The Zoo

I took my family to the Seoul grand park zoo on friday. To go pretty much anywhere we have to take at least one bus and the subway. It took about an hour and a half to get there.

When we got to the station, we really did not know which way to go to get to the zoo. Luckily there were about a million kids getting off the subway, so we just followed them.

On our way out of the station I took the escalator, and my wife took the stairs. She started running up the stairs (because she wanted to beat me to the top). I started running up the escalator (so I could beat her to the top). I ate shit on the escalator. She won.

As I was running, my toe caught on one of the treads and I fell face first. My knee, hand, and shin all slammed down onto the jagged edges of the escalator. When I got off, after telling my children to never run on an escalator, I surveyed the damage. My hand was bruised, my shin bloody and bruised, and my knee was bruised and beginning to swell up. I had a huge fucking knot on it by the end of the day.

Before we got to the entrance, like on any street, in any town in Korea there were people selling food, stuffed animals, socks, stockings, and little trinkets. There were only about 6 vendors, 3 of them in a row selling the same overcooked corn, flavorless rice logs, disgusting smelling silk worms, and tiny snails. Several of the little kids who had witnessed my face-plant on the escalator ran up excitedly to order cups of worms and snails.

You got to hand it to Korean vendors, they know their market.

Another weird thing about the zoo was they had a "Family mart" every 50 feet or so. Heaven forbid that a Korean might have to have to go more than 30 minutes without a snack, or drink. For a nation of skinny fuckers they sure have to have a lot of food. It seemed like there were more restaurants and family marts than animal exhibits.

Entrance to the zoo, a ride on the freezing cold tram, and a ride on the "elephant train" cost 24,000 won for all four of us, it costs more if you want to see the dolphin show, but my wife and kids snuck in while I bought a single ticket for 2,000 won. We walked around the zoo until it closed, and we still did not see everything.

Other than eating shit on the escalator, and freezing my balls off, it was a pretty good day.