2024-04-22 17:59:53
Yongin Everland began with the planting of trees at Yongin Natural Farm on April 17, 1976. The natural farm had fruit trees such as chestnut, apple, and peach trees, and the zoo had deer and wild boars. The name was later changed to Everland in March 1996 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its opening.
In addition to attractions with various rides, the area has expanded to include Caribbean Bay, where you can enjoy a wave pool in the summer, and a speedway, where you can experience motorsports. In 2008, T Express, Korea’s first wooden roller coaster, appeared, and in 2016, Aibao and LeBao were introduced and Panda World, where you can see pandas in person, opened. In addition, the accommodation facility ‘Homebridge’ and the public golf course ‘Glen Ross’ are located, and the Ho-Am Art Museum and Samsung Transportation Museum are also located within the resort.
Although there are so many things to see and do, it is difficult to answer the question of what is Everland’s unique identity that can compete with theme parks around the world. However, Everland began to find its identity by going back to the beginning.
“Everland cannot compete with Disneyland in terms of amusement parks, and it is difficult to become like Universal Studios in terms of content. However, unlike these theme parks, Everland has its own unique legacy. It is an old garden that has been maintained since the days of a natural farm. “There are many theme park officials from overseas who are amazed by Everland’s forests and gardens.” (Bae Taek-young, Vice President of Samsung C&T Resort Business Division)
The reason Everland looked back on its original intention as a ‘natural farm’ was because of the growing interest in gardens in Korea. The Korea Forest Service began implementing policies to cultivate urban forests and spread garden culture in 2012, and crucially, after the coronavirus pandemic in 2019, the culture of experiencing health, relaxation, and healing in nature came into the spotlight, and a new term, ‘forest vacation,’ was coined. It came out.
According to the Korea Forest Service, 32.29 million people, or 78% of Korea’s adult population, experience forest trails at least once a month. About 9.8 million people visited the Suncheon Bay International Garden Expo held last year over 7 months. After the success of Suncheon, the hottest topic in the tourism policies of local governments across the country is ‘garden city’.
Everland has five major gardens. Each garden has its own theme, including heritage gardens such as the Four Seasons Garden and the Rose Garden, which have been around since their opening in 1976, as well as Music Garden (2016), Sky Garden Road (2019), and Forest Camp (2019). Everland has so far considered these gardens as the background for the resort, including rides, Caribbean Bay, Speedway, and Panda World, but its strategy is now to develop the gardens into separate protagonists.
“There are many middle-aged and older visitors who do not want to ride thrilling rides like young people, but who want to enjoy the flowers that bloom continuously every season. So, instead of purchasing tickets to the resort for amusement rides, we also purchased separate tickets to just enjoy the gardens, and the number of visitors increased significantly. These days, many young couples from the MZ generation also visit the garden to take proof photos.” (Lee Jun-gyu, Head of Everland Plant Contents Group)
In fact, according to Everland, about 10,000 people used the exclusive garden tour package for about 15 days starting from the 15th of last month, and about 90% of visitors at the end of March, when the plum blossoms were at their peak, responded that they were satisfied.
The most notable of the five gardens is Sky Garden Road. Sky Garden Road, the largest in Everland with an area of approximately 30,000 m2, is the first plum theme garden in the metropolitan area that opened in 2019. Along the approximately 1 km long viewing path, you can enjoy over 700 plum trees of 13 varieties, including Mancheop Hongmae, Yulgok Mae, and Yongyu Mae, as well as various flowering plants such as daffodils, tulips, and flowering grass.
The observatory, 210 meters above sea level, is considered the best view of Everland, offering views of flowers and trees. The pond at the bottom of the Sky Garden Road offers the spectacular sight of cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind from the drooping branches of two huge weeping cherry trees.
The most spectacular garden from April to May is the ‘Four Seasons Garden’. It is a show garden that is continuously decorated each season. Currently in the spring season, it is decorated with an outdoor themed garden in collaboration with Sanrio characters such as Hello Kitty and My Melody, along with approximately 1.2 million spring flowers of over 100 species, including tulips and daffodils.
The Four Seasons Garden, measuring approximately 10,000 m2, is centered around a central fountain and is filled with flowers and plants representing each season, such as bananas and tropical plants in summer, marigolds and cosmos in fall, and evergreens and silver grass in winter.
‘Music Garden’, located in the central area of Everland, is a garden where you can enjoy music and plants together. In the Music Garden, dozens of old trees, including a 160-year-old zelkova tree named Harmony Tree, Cornus officinalis (110 years), and Hackberry (80 years), show off their beauty. You can meditate along the 370-meter walking path while playing world classical music and Everland’s specially produced Music Garden theme song.
Everland Rose Garden will hold a rose festival starting May 17th, with about 3 million roses of 720 varieties blooming. The Everland Rose Festival, which started as Korea’s first flower festival in 1985, is a festival that became the precursor to about 70 flower festivals that have been benchmarked by major domestic companies and local governments. Everland Rose Garden was the first in Korea to receive the ‘Award of Garden Excellence’, given to the world’s best rose garden, at the 2022 World Rose Convention held in Australia.
In the fall, Forest Camp, where you can walk through the country’s longest ginkgo maple forest path, is popular. In addition, ‘Heewon’, a traditional Korean garden at Everland’s Ho-Am Art Museum, is a simple yet gorgeous garden. In Heewon, there are stone pagodas from the Silla Dynasty collected by the Ho-Am Art Museum, as well as Buddha statues, jangseung, and stone lanterns made by stonemasons located throughout the yard. Jean-Michel Othoniel’s glass bead work is in bloom in the pond that blends in with Gwaneumjeong Pavilion in Heewon Pond, and in front of the lake near the entrance to the museum, there is a huge spider sculpture by Louis Bourgeois.
Reporter Jeon Seung-hoon [email protected]
2024-04-22 17:59:53