The Gaylord of Korea

Can you believe I've alreay had my first visit from the states? My friend Keith (Beth's hubby) was in Seoul on business so I went up to spend some time with him between meetings. It was rather humerous to have a visitor and still know absolutely nothing of the language or the cities, but we had a good time. He was staying in Lotte World hotel, which ended up to be a bit of a challenge to find since there are actually several Lotte hotels in Seoul.

For the non-Nashvegans out there, Gaylord is the brand name that adorns all the major architecture in Nashville. We don't know who he is, but he sure owns everything. In Korea that would be Lotte. Lotte has multiple hotels, department stores, a Korean knock-off of Disney land, and even his own brand of cider. Who knows what else Lotte has that I haven't run into yet. Lotte World was my favorite though.

They had the equivilent of Cinderella's castle, the log ride, the pirate ship, and any number of other generic theme park attractions. We didn't go in. There's no need when you can see most of the park from the hotel and even experience the exasperatingly long lines vicariously from the hotel lobby. We did check on ticket prices which landed us in this weird Korean disney vortex where women dressed in pink stripes and white gloves (sans mouse ears) were standing in funny glass tubes and gesturing about something. They were probably also making announcements in Korean, but we couldn't hear them because the Korean version of "It's a small world" complete with helium voices and synthesized music was blaring over the PA system. We retreated rapidly. I can only imagine that the tube ladies were actually begging to be rescued or put out of their misery.