Daejeon O-World

With spring changing over to summer, these days the weekends have been pretty rainy. Fortunately we had a bit of relief this last weekend to enjoy a fun excursion to Daejeon's amusement park, O-World!

O-World consists of three main areas: Zoo Land, Flower Land, and Joy Land. Flower land is this expansive area of gardens and fountains and ponds, Joy Land is like a small amusement park area, and Zoo land is a zoo.

Flowers everywhere, not just in the flower land section

Zoo Land

In my opinion, the Zoo was pretty cool. We've been warned about conditions of zoos in Korea, but this one was not so bad.

The pros: over 100 different animal species, interesting exhibits, and enrichment present for the animals, and signs asking people to respect the animals.
Animals from what I recall: American black bears, Grizzly Bears, Asian black bears, Leopards, Lions, Jaguars, Pumas, Bengal Tigers, Hyenas, Fennec Foxes, Macaques, Hamadryas Baboons, Dromedary Camel, Bactrian Camel, Squirrel monkeys, Chimpanzees, Cranes, Vultures, Owls, Hawks, Eagles, Kangaroos, Gibbons, Guinea Pigs, Chipmunks, Crocodiles, Pythons, Anaconda, Aldabra giant tortoises, Radiated tortoises, Wolves, Coyotes, Meerkats, Prairie dogs, Bighorn sheep, Donkeys, Deer, Swans, Ducks, Coatis, and more.
In the safari section that we did not visit there are also elephants, ostriches, zebras, and giraffes.
The cons: probably too many animals in each exhibit via unchecked breeding, especially with the macaque monkeys.. vending machines next to the exhibits for feeding everything from the bears to the monkeys to the sheep, and some less-than-clean conditions in the crowded exhibits.

The animals themselves looked mostly healthy, and some of the exhibits were actually really impressive. Here are some pictures from that part of the park:

Large male tiger
A nearby sign warned of him spraying

We counted at least 6 tigers in two different exhibits

They had both a jaguar and a leopard exhibit with 3 cats a piece inside

Mountain lion/puma exhibit with a bridge for them to get to a secondary exhibit area
A walking path was situated under the bridge, really cool design

Hamadryas Baboon making a personal connection

Stellar's Sea Eagle
This species actually winters in Korea

Reticulated python

♥

Bizarre guinea pig exhibit with a sign asking people not to go in and stress them out

Crowded Macaque exhibit with lots of bridges to outdoor exhibits..
So I guess they are crowded by choice? Not sure

Really, really cool bighorn sheep exhibit
There were little baby sheepies climbing on the huge rock wall

So yeah, a really impressive collection. Exhibit sizes could be better, but all-in-all we were impressed by this zoo.

Joy Land

Though we didn't ride any of the rides, we grab some food here and watch people riding the little roller coasters and tower ride. I should mention we only had to pay W 2,000 for an ice cream cone and meal sets were only W 5,400 (~$5). Way cheaper and more reasonable than any amusement park in the US.

Tower drop ride

On our way to flower land!

Flower Land

This was a cool section, also really big, that we didn't have as much time to explore as I would have liked. Still we had a lot of fun taking pictures and, in general, being hit by floral sights and smells.

According to one of the tourist websites, Flower land "boasts a number of smaller sections such as Rose Garden, Four Season Garden, Herb Garden, and Maze Garden and is home to a total of 150,000 tress of 100 different species and 200,000 flowers of 85 different species. An outdoor stage and concert hall are also located in the area."

We could hear some jazz version of Simon & Garfunkel playing as we explored a tunnel filled with a mixture of beautiful flowers.

If you're not a fan of flowers, I should warn you ahead of time to skip this section; I have a lot of photos ☺