Podcast: The Ride - Lotte World with Amy Nicholson

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

Amy Nicholson (Unspooled, New York Times) joins us to discuss South Korea's Lotte World. Lotte World consists of an indoor theme park, an outdoor theme park, a mall, South Korea's largest skyscraper, school uniform rental stores, and more! Fantasmic Fire, DeSantis Ire Episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcasts are great because they help us make the most out of our routine. We learn about the fall of the Ottoman Empire while we drive, keep up with news while we take the dog for a walk, or turn folding laundry into a comedy show. Make the most out of your time with the PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard, a credit card that can get you unlimited free grocery delivery and the most PC Optimum points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details.

Forever Dog. Warning, the following podcast contains a fake tuxedo, a sort of fancy Panda Express, candy wars, and an abandoned theme park where you can just climb on shit. All this plus Amy Nicholson joins us to talk Seoul, South Korea's latte world on today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, a theme park podcast hosted by three men whose only problem with going to the DMV is that the queue isn't themed enough. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, Scott Gairdner. Oh, yeah. If you give us something to look at instead of just the ugly mugs next to me,

you give me a story, you give me an original DMV character, you make it seem like a mission that I have to go on. Yeah, and a narrative immersive with like, yeah, like either like a car that, like a car that's not a disney cars car but like a original dmv creation oh sure yeah yeah a talking car that's like you know like you don't get to get in me until right yeah he's really cocky about it too jason sheridan you have any thoughts on what someone in me well i would say um i i don't even need the theming if you were to have the DMV on just like another thing that's going to come up a lot today. Massive scale.

If the DMV buildings were just gigantic. And I realize I'm probably describing a bureaucratic nightmare. So you want the DMV? 1984 Brazil. Oh, interesting. So you want it to not only have like a more of a immersive queue you want an e-ticket dmv i just big just like huge big budget dmv so like small rooms big rooms there's a cave but then there's a big palace yeah yeah there's little puzzles where yeah but it's a

cave and it's got the lowest ceiling it's like the room we're in right now. Like it is a regular ass ceiling that you're traveling. So, I mean, I wouldn't call this a cave, but yeah. Yeah. You do like an eye test with somebody dressed as like a princess or something. They have to like administer the eye test. Sure. Or any one of a number of costume characters. And then it would be like letters in a different like fun made up language. Yes.

So it wouldn't just be the normal American alphabet. Yeah. So it's testing your vision but you also have to go by your gut sometimes. And yeah and spikes and ropes and if you drop the if you pull the rope you hear somebody the Indiana Jones cue

specifically it seems like is what we're all we ask is that the DMV be the Indiana Jones line. And it would be the most popular place, I think. And we really solved an issue here today. Yeah. Well, productive episode so far. Yeah, we could stop now and it would be a great podcast. But we won't.

A big mission accomplished. Yeah, because... Because we got a whole thing to talk about. Uh-huh. Yeah, we're exploring. We're globetrotting today. Yes. It's a nation we've never discussed anything from.

That's exciting. I know it is. But let's bring our guest in. She reviews films for the New York Times. She hosts the movie podcast, Unspooled. It's Amy Nicholson joining us. Hi, everyone. Hi.

How are you? Hi. I'm so excited to be here. I want the DMV to be more like, did you ever see that old Nickelodeon game show, Finders Keepers? Oh, yeah. I'm a big Finders Keeper. That's my favorite one. That's my dream.

That's all I want escape rooms to be, is like a big giant Finders Keepers. You get to tear through like dressers and drawers and upending things. And like, if you could go to the DMV and open, you know, Matilda's drawers and start rifling through, try to find the magic pen that you need to stamp your card. That's all I want is more action. Yeah, yeah, sure. If they can give you that on the way, then you forget the logistics nature of it. If it's like finders keepers and like some of the mess makes sense, but some of it, they

just kind of need mess in bulk. So there's just a drawer full of ping pong balls just kind of arbitrary like yeah right well that'll pop on camera I don't know why this young child's bedroom is a drawer entirely full of ping pong balls but why not or what if at the center of the DMV was a big statue of Gavin Newsom

and now I'm merging it a little bit into double there but you had to crawl up his nose whoa wow yeah or fall out of his nose. Whoa. Yeah. And there's like, there's like goo in there. There's like snot, like Nickelodeon slime and Gavin Newsom's nose.

