TacoCat’s Travels #251 (Seoul): Finding Magic in Blood City? 💀🌟

July 2024 · 10 min read · Yongin-si

Hey Hive!

Sorry for the short hiatus but we went on a short trip last week just across the border to Malaysia! It was a nice getaway for us to enjoy a little break but now we're back to usual posting schedule! But here's a sneak peek of what we did:

Anyway, 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 time, we finished exploring irl Zootopia in Everland, the biggest theme park in Seoul! Not only did they have a giant panda enclosure for their special gifts from China, they also had a full fledged zoo with animals from all over the world!

We got to learn about and see so many exotic animals but I felt bad for some of them since they looked like they were hiding from the cold under heat lamps. I hope they're treated well in there.

14 Nov 2022. Monday.

By the time we finished exploring the Zoo, it was mid-morning and we were hoping some of the rides would be open by now.

We saw this street of cottages selling food and sweets that were opening for the day.

Curiously enough, right beside that was a zombie apocalypse ride.

Literally, right next to this collection of peaceful fairytale-like buildings was the entrance to Blood City, which I guess is inspired by zombie apocalypses.

I think we found our way into Blood City a different way since we didn't go in through the proper entrance. It doesn't seem that secure from zombies if that was the case.

We were still eating our chicken skewer at the time so we took our time exploring the area and taking photos.

The Korean words remind me of Train to Busan especially since this is supposed to look like a train station. At the time, we hadn't watched the movie yet since I always thought it would be too scary.

This area did have some funny designs though like this laundromat called Clean of the Dead? I guess it was supposed to be like Dawn of the Dead or something.

There was also a train car that I think you could sit in to take pictures but it didn't look that special just run-down so we didn't bother.

It seemed like there was a roller coaster that was open in this zombie area that everyone was heading towards so we wanted to check it out.

This train car in front had a very colourful inside full of graffiti that looked kinda cool but a little overdone too.

This definitely looked a little too over the top with so many random signs and graffiti but I guess it's to set the atmosphere or something.

We made our way in while heeding all the "warnings" on the walls.

The first attraction we came across here was a Horror Maze.

It came with some advisory warnings and rules that guests had to take note.

However we found out that this attraction is paid separately from our Everland ticket for some reason. It was an extra 10,000 KRW per person for this Maze and since neither of us like Horror or Mazes we passed on this one.

I think it wasn't open yet at the time and there was already a line outside.

We went to check out the gift shop instead and it was surprisingly tame for being inside Blood City.

There were some goofy photo spots though like this one:

And there were a few others as well, all involving rails and trains for some reason.

They had some animal hats here too based on the animals from Zootopia that were really cute.

There were also some pumpkin and Christmas tree plushies since it was November at the time.

We recreated an old photo we took back when we visited our first amusement park together.

I think all the rides were still closed at the time and we were still hungry so we went to get another snack at the food court. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a picture of the food court but I have a feeling it was this one since there were lots of shops and seats.

I wanted something warm since the skewer wasn't very satisfying and it was still quite cold out so Sean went to get a bowl of warm udon for us to share.

It was really warm indeed and definitely hit the spot. Most other people were eating pizzas, burgers and hot dogs but we felt healthy eating some nice warm udon.

It definitely hit the spot though! It warmed my belly and we had a chance to sit down and rest our feet for a while. But it seemed like there was nothing much left for us in Blood City unsurprisingly, so we left.

We weren't really sure where we were headed next and just walked freely. There was a huge empty space here with steps for people to sit and more fast food shops at the back. I'm guessing there are sometimes performances held here.

We also came across a ski lift ride that would take you across the park to another area! It was only then we realised how big the park actually was, that they had ski lifts to transport people across.

We didn't want to take the ski lift until we had finished exploring this area so we went up stairs here.

This took us into a different area which I think is called Magic Land.

It definitely looked a little Disney-ish and there were a lot of kids here and parents with strollers.

There was a cute archway here which would be perfect for a princess mascot to stand for photos.

From here we could see across the park to the previous area we were in, European Adventure with the line of houses made to look like Amsterdam.

We walked up to the huge Christmas tree that was apparently Lenny's Tree House to take some photos.

Magic Land has some nice Rose Gardens that I bet would look a lot lovelier in Spring.

Unfortunately there weren't any flowers when we were there since it was close to Winter.

I thought they would put some fake flowers or something but I guess they wanted it to be an authentic Rose Garden so there were no flowers in sight.

It didn't stop us from walking around and enjoying the nature though.

There was also a Victorian Garden that looked really fancy.

I think it was supposed to hold roses from different countries and it would've been so cool to see!

Turns out they did have some fake roses here on this open gazebo. It looked a little rundown though but it was still nice.

Even this largely empty Rose Garden was so huge, we thought there might be performances held here too although it was a little out of the way.

But there was such a grand-looking stage here too, it seemed like such a waste. Granted, it wasn't a very big stage so we surmised that maybe it was used in the past or in Spring time.

There was another side of the garden with more colourful leaves that looked pretty good so we went to grab some photos there.

Turns out there was going to be a parade happening and I think we chose the perfect spot to view it! I guess maybe they ended the parade at the stage we were just at before.

There were quite a few dancers in different brightly coloured costumes dancing ahead of their respective floats with mascots dancing on them too!

There were quite a few floats each with their own theme and mechanic. They looked so detailed and well constructed too.

Here's a short video of the parade:

After the parade was over, we were clear to walk the pathway again and found this area that was closed off. I guess they were renovating it or something but it seemed like they had a huge screen they could show movies on which looked cool.

Magic Land seemed to have the most attractions according to the map so we looked around to see which ones we would most like to ride.

There were quite a lot of people around everywhere so we expected some queuing too.

There was this ride called Magic Swing where people were looking really bored since it was just a gentle arc with the car swinging from the side to side slowly.

It seemed like many of the attractions were geared towards children though, like this Magic Cookie House which was basically just a playground.

We went upstairs to see what else there was but decided to come back down after seeing that was another way we could come from where we were earlier.

But there was this frame that looked like Nat Geographic that looked cool.

We came across this place called Gamepia which looked like an arcade.

There were a few machines there but mostly kid or carnival games.

It was also quite cramped too so after a quick lookaround we promptly left.

There was quite a line for this ride called Super Flume Thunder Falls.

I guess it was a water ride since the mascots were wearing life jackets. We were kinda iffy on taking this one since we'd be quite cold after that.

We decided to go check out the Music Garden instead.

It was a nice walk on a colourful path with what I imagine was supposed to be flowers and lush green plants.

They did have some corals and crystals around with brightly coloured furniture so it wasn't all bad though.

I'm not sure what the theme was but it seemed like they were blending in an ocean theme with the garden.

It was quite pretty nonetheless though.

We walked towards the Magic Land shops where they were designed to look like fairytale buildings that reminded me of Shrek.

This shop looked bigger than all the others we've seen so far but they had most of the same merchandise.

There were some unique ones though like this big caterpillar plushie that reminded us of a funny video with a corgi swinging it back and forth in its mouth.

There were some cute merchandise that I actually thought of buying though, like this Christmas chick plushie:

And these pins that came in a blind box. Sean really wanted that panda one and I thought it would've been perfect for him.

But we didn't buy anything and went outside to take a nice photo with these colourful overhanding umbrellas that reminded us of another theme park we went to in Japan that had a similar display.