures here that seemed to be connected by tunnels. Strangely, the first one we encountered was full of vegetables! We joked and said what animal is this? 😆

But it turns out this was the enclosure for the Naked Mole Rat! That would explain the different tunnels. It says that they mostly live in underground caves though, so I was questioning why these small area were lighted up. I guess it's more environmentally friendly compared to lighting up the tunnels.

Most of them were huddled in this corner presumably sleeping. I'm not sure how they do in different temperatures though.

The next animal we saw were these lemurs that looked like monkeys! You might recognise them from the movie Madagascar, which I assume is where they are from.

Known as the Ring Tailed Lemur, they're highly social animals and live in larger groups of 3 to 25 individuals. Mostly found in South America, they are also unfortunately on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) Red List of Threatened Species.

There was a board called Lost Valley Animal Storytelling which I thought told a story about the hyraxes here, but turns out it's different attributes of the Hyrax.

Put into Google Translate, this is what it says. It's crazy that they are a distant relative to the elephant!

That explains the next enclosure we came across which was the Hyrax itself!

This is the Rock Hyrax and the soles of their feet are kept moist to provide extra grip on the rocks. They are on thankfully not endangered and is the IUCN's least concern, which probably explains why there are so many of them here!

They look really funny and cute and I'm not sure if they were also huddled together for warmth or because they like it.

There were a few others that weren't huddled together and just walking around so I'm not sure. But either way this was an interesting new animal to us!

There was a break with a gift shop with lots of stuffed versions of animals we saw and some other famous African species as well.

We thought that was the end, but when we went out the other side there was more!

It was pretty crazy how big the Zoo was in this theme park! We'd already spent quite some time here looking at the animals, we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to finish the whole park in a day.

The next animal we saw is the Fennec Fox which looks so cute too! They have big ears which allow them to release heat from their bodies and usually eat scorpions and mealworms. They are also IUCN's least concern thankfully, so there were quite a few of them we saw in the enclosure.

One of them was sleeping on a platform looking so peaceful and cute!

They seem to not mind the cold as much as the other animals which is good.

There was a special area in this zone where they didn't allow strollers, thankfully. There were so many kids and strollers around that took up a lot of space. I guess the walkways here were narrower.

The first thing we saw was a Capybara spa where we could feel the warmth since the water was kept at 37-40°C.

I've seen some videos of Capybaras and they just look so chill or stoned all the time. This one was no exception, it was just relaxing in its private onsen.

The next animal was an Alpaca! We were surprised that this area wasn't enclosed. I guess that's why they don't allow strollers here in case the alpacas wandered across their boundary.

This one looked really chill though, just concerned with eating its hay.

There was another one eating hay but it had quite a different hairstyle and look to it!

I guess that's how they normally eat in the wild but it felt like they were stooping down to eat which feels like bad posture to me. It did look up at one point but we were wondering if they ever walked across the border before since there's no glass. They must be well trained.

These were some of the animals in this zone including the Capybara, Red-necked Wallaby and the South American Coati.

There was another animal here which I guess was the Red-necked Wallaby. It looked like a small kangaroo. I think there was just one in the enclosure here and it was quite a ways from the path we could walk on too. It looked quite lonely but maybe it was afraid of humans.

This was the South American Coati. The enclosure was pretty big so I tried to get a picture as best I could.

There were some smaller glassed enclosures with small monkeys like the Golden-headed Lion Tamarin! Its golden head resembles a lion with a bright mane and black body and are apparently active 12 hours daily!

There was also the Common Marmoset which has long white hair and gnaw at tree bark to release sap.

These guys were particularly active, and it was tough to capture with them moving around so much and the reflection on the glass but I tried my best.

The Cotton-top Tamarin has white hair that extends from the top of the head and is unfortunately critically endangered! I'm not sure who or why they're being hunted but hopefully they're well taken care of here.

They look really cute with their white afros.

For some reason there were also guinea pigs here. It's strange since this is definitely more of a pet store animal and none of the other animals you could keep as pets. But I guess they had a surplus from somewhere.

That's it for this zone! They had some overhead bridges for the animals to run climb across which is really cool but it was probably too cold for them then.

We went back out in search of the next area to go to, but also for a snack since we were getting hungry.

Next to the Safari World gift shop there was a snack stall as well with some nice smells which got our tummies gurgling.

They sold some classic theme park snacks like churros and hotdogs but also some unique Korean skewers.

We decided to try a Soy Sauce Green Onion and Chicken skewer since I wanted something savoury.

It was pretty good actually. Quite pricey for a skewer but it's theme park food so we can't complain too much. It did whet my appetite more than satisfy it though, but it was yummy and the chicken was tender.