That would be fun. I have one more punch up to this. What if you don't have to or get to have your driver's license at the end of it? So let's eliminate the driver's license part of it, too. So now what we're describing is a fun maze adventure without that boring part. I think we fixed the DMV completely. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it has nothing to do with, like, handing out license or revoking.

No, because that's like, you know, after everything we've set up now, doesn't that seem like kind of a letdown, like kind of not a fun finale? Instead, it should go out on like a three minute ride or so okay yeah or or hear me out what if at the very end after you've like dug through the ping pong balls after you've climbed through gavin knows and knew some slimy nose what if they take a picture of you with whatever you look like at that state covered in goo covered in pudding yeah yeah yeah and that picture has to follow you around for the rest of your life. Okay, yeah, yeah. If you get pulled over by the police,

will they come up on a screen or something? They'll be like, oh, you were covered in Gavin Newsom's sorry. Gavin goo. Oh, it seems like you already ran through it. I'm going to let you off with just a warning. I think everybody puts so much pressure

on their driver's license photos. And I think maybe it's that's actually a path to a better picture because you're caught unaware, natural, having been through some really strange experiences. But despite the goo, it might be a better looking picture of any of us than the one we actually have. Yeah, you're probably right. It's more you because it's like it's so natural. It's a natural photo.

It's organic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now I'm thinking they Cause it's like, it's so natural. It's a natural photo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm thinking they should make us all do it at puberty. And that should be your online dating profile up until you find your person. Cause if you, if you see the real them coming out of the goo,

you see, are they a frustrated person? Are they overjoyed? Are they gleeful? Maniacal? Yeah. It's a really good shortcut. A way to just like see someone's actual base in a way.

Wow. Would anyone ever date again if that was the case? Should we in the first place? Well, that's a whole other, yeah. That feels like a good conversation starter, though, putting up your high school, like the fake gown or the fake tuxedo. They take the Velcro off you, and then they put it on the next person. Oh, you're saying you're calling it fake, the tuxedo you would rent when you go to prom? No, no.

We did class photos and it was just like the false front of a tux. Wait a minute. Whoa. Wait a minute. This is really weird. I didn't know what you were talking about. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You just got a fake tuxedo put on you?

Cancel the topic of the episode. Cancel this topic. Sorry, Amy. You did a lot of research. We're going to talk about Jason's fake tuxedo he had to wear in high school. Well, because then it was like a fake gown and pearls for the girls. And for the guys, it was like if you went to an old time, like old West photo where like everyone's like a cowboy or a can can. Like that sort of thing where it's just like you put your arms in and then they velcro up the back and then they take the photo and take it off and do it to the next guy.

This is unbelievable. The scene. Have you ever heard something like this? No. You mean, does it have a bow tie? I want to make sure. Yeah, there's a bow tie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I heard something like this? No. You mean, does it have a bow tie? I want to make sure I'm picturing this. Yeah, there's a bow tie. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I'll have to dig mine up. Okay. You know, there's kind of like a base of tuxedo, which that's strange enough that like you want your class photos in a tuxedo. But then like women are going to want more variance in what they're wearing. They don't want to all just be in pearls. Yeah.

Are there multiple options? This is 20 years ago at this point. Sure. But I'm sure it went on for a little while after it. But my question remains, were there at least like, here's the purple one and here's the green one and here's the yellow one? I don't think there was.

Everyone was like dressed like Marge Simpson. I think you would go up and you would do two. You would do your formal one and then they'd give you a graduation mortarboard. They couldn't trust kids to just wear a shirt and tie to school? No, other schools did this, where it's like you got to pick what you wanted your senior photo, what you were wearing or what you wanted it to be.

So if you wanted cowboy, you could have cowboy. I think you could pick if you did it yourself. It's like you can put in whatever one you want, but you're on your own if you don't want the tuxedo or graduation gown. Okay, I have to back you up a little bit. I went to an all-girls school and we did have the pearl thing. Yes. Really? Yeah, we had a pearl thing and it was sort of like a black v-neck tunic that they draped over us.

Kind of, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I brought my own pearls from my grandmother because I was like, I need this to be a little personal. But if you didn't bring your own pearls, wow. Bring your own pearls to the all-girls Catholic high school graduation. I just realized how I sound. But yeah, then you had the vest. But because it was all-girl, I've never heard about a Velcro tuxedo with a bow.

That's just blowing my mind. And I don't know how that would even fit because a drape is a drape, but a bow is something else. Yeah, like I'm sure if you look at them, it's like, oh yeah, there's like an inch long gap on that collar. How fast can you get us this photo of you? Yes, well,

before the episode comes out. I mean, I'm talking about how many minutes will it take? Well, then we can just look. Let's give them a week for when the episode comes out. How many seconds does it take to you get? Here's the thing. If I do this, I'm going out on a limb because I don't like this photo. I don't look good at 17. On a limb.

In a fake tuxedo at 17? I've got very small glasses. My friends were encouraging me to get oval glasses, but no one said, make it a little bigger for your little doe face. Maybe go a little bigger on those ovals. All right. Can we put, we'll paywall the photo at least. So you know it's okay. Sure, sure. So on the highest tier on our Patreon, you can see this photo, I think.

Okay. That's how we'll do it. Then for Amy, I don't want to make you show us that photo of you, but I do just want to see a page from your yearbook with like 40 girls all wearing the same fake dress. That's the weirdest thing ever. I can easily get that for you. I can get that for you today. I'll give it to you for free

even. With no permission from the girls. We're not looking at your faces. We're looking at your weird tunics. Sorry, Kathy. I'll just apologize now. Wow. I gotta calm down now. I'll just apologize now. Wow. Wow. Oh, my God.

I got to calm down now. I need to palate cleanse. Yeah, I got too excited there. All right. All right. We have a different topic, though, today. It's a place. Here's the thing.

I was watching videos, and I feel like I got the name. I don't. Somebody say the name of this place. I've heard it like three different ways. Yes, I know. So, Amy, do you know the actual name of this place? Because I don't feel secure enough saying it. We're all putting ourselves on a limb by.

Before I came here, I actually tried to look up the pronunciation too. And I heard three different ways. So I can only say it the wrong way, which is the way I've always said it. Sure. What is it? Latte World Adventure. Okay. Latte is the way I heard it also.

So that makes me. That was the last YouTuber who said it. I saw multiple sources that are low-tay. I saw low-tay too. And I maybe trust these a little more because they are in print.

They are in more official articles and the vloggers, I don't know. Do they know? I think we just got to say anything goes. Okay. And listeners,

if a listener knows for sure, you're going to have to cut all of us a break. If you look on YouTube and you look up, you know, the Latte Lotte company, there's a Korean news network. And I saw three different anchors and I heard three different pronunciations because the one guy was British. Someone was Australian. Someone was Korean. So I kind of got it every which way. It might

help if we go to the origin of how it was named this in the first place. Yes, sure. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait, and just really quick, this is a theme park in, I mean, it's a mega complex, but this is in Seoul, South Korea, and you have been to this place. I have, I have. I was there

for a film festival, and we took a day off and ran around and had the greatest day. Oh, okay very excited to hear about it but yes the the backstory of the company feel yes feel free okay so lote is a giant corporation like think about the giants that we have here in america and just ascribe it one of those i'd say it's maybe bigger than coca-cola walmart size it's it's huge right and it started as a candy company and part of the story behind it is that the founder is this man named uh shin kyoko he grew up on a pig farm you know during the war uh he wanted to be a novelist but so he was very broke one of 10 kids and he's And when he's like a very young kid, he goes from Korea to Japan.

He smuggles himself over on a boat. Because World War II history, World War II is about to start. It hasn't quite started yet. But they're under the territory of Japan at that moment. So he sneaks over there on this boat. He doesn't have a lot of money. He tries to figure out how to make some money. And World War II happens. He

starts seeing these American soldiers giving out gum to the people in Japan after it's over. And he's like, I should have a gum company. So he's like, I'm going to make gum, but I need a name for my gum company. And because this guy is a young aspiring novelist, or he had been, he read a lot of literature and he was really obsessed with the works of Goethe. Goethe, like the novelist philosopher from the 1700s. He goes up to – Goethe is like a huge influence on Kierkegaard. Why am I saying all of this right now at the beginning of this podcast? No, no. It's interesting.

Oh, my god. And it's actually well-researched and well-presented information. Yes. Yeah. We strive to, but we miss sometimes. Thank you, Amy. My pleasure. So, Goethe, you know, I also have down here that he's a massive influence on Nietzsche,

Jung. I just want to be able to say all these fun names. Goethe, his breakout novel was a novel that was called something like The Sorrows of Young Werther. And that's this love triangle where like a guy dies spoiler alert but the guy is in love with a woman named charlotte gotcha maybe you see where i'm going with this yes so he loves this book by gerta with a girl named charlotte and he's like i could take the name charlotte and use it to be the name of my gum company so he cuts off the char

and he goes with lot i guess lot which again confuses it because it's a new way to say it right it's totally a new way to say it yeah but so that is how lot latte lotte should we just pick one yeah i guess so latte though makes me think of coffee obviously yeah it's a little confusing lotte i think it's okay that it reminds you of coffee because that's the first time i came across it right right because he expands really quickly he goes from like gum to booze vitamins hot dogs canned coffee is how i first had him in japan like they sell a lot of like canned coffee with the brand on it uh then they like expand further they go into like clothes, hotels, movie theaters, banks. Chemicals, I saw.

It's a big chemical company. Yeah. Shipping, coordination of boats, electronics. They own a baseball team. This is just an everything company. Yeah, the most popular baseball team in Korea, I saw. They own and made the biggest baseball team. Yeah.

This is insane. And I had not heard this word right before you you just came across this the brand name in japan organically yeah yeah but then if you start looking for it you'll start seeing it everywhere here i mean i live in korea town so when i go shopping at my grocery store it's everywhere sure but yeah if you keep your eyes out they're just massive and so you know their company headquarters in se Seoul is like 123 stories. It's the sixth biggest building in the world. And this man, Shin, lives forever.

He doesn't die until January 2020 at the age of 98. God. Setting up like this secession style showdown with his two kids. There's a lot of lawsuits. He's actually like sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion when he's 95. But they're like, you're so old and you're about to die. It's cool. It's insane.

This is the backdrop of Lotte World Adventure. Wow. Wow. What a dynamic, exciting. Like, you know, Disney is maybe the biggest company with theme parks, but this almost feels like some like more like some bigger moron that like Pfizer has theme parks or something. Yes. Yes, it does. A big, weird, nefarious company.

It's almost closer to Comcast in that Comcast has a movie studio, a television network, internet and cable and phone service. But if I can also, the other thing about this company, I had never heard about this before. And it was very fascinating to learn about this. In South Korea, Latte is a company called a chaebol. And these are massive conglomerates that are controlled by one person or one family so again very successiony uh of course they this company there was some money malfeasance they were raided a few years ago investigated by authorities but uh i watched a vice documentary called south korea's untouchable Families. Whoa. Wow. To set that up.

Because I think latte, it's not even one of the, like, Samsung and Hyundai are the, like, massive tables. And this one is big, but it is not on that level. And the whole thing is that everyone is proud of these companies for saving the economy and by saving the economy i mean in the 1970s the government just went all right you're doing cars you're doing semiconductors you're doing right like just gave them money and power and stuff and so i mean it's a little comforting to know there's other another country out there like ours where it's just like oh there's like five big companies that rule your life yeah yeah right yeah i know with like a

particular like slightly different lineage and the like the weird factor of that they they love this we owe the chables everything and but then in around the time that the founder of lote starts having brought like there's's a wave of, no, now we're mad at all of them. Now we're going to try to root out corruption in all of these. Because not only is there the Lotte stuff, after which, yeah, so they decide like, never mind, you don't have to go to jail because you're old and falling apart. Too old for jail. But we are going to take your daughter. Your daughter's going to jail. And we have some questions for your vice chairman.

And like, oh, questions. Really? Yes yes i'll be with you in a minute he commits suicide hours before he is supposed to talk to investigators so that all is happening and then samsung as you mentioned jason uh the executive chairman the the biggest person in samsung went to jail around this time and was in jail for years. I missed this entirely. Samsung's a major brand here. I never heard the story that the guy was in jail. And then similar, he was not, it wasn't an age thing. Just at some point he was pardoned because like you are too important. You have to get out of jail. So he is the fourth wealthiest person in South Korea, was just in jail for a long time.

