Gwangmyeong Cave & Rainbow Factory & Toilet Museum

In my opinion, one of the best places that just screams, "Oh, Korea" is the Gwangmyeong Cave. The kids and I went to the cave when we first got to Korea, but Kevin has never been and I wanted to give Talia a real good South Korea experience.  Big Sis and M&M were gone for the week at a girls camp, so we invited the two little Walker girls to join us for our day of fun.  

The Gwangmyeong Cave is filled with a bunch of random ideas all mashed in one.  Korea puts their own flair on it by adding lights to everything, which I love.  There was a flower garden with beautiful gigantic flowers all illuminated.  There was also a light tunnel which is very Korea.  The light tunnel has color changing lights, so the tunnel turned every which color.

The last time I came, the laser light show was not working, so it was a super amazing treat to walk into the laser tunnel and get a seat for the show.  We only had to wait about 5 minutes before the show started.  This was my favorite part of the cave.  They used music and lights to create a beautiful story on the wall. It was pretty fantastic.

The cave had some statues in the different nooks and crannies. Kevin was excited to see the dragon from the Lord of the Rings.  It was nice and cool in the cave, so that was a relief from the heat.  We took our time and enjoyed the crazy cave in Korea.

After walking out of the cave we kept seeing signs for a Rainbow Factory.  We didn't know what it was, but it looked cool.  We asked a group of teenagers that were walking by, and one of the girls was super excited to use her English to tell us about it and show us where it was located.  Since it was right next to the cave, we decided to check out the Rainbow Factory too.

The Rainbow factory was a fun exhibit with about 10 different stations that used light in different ways.  Some used shadow light, some used light to music, and some used projectors.  This was the perfect little place for Little A and the two little Walker girls.  All the girls ran around with rainbow lights all around them.

It wasn't just the little girls that enjoyed the lights and rainbows, Talia was dancing and prancing and running around also.  She is still a little girl at heart.  I might have been caught dancing and prancing too.

In the last room was a slide with balls at the end to slide into.  The slide had lights and shapes that changed.  The ball pit would change colors as the lights changed around it.  The girls squealed and laughed as they came down the slide.  

We left the Rainbow Factory and had a nice picnic on the beautiful grounds of the cave.  After we were done eating we explored the different statues and sculptures around the grounds.  The neat thing about the sculptures were that they were made out of recycled material.

We left the Cave and Rainbow Factory in search of our next "Oh, Korea" destination, The Toilet Museum.  I have heard about a house that is in the shape of a toilet that is a poop museum and have wanted to find it for a while.  We still had time in the day, and the museum was on our way home from the cave, so poop searching we went.

Our first stop was the public restroom in front of the museum.  This was the nicest and cleanest restroom I have ever been in.  The outside of the restroom had recycled toilets made into planters.  It was actually really pretty creative.

Around the grounds of the Toilet museum were many statues of people pooping.  It was weird and gross and funny.  The kids were giggling at all the statues.  

There were plaques around the statues with some facts and history about the evolution of toilets, which was actually interesting.  I think the grossest thing I learned was that pigs used to be fed human feces, that was nasty to learn.  They even had an exhibit showing pigs and poop in a chimney. I was glad the Toilet Museum was free, because it wouldn't have been worth making a trip just to go to the museum, and it would be a waste of money to have to pay an admission.  But a stop on the way home was worth the best restroom ever and a quick free exhibit.

Jeju Island: Manjanggul Cave Near-miss and Jeju Rail Bikes

Last night while planning our day, we originally planned to go to the Manjanggul Cave and scrap the Jeju Rail Bikes.  We were looking at all the reviews for the Rail Bikes, and they kept saying it wasn’t a good view and it was a waste of money.  The Rail Bikes are extremely expensive.  So, in the end we decided to scrap it, and told the kids this morning. 

We arrived at the Manjanggul caves and sat in the parking lot for a few minutes.  While sitting there we noticed one comment element- all visitors were putting on jackets, sweaters, coats and had pants on.  This immediately made us extremely nervous as we were all in shorts and a t-shirt.  I looked online and found that the temperature on the caves are about 10 degree Celsius.  We came to Jeju without any plans, so we weren’t prepared for a freezing cave.  We have also been in a few caves, and always leave feeling like it wasn’t ever amazing.  Caves are cool for the first 5 minutes, but then after that the cave just gets cold and wet and the same thing over and over again.  Asian caves are also always a  one way cave, you enter and have to go the entire route before you can exit, with little kids, it’s hard to go down a one-way street without an exit.

It took only a few minutes for Kevin and I to put the pieces together and decided to skip the cave and take a gamble on the rail bikes instead.  

We arrived at the Rail bikes at the perfect time because the bikes were ready to go and we wouldn’t have to wait.  We swallowed the exorbitant amount due to ride and had the three girls in the first bike and Kevin and I and Monster in the second bike.  

These Rail Bikes are different then any we have taken before, as they were fully automatic.  We didn’t have to peddle at all.  This works out perfect since we had kids on our bikes. The bikes were also more like little buggies then the rail bikes we have been on.  It was a bit of a windy day, so it was super chilly.  But we had a great time.

