The Hatch House Goes Global: Daegu Eco Theme Park

I love friends who go on crazy adventures with you with little to no warning as to what they've just signed themselves up for. Our amazing friends, the Vang family, agreed, just days beforehand, to go to Daegu for the weekend with us. None of us had ever been there before. I said, "It will be awesome!" and they said "We're in!"
I'm going to skip over the part where we waited at the KTX train station forever (like 3 hours) because we didn't buy our tickets in advance. (Good news is you can buy beer at the convenience store and drink it in the waiting area. No open container laws!) And that we didn't arrive in Daegu until after 11pm, to the hotel by midnight. And I also won't mention the extremely sketchy hotel we stayed in that I had booked online. (no hotel room should ever have 7 boxes of tissues in it, with used hairbrushes, half empty cologne bottles, and a used bar of soap on the sink)

Willow, Ellie, and Maya in the train station

drinking Budweiser at McDonald's in the train station

I'll just fast forward to the highlight of the trip, Daegu's Eco Theme Park and it's high adventure ropes course. This place was awesome. It's all nestled in the woods, with a creek/stream running through it. The kids loved playing on the rocks in the stream, crossing the suspension bridge, and petting all the animals in the petting zoo area. The grownups loved it because it challenged us in crazy ways. That's right, I'm talking about going super high up in the canopy and walking some crazy tight ropes in between the trees. And, of course, the park had its requisite head-turning decorations, complete with fake tulips.

Mashup of Wonder Woman with Planet of the Apes?

photo credit: Janny

The "safety demonstration" was given to us all in Korean. Didn't understand a word. However, there were lovely visual aids. We had two straps that we had to hook onto the line to keep us from falling. One strap, once you hooked it in at the beginning, was dragged along with you and could not be removed. (aka. NO BAILING OUT ALLOWED strap) The second strap we had to keep hooking and unhooking between the challenges. There was a third strap, used only for the ziplines. The nice Korean man demonstrated all of this as we moved through a tiny practice course one foot off the ground. He made sure we understood, and then showed us where to start. I was shocked that he didn't come with us. We were supposed to do this ON OUR OWN??? That just took my stress level up a notch. And because we had all our kids with us, we had to split up and do ladies first!

Janny and I had no idea what to expect, but it was hard right from the start. It begins with one of the tallest rock climbing walls we'd ever tackled. Janny agreed to go first. It was slow going, mainly because we had to stop and move the strap up the wall every few feet.

At the top of the wall, we had to walk across this high net while being squeezed by the wires under our arms.

Then a short climb up a terrifying ladder and we got to our first zip line. You can hear Janny screaming the whole way across.

Then it was my turn. I am afraid of heights. Did I mention that? I tried not to focus on the fact that I was all alone up there, totally responsible for getting all the gear hooked up correctly. What was I doing? I was just going to jump off a platform for the thrill of it? At risk of death or dismemberment? Below is the video of the ziplining. You'll see in the beginning how long I take just to make totally sure that all my equipment is correct before jumping. And yes, I screamed most of the way too.

The routine we got into was that Janny would go first and do the hard part of figuring out the best strategy for getting across whatever the obstacle was. Then she would give me her advice on how best to tackle it myself. I was extremely grateful for her decision to go first.

We really couldn't tell where we were in the course. We had no idea how long it was, how many obstacles, or how long we had already been up there. Our attention was always on the task in front of us. Putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to look down.

In the next video, you'll see where I have a real mental break. I finally met a challenge that I really didn't think I could do. Yes, I whined. Janny was incredible and walked me through my panic attack. To see the actual obstacle, pay real close attention during this time frame: 0:53-1:04

From this point on, it only got harder, if you can imagine. The floating/suspended platforms were sometimes too far apart, so we had to tightrope the cables between platforms. And the ropes were hung intermittently, so you had to stretch to reach the next one. Watch Janny do just one.

In the next video I show what remains on the course; or at least how far out I could see. There were at least four more in front of me. The one Janny is crossing in the video is the one that led to me getting a bad steel cable burn on my ankle. But, my Go Pro fell from the sky before that happened. Willow rescued it. All good. What I couldn't see was there were actually SEVEN more. The final one was the fast rappel down. I feared that one the most. It would be a free fall, as far as I was concerned.

The entire course took us 2 hours. I kept wondering what the guys had been up to the whole time. Turns out they had lunch and a few beers. I couldn't imagine doing that ropes course after a couple beers, but they were very excited to finally get their turn. Eric went first.

Not surprisingly, the skateboard one that I had my panic attack on was Eric's favorite. He and James did so well. This video shows how it should be done, starring Eric and James.

The guys whipped through the course so fast, it was ridiculous. No fear, just total enjoyment. They were done in around 45 minutes.

This is what the total course looked like. A total of 25 challenges. It was the most difficult one they offered.

Now, before you start asking if all the kids did was run around underneath us the whole time, I'll stop you and say no. There were kid courses too. In fact, the one that Preston and Charlie did was like a miniature version of the King Kong course that the adults did. It looked so easy when they did it.