Woobang Tower Land and Duryu Park

This past Sunday, Halloween in fact, Joe and I decided to head to one of the big parks in Daegu--Duryu Park. Duryu Park is adjacent to something called Woobang (pronounced oo-bahng) Tower Land. WTL is an amusement park of sorts that was built next to Woobang Tower, a 312 meter tower that houses a few restaurants, a bar, and a platform for bungee jumping, among other things. We were heading for Duryu Park, but got sucked in by the tractor beam of Woobang Tower Land, and before we knew it we had purchased tickets and entered this magical land.

In a word, Woobang Tower Land is weird. There are carnival rides, roller coasters, a cable car, a plethora of bizarre shops and snack shacks, a KFC, some kind of Cowboy restaurant, a sledding hill, a strange "nature learning park" which was basically a ramshackle zoo, and lots and lots of flowers. WTL seems to have some kind of animal mascot--a dog, I believe--and he appears at random places throughout the park on signage and such, but he doesn't exactly have a purpose. And we didn't see anyone dressed up as said mascot, so we kind of felt like his existence was a bit of an afterthought.

Since I hate most roller coasters and carnival rides (flashbacks of me puking in a patch of flowers at Great America in LA flood my mind), and Joe feared for his life after looking at one of the roller coasters (more on that in a bit), we decided just to walk around, eat some gross food, and mercilessly mock our surroundings.

Oh, the things you can see and do at Woobang Tower Land. For example, I dressed up like Harry Potter. Why, you ask? No apparent reason, except there was a table with Hogwart scarves and hats, and a wire hanger rack with Hogwart cloaks. People were dressing up and taking pictures in front of a large pumpkin. So, we did too. There was a marching band bedecked in pink and blue polyester costumes playing Beyonce tunes. We watched them for a while do their stuff. Then we headed off and found the "nature learning park". Oh wow. This place should have had a sign that read, "Home for the Saddest Animals of the Universe." There were goats, sheep, a "minipig", chickens, dogs (yup, dogs), rabbits, a turkey, and a goral (we had to look that one up), amongst other things. All the animals looked miserable. It's not that they weren't healthy, it's just that their cages were sadly undecorated and not very large; clearly the idea of reproducing a hospitable and familiar habitat for them was not top on the list. Also, they weren't protected enough from prying and poking child fingers. The goats were trying to escape, the dogs were piled on top of each other, the minipig was screaming, the bunnies were busy staring at porcelain replicas of themselves (that, and cherubs), and the gorals couldn't give a rat's ass. And everything stunk like chicken crap. Ah, lovely. We moved on quickly.

A word about the state of the rides. Look, I'm aware that just because something looks rusty, rundown, and is flaking colorful paint does not mean it's not safe; however, if I'm going to get on a roller coaster or a ride that flings me upside down, I'd like it not to look like some good old midwestern road salt got ahold of the important parts of the structure. As I said, Joe loves roller coasters, but he was not into these roller coasters. These were something straight out of a carnival garage sale the Soviets must have had in 1991. Anyone want to ride the Hammer and Sickle, step right up! One of the rides, Top Spin, creaked painfully every time it spun its passengers around. We had visions of total destruction before us as we ate our strange twirly potatos on a stick.

We left Woobang Tower Land after about an hour and headed to Duryu Park. Duryu Park is massive--it has a cultural center, an art museum, golf range, fields and courts of every kind, a band shell, a pond, grassy hills for picnicking, and so on. It is also nestled up against the hills, which is beautiful, especially now with all the leaves changing. Open spaces here are really interesting. There are no rules regarding alcohol consumption in parks, and because most people don't have green space of their own, they congregate at parks such as this one for their evening picnics, board games, and benders. Seriously, half the people we saw were trashed. And by "the people", I mean groups of old men and women. They love to sit around, eat, and put away a fair amount of soju. I love it--there is less a feeling of seediness about it, and more a feeling of companionship, of fun, of rollicking good times. Of course you still see the odd drunk-out-of-his-gourd dude stumbling through the park, or some man and woman screaming at each other, but for the most part these scenes were rare. There was a real feeling of community at this park, and strolling through it all was a great way to end our day's adventures.