Ocean World

Here are many of the Korean teachers in not only their swimsuits but their swimming clothes.

In the previous post, I discussed Korean culture with water.  They don't know how to swim, and therefore have a different relationship to water than do westerners. After summer camp, our school often does something nice for its overworked teachers.  This year, they chose to send us to OceanWorld. Because Korea is an overpopulated country, it is a guarantee that on any given day, nearly any tourist destination will be packed to the brim with people.

As is typical in Korean culture, caps and life vests were required.  For those of us who know how to swim, the life vests were cumbersome and annoying in all but one attraction, the wave pool.  I've never used a life vest in a wave pool, and don't plan to once back in the states, however in Korea, I was glad I had it.  Because the water was so entirely packed with people that if I moved an arm or a leg, I arbitrarily kicked or hit another person. And when the waves came, if it hadn't been for the life vests, I might have been clobbered and drowned by a piling of others on top of me.   I sometimes felt like a tackled football player at the bottom of a pile up.  Despite the excess number of bodies, the wave pool was quite fun.

However, in the "rapid river" which was like a lazy river except with bursts of waves, we were required to not only have on a life vest but also a tube.  And not sitting lazinly on top of the tube but inside the doughnut hole.  It pushed the life vest uncomfortable up my neck making the experience less fun than other "river rides" I've been on.  The boys had fun playing bumper tubes, attacking each other mercilessly with their yellow tubes like sumo wrestlers in the water.

All in all, though, the day was thrilling.  Ocean World had better rides than I expected.  Non of them were AMAZING, but they were fun.  The day was then followed by a free buffet in at nice hotel with sushi, salad, and other goodies.  It was quite a memorable day.  Below is the footage from the day.

Here's the Ocean world video.