Waterpia!

Written by Kyle about Korea, Republic of. Feelin' excited

Over Chuseok (a kind-of "Korean Thanksgiving"), we decided to see the beautiful national park of Seoraksan. Seeing as it is one of the most famous parks in Korea, there are plenty of options for hotels. All have pretty much the same set of amenities that you are looking for, but one place, the Hanhwa Resort, has a water park. Waterpia is that water park.

Waterpia is like most water parks, with some notable Korean exceptions:

1. You have to wear something covering your head, for sanitary reasons, I believe. We rented swim caps but saw many people with baseball caps that seemed to suffice. Curiously, we saw many babies in the pool sans diapers, which is apparently not unsanitary.

2. You are required to wear a life jacket is the water is 5 ft deep or more. In other words, a life jacket is needed even if your feet are touching the bottom of the pool. This means that the life guards are there to A) tell you to put a life jacket on and B) tell you to put a swim cap on.

3. There is less of an emphasis on fun and more of an emphasis on relaxation. There were more pools with jets and hot water than there were slides and water guns. This makes sense as it is a nice way to end a hike at the nearby park.

As usual, here are some pictures: