Everland

There is a moment that lasts about two seconds, at the very highest point of a track made of wood.

The train has just finished its climb. It hesitates at the top. From up there, the view opens onto the green hills of Gyeonggi Province. Then the nose of the train tips forward, and the slope ahead drops at 77 degrees, which is very close to straight down.

Those two seconds are the only quiet part of the ride. After that, the whole train screams, all the way down.

The machine that makes those two seconds is called T Express. It opened in 2008, and it was the first wooden roller coaster in Korea. Wood, not steel. To this day it is still the longest roller coaster in the country, and one of the fastest.

The place where it stands is called Everland.

Now go back 50 years, to the very beginning.

On April 18, 1976, this place opened its gates. But back then it was not yet the giant amusement park it is now, and it was not called Everland. Its name was Yongin Farmland.

It was a park in the shape of a farm. It had an orchard of fruit trees, about 200 kinds of animals, safari trips to see lions and tigers, and only nine rides.

Out of that farm, through many changes over the years, grew the largest theme park in South Korea. In 2018 it welcomed 5.85 million visits. That year it ranked 19th in the world for amusement park attendance. So among the busiest parks on the planet is one that began life named after a farm.

A figure like 5.85 million visits sounds abstract, so it helps to break it down. Spread evenly over 365 days, it comes to about 16,000 people walking through the gates every single day. In other words, each day the park takes in as many people as live in a small town, and the next day it takes in another town.

Everland is divided into five areas, and their names say fairly clearly what each one is.

Global Fair is the gateway area, where people eat, buy souvenirs and take photos as they arrive or leave.

American Adventure is themed on America.

European Adventure is themed on Europe, and T Express stands here.

Magic Land has a corner set aside just for small children.

Zootopia is the zoo, where the animals live.

For a family going together, Zootopia is often the most memorable place of all, more than the thrill rides. It has giant pandas, sea lions, penguins, bears, lions, tigers and many kinds of primates.

And in that zoo, in 2020, something happened that moved the whole of Korea for years afterward. A mother panda named Aibao gave birth to a daughter, and the cub was named Fubao. She was the first panda ever born on Korean soil. That young bear has a long story of her own, one that deserves a separate telling.

Everland also has a safari area. Visitors ride on a bus, the bus drives into the middle of the enclosure, and the animals move about freely outside the glass. At one time the animals included ligers. A liger is a cross between a lion and a tiger. The people are inside the bus, the animals are outside it, and in that exact moment it is hard to say who is watching whom.

This arrangement turns a very old habit upside down. At an old-style zoo, the animal is shut behind iron bars while people stroll freely outside. On the safari it is the other way around. The animals have a whole stretch of land to roam, and the people are kept inside a box on wheels whose doors stay shut. Children usually notice this very quickly. The questions they ask after the bus ride are often far better than the ones they asked before getting on.

On T Express, the track is made of wood, so the ride is not as smooth as on a steel coaster. It shakes, and it creaks. That creaking rises from the thousands of wooden beams carrying the load beneath the wheels.

The whole train climbs the slope slowly, and the lift chain clacks along in a steady rhythm, one beat, two beats, three beats. Then the chain goes quiet.

That is when the two seconds of silence begin.