To prevent from being injured, please take off your earrings while running

More on this in a minute

As countless other Korean bloggers have mentioned, yesterday (June 2) was election day here in the ROK. The campaign season here is marked by trucks blaring campaign songs, campaign dancers, banners everywhere, and a blissfully short two-week period. As opposed to America, where campaign season lasts for infinity (and somehow, in spite of myself, I still love it). You can read other peoples' takes on the campaigns themselves on other blogs, but my sense is that it ultimately is not that much different from anywhere else. If you're curious, the elections were for provincial and local offices, and the opposition Democratic Party far outpaced expectations, likely indicating some dissatisfaction with the ruling Grand National Party. The DP won unexpected governorships in several provinces where polls had them trailing by double digit margins, and came unexpectedly close to winning the Seoul mayor's office, despite being some 15 points behind in polls. If you want to read a more thorough write up of the results, you can check out what the Korea Times has to say.

As someone with a degree in international politics, these elections were of keen interest to me. So I did what most people with my background would do on election day: I went to an amusement park. Not just any dinky ol' amusement park, though. No, sir! Nothing but the (second) best for this afficionado. Rather impromptu (aka the night before), my friend Chris and I decided we'd head to Lotte World, a (mostly) indoor theme park in Seoul.

Lotte World is not just an indoor theme park. It is, in fact, the LARGEST indoor theme park in the world, boasting several roller coasters, a flume ride, a rapid river ride, games, a kid's area, and an ice rink (and that's just the inside!). It is also connected to a 11-story department store because that is just what you do with indoor amusement parks.

All kidding aside, though, Lotte World was pretty awesome. Let's go to the photos:

Raccoon-chipmunk hybrid?

My first taste of Lotte World. Big, blaring, and filled with some kind of raccoon-chipmunk hybrid. The house you see in the background is the location of the Desperadoes "ride" where you sit on mechanical horses and shoot bad guys on the screen. Not an auspicious beginning. We continued our way through the park:

Monkeys playing bongos? What is this, the 1970s?

An interesting thing one quickly notices walking through the park are the eerie similarities with a certain American amusement park system represented by a mouse mascot.

The performance stage inside

...Disney. I'm talking about Disney, folks.

Welcome to Disney Lotte World

We resemble, but are legally distinct from...

In true Korean form, on of the more popular roller coaster rides, the French Revolution, comes with a convenient mirror to make sure your hair looks good right before you get on the roller coaster. Where you will inevitably mess it up.

No seriously, does my hair look okay?

For all the weirdness surrounding the amusement park, though, I have to say it was pretty awesome. The rides were good, especially the roller coasters Atlantis and French Connection. There was a good tower drop, where my experience went a little something like "Oh look at the nice view! Hey the line for the Gyro Spin doesn't look too- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH CRAP WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!!!!"

My terrified face just after a trip on the French Revolution

There was also lots of fantastic Konglish. My favorite was the warning for the French Revolution regarding earrings that titles this post. Just in case you were thinking about running with earrings on whilst on this ride. It's really good advice, people!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

In all, it was a nice escape. I had a great time, and really appreciated what will be my last day off until summer vacation. And now I'm going to leave you with a picture of adorable Korean babies driving mechanized animal rides, often straight into other adorable Korean babies or their parents.