3 days to 한국에 오신 것을 환영합니다 (welcome to korea) !

Hello Hello! Me is so super excited for Korea! My flight will be on 18th May 2013, 1:15am. And my poster day is on 17th May 2013. So everything will pass like a whirlwind and before I even realise it, I will be in the land of kimchi! Met with my travel mates, G and T, today for a brief trip planning for the first 3 days. I was so high that I kept going non-stop about what I found out about Korea. It is a bad habit of mine that I find it is so hard to kick. When I get too hyped up about a topic, I will forget to quieten down and listen to what the rest got to share too. This may pass off as too forceful and domineering to groupmates at times which is an image I hate to portray. And such may impede me from performing well in my future career too as I may just blabber on in class and become oblivious to students who have trouble catching up. I should be more aware of this from now on and friends do remind me too!

Found these 2 pics when I googled unhelpful teacher. hahahah. I think these 2 are the most common situations I experienced as a student. Hope I will not be like this when I teach next time!

15th May 2013

It's a wet day at Sentosa Adventure Cove Waterpark! The water theme park first opened its doors during the last quarter of 2012 and has since been in operation daily from 10am-6pm. It is located at RWS, opp of USS and 200m behind S.E.A Aquarium. The ticket costs $29 which comes with 15% food discount voucher which can be used anywhere in the waterpark. Personally, I felt that the ticket is very decently priced considering that one of the features, Rainbow Reef, involves snorkelling. This alone makes adventure cove all the more unique and worth the visit!

Rainbow Reef

Picture credits to littledayout.com

This is my favourite of all activities at the waterpark! I was so excited to try it that I insisted that it shall be the first stop of my adventure! There are more than 20,000 fishes in the big water tank with more than 15 different species (in fact I think there are a lot more). Most of the fishes are angelfish. TRUST ME. Once is not enough. If time allows, do go for it a second time! There will be new surprises hiding at various corners of the reef. While most are natural coral reefs, there are artificial reefs too. However, it is definitely not obvious to a non-marine life expert like me. Do listen to the instructions at the beginning to avoid gulping unnecessary amount of salted (mixed with fish waste and fish food) water. Yes it happened to me but I still enjoyed the experience thoroughly! There are also panels of glasses around the tank that allow you view the beautiful fishes while relaxing on bean bag couch available at several spots around the waterpark.

Water Slides: Dueling Racer, Pipeline Plunge, Riptide Rocket, Spiral Washout, Tidal Twister, Whirlpool Washout

I must say the rides were a little disappointing as they are not as thrilling as I thought they would be. Also, most rides are too short and end too sudden. Out of the 6 rides, the one and only exciting one was Riptide Rocket which involved 3 U-shapes in the course! And it was during the process of queuing up for this ride that some thick-skinned and uncourteous queue-cutters nearly spoilt my day. Despite telling them politely to queue up as there were many people behind who patiently waited too, they ignored me and went straight ahead to the front. I was totally fuming inside but frankly speaking there was nothing I could do anymore. Quoting love, "let this be the only shortcut they can take in their life". Indeed. 

Unhappiness aside, I suggest that you guys should try out the other 5 rides before going for this. For me, I went on the riptide rocket first and later on found the rest of the rides much less exciting. At times, when out of a sudden you are turned 180 degrees, facing backwards in the middle of the ride, giddiness will overpower all the thrill you may feel. I experienced that in 2 of the rides. Other than feeling giddy at the end of the ride, I did not know what happened during the course at all. One thing I knew was that they were not that exciting anyway therefore I did not bother going for a second time.

Adventure River

Tubes are free for use at all entrances to the adventure river. This river is longer than any lazy river I tried before. Spanning 620m in length, it offers as many as 14 different habitats for you to experience as you float through with the current. One of it includes an underwater tunnel which showcase quite a few marine life species! You will be able to see stingrays too! I think I was so hungry and all I could think of when I saw them was sambal stingray. Don't judge me please. hahaha

Bluewater Bay

The wave pool! We did not exactly try it cause the depth was simply too shallow to let us be freely pushed around by the waves. The wave pool at Sunway Lagoon KL was much deeper. At bluewater bay, our feet were able to touch the floor the whole time and we were just standing there like rocks while the kids around us were having fun screaming and shouting as the waves hit them. Nevertheless, you could enjoy the waves too as long as you sit on your tube. We were just too lazy to get on it :{

Fun for Kids: Seahorse Hideaway, Big Bucket Treehouse

The seahorse hideaway was simply a baby pool with deckchairs surrounding the area. The big bucket treehouse (as shown above) features a playground with a slide suitable for kids. The slide looks quite fun actually from the picture. If you all buay paiseh can try and tell me if its indeed fun! hehe

Though we were warned that the rides would be suspended soon due to lightning detection, we went ahead as love and I would be out of town soon. The ticket is available for 2 weeks from the date of purchase! So if you are warned about bad weather on the day of visit, you may choose to return again any day within 2 weeks if you have already bought the tickets. Actually, I wished that there was stronger and brighter sun that day. But I guess I should already be feeling lucky that the rain did not pour down afterall despite the grey skies throughout the day. There was suspension of rides on and off yet we still managed to complete all the activities as there wasn't too many visitors. 

Major love: The shower facilities. 1. It is clean and dry. 2. They had rain shower head. 3.There is hot water. I was so happy bathing that I totally don't wish to get out. Really very satisfied with it!

Tips:

1. Don't use the locker at the main entrance. Use the locker near to the Bay restaurant. That locker is more centralised thus easily accessible from whichever ride/activity. We frequently retrieved our phones to snap pictures thus it saved us a lot of energy and time walking to and fro. 

2. If you are heading there with only 1 or 2 friends, all of you should bring soft, unstructured bags so that everything can be squeezed into a small locker. Rental of small locker costs $10 while big locker costs $20. Big locker is really much bigger as can be seen from the picture below. You may use the locker for the entire day and may reopen as many times as you want. 

3. Bring some snacks in if you do not wish to spend too much at the waterpark. The only restaurant that I saw people dining at is the Bay restuarant. They serve western food at around $15 per main dish. There are also pushcarts selling snacks and small bites around the waterpark. There were pizzas selling at one of the pushcart which looks quite delicious. Pizzas are priced at $9 each and they seem to be slightly larger than pizza hut's personal pan pizza.

4. No need to carry big bottles of water. There are water coolers outside the washrooms and at certain other spots.

Lastly, pardon all my dark pictures. But as you call tell, there really wasn't much sunlight on the day of our visit, much to our disappointment. Oh wellssss...It's alright! I hope that you guys have a chance to visit Adventure Cove soon and I wish for the most beautiful weather on those days! ((:

The waste bins around the waterpark. Outside the waterpark's entrance there is one too and we saw a man spitting into the 'plastic only' wastebin. How does it look like a spittoon to him. :\

You can see funny rock structures all around. The most common is this sotong and 3-headed tortoise. Hmmmm...