Well, it's been quite fun here really. On Saturday we were taken on a bus with a load of our young kids to a Korean theme park called Everland, given a free ticket, and told to go off and have fun. I didn't have to look after kids at all! Oh, and I got to meet Harry Potter and his mate Hermione (they were rather stiff we me though).The theme park itself isn't too shabby. We went on a few big roller coasters and enjoyed being unconventional at one of the water rides. You know the ones, those big circular things 8 of you sit in as they shoot down an artificial "jungle" river. Most parks just let you get wet, that is the idea after all, but here they had covers to put over you so that up to your neck was protected. We rebelled though and pulled ours down. Halfway round I found out that the covers are just for show - the water can come up through the bottom of them. I spent the next few hours wandering around with a jolly soggy right leg, but it was such a nice day I didn't really mind.
We had a surreal time in Europeland (which was mainly Holland). The flowers were nice, but the tulips were all planted in the shad
ow of a sort of parthenon wannabe which screwed with my mind geographically. The place did look good though, despite the weirdness, and it also had a food area which was a major plus. I got to kick back at some ourdoor dining and enjoy an afternoon wheat beer (my favourite!) As we sat a train that ran around the flower area went by every few minutes and once or twice a group of our kids was on board. Most kids managed not to notice us, but the teachers did and we gave them waves of our beer glasses. Rather mean I suppose.
As we wandered around Holland we were accosted by our top director lady and whisked off for a photo session with some appropriately cute looking children in front of some tulips. There were group photos, pair photos, individual photos. I tell you, this microcosm fame is rather tough sometimes, I can see what Brad and Angelina complain about. What with the constant shouting of my name, the photo shoots, and always being asked to give people my signature (well, spell my name on the board) it is a form of celebrity. Haha.
The rest of the park was fun. They've got quite a good zoo area, with a new monkey bit. I particularly enjoyed the "Orangutan Sky Walk", where I got to see a fine old boy make his way halfway across before stopping for a widdle and a sit down. It's tough getting to work when you're a monkey, we descendents just haven't a clue. As the photo shows there was a goodish amount of blossom around and it really gave the whole place an oriental feeling. Jolly nice in other words. John got to armwrestle one of the orange guys, and he seemed to be winning for a bit there, but in the end I think the monkey had him.
Other exciting animals were some polar bears (though their place look too small for such magnificent and scarily big things) white and regular tigers (ditto small enclosures) and the usual birds and reptiles. I did enjoy seeing some babies in an over cutesy "baby animals" area. And cutesy it was - we saw some lions and tiger cubs having a nap in a cradle, I mean really! It was interesting to see baby parrots, which they had in three sections to show the difference in growth during their first month out of the shell. The smallest looked gross, in fact no age had a fluffy factor going on, but it was visually impressive. My favourite was the penguins, who I've always had a bit of a soft spot for. I spent more minutes than I'll happily admit to amusing myself by doing an imaginary dialogue between two who were standing on a jump-off kinda platform thingamajig.
[For the purposes of this performance the penguin at the back will be played by Gerald and the penguin at the front we be played by Norman.]
Gerald: "Look mate, are you going or what?"
Norman: "Just gimme a minute, this is a delicate operation!"
Gerald: "Delicate my arse, just jump already!"
Norman: "Alright, alright, no need to get you flippers in a twist."
... and so on....
A good time was had, and the weather has turned really nice now, so you people in England can no longer makes me jealous with stories of barbecues and such. Let's hope it stays nice for many a weeek.
P.S. Harry and Hermione were made of Lego - in case you were wondering.
