Travel Log: The COEX Mall
I went to the COEX Mall yesterday with my wife to do some shopping and to check out the aquarium there. Like many things in Korea the experience at the COEX was hampered by the enormous crowds.
Just to get in the aquarium you have to wait in a long line. This was familar theme all day at the COEX. By the end of the day we felt like we were at Six Flags instead of a shopping mall with all the line waiting we had to endure.
At the aquarium you have to push your way through the crowds just to see any fish. People just seem to stand in place forever gawking at fish with no regards for people behind them wanting to see them too. So I had to use my basketball skills and box out for position. I have never seen so many people excited and jockeying for position to see guppies before.
I really wanted to see the sharks that were being advertised all over the COEX. During the tour I saw plastic sharks, balloon sharks, paper sharks, video sharks, and lego sharks. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see any real sharks. I didn’t see any real sharks until the very end of the tour and had to fight through the crowd to see them. The sharks were pretty cool especially the hammer head shark but I was so tired and claustrophobic by then I just wanted to get out of that aquarium.
The final area you experience at the aquarium is the tunnel that runs through the aquarium that makes you feel like you are walking through the ocean which was pretty cool. In the tunnel they had a moving sidewalk to stop the crowds from congregating in one area. They needed this sidewalk for the entire aquarium to stop the free for all shoving and bumping you need to do to see the other fish in the aquarium.
Overall, the aquarium has a good variety of fish, is interesting to see, and is English friendly. However, the admission fee is a little expensive at 14,800 won compared to other tour spots in Seoul. It is probably much more pleasant to visit the aquarium on a weekday instead of a weekend like I did. I have lived in Korea quite a while and I expect big crowds on the weekends but I am still not comfortable moving through them. But that is life in a city with the population density of Seoul.
Outside the aquarium there was a pretty cool store that sold a wide variety of puzzles. I noticed puzzles of city sky lines of New York, London, Paris, etc. I went and asked the lady at the store if she had any puzzles of the skyline of Seoul. She looked at me with a look of, “Why would anyone want to buy a puzzle of the sky line of Seoul?”, before replying that the store had no such puzzle. This I found surprising since they even had a puzzle picturing Tokyo. I then asked her what puzzles she had of Korea. Of all the puzzles in the entire store the only one they had related to Korea was one lone puzzle that featured a classical Korean painting that I decided to buy. Of all the beautiful sights in Korea you would think they would have puzzles picturing these places.
We did some more shopping and looking around the COEX. The place is just such a massive complex with a huge amount of stores. A definite place for foreigners to check out is the huge bookstore at the COEX. I have never seen a bookstore that big before, plus it features many books in English.
Walking through the labryinth of stores can really wear you out. So we decided to go watch National Treasure at the movie theater at the COEX, so we can sit down and relax. However, we had to do some more standing before we could sit down. The line to get tickets was extremely long and we were apprehensive about standing in another line, but we decided to anyway. Surprisingly the line moved fairly quickly considering how long it was. We were able to buy our tickets after standing in line for only 30 minutes.
The movie was actually pretty good, though it got a little corny after a while with all the secret artifacts and hidden passages the treasure hunters had to find using American history and documents as clues to find the final hidden treasure.
When the movie ended, a couple of college aged girls asked my wife if they could have our ticket stubs because their history teacher said he would give them extra credit in their US History class if they watched the movie, but they had misplaced their ticket stubs. We gave them our stubs but I just hope they don’t take the fictionalized US history in the movie as being real. However, if their history teacher told them to go see the movie, they probably will take it as gospel.
After the movie we tried to get something to eat at the many popular western style restaurants like Bennigans, Uno’s, Outback, etc. they have at the COEX. Coming from 2ID eating in one of these restaraunts is a real treat. However, the wait to get into every one of these restaurants was over an hour. With the midnight curfew we didn’t want to take the chance of not having enough time make it back up to 2ID land. If you are late for curfew for any reason you receive a field grade article 15 which is severe punishment. It doesn’t matter if your bus broke down or the taxi driver got lost, you still get in trouble. So you have to budget extra time for unforeseen things that can happen.
I wouldn’t want to be out past curfew and kidnapped by all the terrorists roaming the Korean streets looking for American soldiers between the hours of midnight to 5:00 AM. Couldn’t the terrorist just kidnap me before midnight? Well, people smarter than me make these decisions, so we decided to get some Burger King instead and head back up to 2ID land before the terrorists come out. Obviously I avoided any terrorist ambushes and safely made it back to 2ID land with an hour and a half to spare. I guess the Army is right about the terrorists not coming out before midnight after all.