It seemed like the Rail Bikes were built on a farmers land, surrounded by cattle and horses.  The scenery was beautiful with rolling hills, ponds and wildflowers.  It took about 40 minutes to get all the way around the rail.  Our bike was extremely fast, we kept having to put the break on so we wouldn’t ram into the girls bike.  There was this rather large hill and our bike went so fast, that Monster, Kevin and I were yelling, whooping and hollering down the entire thing and our bike was booking it.  

We made it to the end and all the kids jumped off.  As we exited the rails, we noticed a small animal petting farm and the kids ran in. I love Korea randomness!  The kids enjoyed seeing bunnies, sheep, horses and more. 

We left the petting farm and found set up photo ops all around the rail park.  We took some time and took a bunch of pictures before we went on our way.  

I am so glad that we didn’t listen to the reviews and that we skipped the cave for the Rail Bikes. Eventhough it was expensive, it was worth it.  All the kids had a blast riding the bikes, seeing the animals and taking pictures. We got in the car and left with all smiles. 

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur's Batu Caves and Templar Park

Batu Caves:
After the Blue Mosque we ended up going to the Batu Caves. Previously my surgical assistant went here with his girlfriend, and when Heather and I saw the huge gigantic golden Hindu God we just had to go.

Batu Caves is tricky. It's really a limestone hill that has a series of caves and cave temples in Gombak, Selangor. Batu means "stone river," and is really a Tamil Shrine dedicated to Lord Murugan, which I guess is the 10th cave for this Lord guy (6 shines are in India, and 4 are in Malaysia). He's got some property I guess. It's supposed to be 400 million years old, and is super well known among the natives as the place they hold their Thaipusam Festival, which occurs in the Tamil month of Thai (late January/Early February).

There are 272 steps up to the top, representing your ascent up the veil of Lord Murugan. Lame, but the fun part is that there is also 272 monkeys that are willing to steal your food, jump on your bags, steal your drinks, and make your kids get prompt appointments with mental health therapists after being attacked multiple times by hissing stupid disease infested beasts that have been trained to be super aggressive in stealing whatever they can from kids. My philosophy on this tactic is simple: I believe they are a super force from Lord Murugan himself to employ a vermin army of idiot monkeys who exist to suck happiness out of your children all in a ploy to bring chaos into your family.

You had to have been here to really appreciate these moments, but bottom line, ask Little A about a monkey and watch the twitches. So I got some good batting practice in this morning as I vowed to teach them a lesson...

So what did we do next? We walked up the beautiful stairway to get attacked by monkeys again. We reached the top of the stairways with crying kids to be attacked again by monkeys. We enjoyed a random multi-colored temple surrounded by cheeky monkeys and promptly went down the stairs to only be attacked by monkeys again. Poor Little A was crying the entire walk down the stairs.

Sadly, Little A got the brunt of the pouncing vermin. The recipe was simple: she was burdened with carrying Monsters little floaty of power we were going to be using later at Templar Park, and due to the brilliant pink color, it became a magnet to cheeky monkeys. Her face says it all..."stupid monkeys."

We promptly left after the 5th attack and I shepherded my little flock out of harms way only to retreat away from Lord Murugan's jumping monkey army. Wicked Witch of the West, I have a perfect match for you...

Templar Park:
Needless to say I was a little jaded by this point, and surprise, on the schedule again was our last stop on this hot, blue shrouded, cheeky monkey attacking day, a waterfall. It required a little hike to get too, but we went to the a location in Templar park where there was some waterfalls to relax in. The bathrooms were gross as always, but the highlight was that we found some shade and trees to only once again be stalked by monkeys.

We bought some slingshots at the bottom of the hill prior to going up and sure enough you merely held them up and behold, it was their kryponite! I found my protection!

We let the kids play and Tyler and I held back under the shade. Monster was enjoying the water, but eventually got cold so I brought him out and warmed him up.

I gave the Monster a Ritz cracker, only to turn around to pack them back in the bag when I heard a blood curdling scream from him. I turned around only to find no cracker, a freaked out little Monster in the glory of a three year old breath hold, and a retreating stupid cheeky monkey making off with his uneaten ritz cracker that he stole right out of Monster's hand.  I don't even know what to say to this...but can you picture what this must have been like for Monster? Sudden steal of his precious Ritz from a furry vermin sneak attack that is his own size and out of left field? Poor dude. So I was done...

We packed up, we left and back to the safety of a monkey free cruise ship. Darn you Lord Muragan...
-Kevin

This is Heather, and I thought Templar Park was so fun.  All the kids loved playing and splashing in the waterfall.  They had a blast going directly under the waterfall.  Little Monster loved the water and he loved splashing, he especially loved splashing me.  He would laugh and then splash me again.  He thought it was so funny because I didn't have a swim suit on.

When we told the kids it was time to go, it took forever to get them out.  They were having so much fun and they really loved being in the cold water after walking around the Batu Caves.  I was so glad they loved the park and the waterfall.  Since we had the slingshot, we didn't get bugged by monkeys while in the water.  Anytime a kid would see a monkey close, they would yell a monkey warning and aim the slingshot, then the monkey would take off.  So the slingshot really was a great monkey defender.  We never even put any ammo in the sling shot.  All we would do is aim and pull the rubber band back, and the monkey would take off.  It was a little trick I learned while in Bali.