Vacation Almost Over and Expo Lines

I’ve been back in Korea for a few days with my friend from Laos, and we’ve been spending most of our time at the Expo, as was to be expected. A couple of days were very rainy, so we spent much of the time at the International Pavilion, which is mostly sheltered from the weather. We’re flying to Seoul in a few hours, to spend a few days there before flying back to Thailand. I’ll be returning to Yeosu this coming Sunday, since that interlude from vacations called “work” starts on Monday. The vacation has been at times fun, but at other times a near disaster. I’ll have a future post (incoherant rant) about Korean Immigration in this still-xenophobic country. (It wasn’t called the Hermit Kingdom for nothing.)

One of the blog readers commented and asked about waiting times for standing in line at some of the pavilions. About all I can recommend is go either early in the morning, just after 9 a.m., the opening time, or go later in the evening, around 6 p.m. or so. The lines then are much shorter. At many of the pavilions I’ve seen no long lines, among them Argentina, Uruguay, Turkey, the Joint Pavilions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean nations, and others. The Big Four for ALWAYS having long lines are the pavilions of Russia, Thailand, China and Japan. Japan has a reservation/ticketing system, so the actual wait there might not be all that long. We did manage to get into the Thai pavilion yesterday after about a 5-minute wait, but that was early in the morning. Other pavilions where you may have to stand in line for a while include the USA, Australia, and Singapore. Waiting times can vary from 5 to 10 minutes to probably around half an hour. Browse around, though–you’ll find many of the pavilions don’t have long lines.

Another thing to take into account is the new lower rate tickets. If you buy a ticket after 1 p.m. the cost is 20,000 won, and if you buy one after 5 p.m., it’s 10,000 won. Good deals, but be aware that hordes of people are taking advantage of these rates, and there are long lines at the ticket windows and at the gates around these times.

I’ll be back in Korea on Sunday, as I stated earlier, and I’ll resume my regular Expo reviews then, so stay tuned for more later.