And also separately charged criminally for illegally taking propofol, the drug that killed Michael Jackson. Wow. We didn't have to say what we know what propofol is. Of course. Yeah. Conrad Murray heads here. Yes, of course. This is all fucked up shit.

This is crazy. Yeah. And then there's like for every one or two that do go to jail, there's like 10 more where it's like sentenced to five years commuted to three years probation like they the craziest one in the vice documentary was the um one of the family members of uh korean air they were in it was she was on a flight she was on a korean air flight she was served macadamia nuts in the bag not on a plate and she demanded they turn the plane around. What? And they did. And they did? They did.

And she kicked off the head flight attendant. And she got in real trouble because the whole country was like, no. Because this is also a major safety hazard. You're making a massive 747 or whatever like do a 180 in the air come back to the airport i just want to like it is a blue satin v-neck tunic and pearls that i'm borrowing from study put on the idea of having that much entitlement that you would ask to turn a plane around because your macadamia nuts are in a bag. I just want to feel that power for a second. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfectly. It would never occur to me that bag is not the ideal setting for macadamia nuts. Yeah. It seems fine. A can, perhaps, those cans with the sharp lids that I'm always worried I'm going to like slice my wrist on accidentally. Oh, yeah. But I mean, I guess, yeah, if it's like a bag is kind of like a peasant's way of eating, you would never want to eat out of a bag if you're a certain level of society.

Right? It doesn't touch a bag. I mean, it crinkles. It's a filthy texture. You know what? I'm against bags now. Yeah, you know what? More bags for me.

Maybe I, yeah, I don't want bags either. Maybe I want everything kind of like in a glass jar or something. Like a glass jar seems like a classier way to do it. Yeah. Or a diamond encrusted jar. You know what? Turn this recording studio around. We got to go back.

Jason certainly had a fit on a plane about nuts before, but he didn't make them turn the plane around. It was just probably they weren't. What's this story? I'm just kidding. I thought you knew something. No, no, no. You bisque off cookies. Where's the peanuts? I don't care if kids do have allergies.

It would be funny if there's some viral moment with Jason that you didn't know about. That was online where he's throwing a fit about nuts on a plane. It passed. Yeah, yeah. No Scrapple. Scrapple not available on this flight. But it's too Philly. Eight nuts in this bag at these prices.

It was like an early viral video. It was like an E-Bombs World viral video. I see. It was like 10 years ago. It was a couple generations. Yeah, you need a WMV to watch it. Right. I feel like the biggest difference here culturally, like, yeah, we have these mega conglomerates and the ultra powerful families.

I feel like I hear that plane story and i'm like in america that would never even make it across our desks it would be like yes sir plane turned around no prob no one mad it does seem like there's a shared like consensus like a shared uh uh what do they call it like a reality because they they interviewed some students who were starting either college or getting out of college and they're like my three jobs i would like i would either like to be at samsung or hyundai or i think it was hk was the other they were just like fully committed to the hallucination well to the reality of like it's very good to work for these companies and they do so much good for us.

And it's just like, oh man, this is bumming me out. But how different is that than people being like, I want to work at Google. I want to work at Meta. No, it's really not. That's the thing.

We just have the issue that our companies like crash and burn and turnover more frequently. Oh, yeah. These ones have been caked in for many decades. We got one weird bank up in Silicon Valley, and our apps might stop working on Monday because of the weird bank or whatever. Is that right? Wait, that's between now and when the list was sharing this.

No, no, that was like a month or two ago. Oh, bank that failed yeah that was gonna end our apps well it was just like oh a bunch of companies do payroll through this bank so like everyone at vox is not getting paid next week jesus christ yeah so it is it is interesting because it's like everything is propaganda but it makes it feel more like this place is propaganda then as well, where it's like you like us as a company. And here's how much you like us. You're going to go on our rides now and it will make you like us more. Nothing like the American. Totally different.

We talk about week after week. Totally different. 100 percent different. That's right. It wasn't like the original Tomorrowland was just little exhibits from different companies that were killing people. That's right. With chemicals and lead paint. It was pure. The intention was pure there, not to advertise Monsanto.

Sure. Yeah. Well, so that's it. Like, do you know any of this going into this place? Or is it just, hey, there's a weird theme park next door? I just know, hey, there's a weird theme park. But you start to get a sense that it's very unusual when you arrive. And this park is in Seoul.

You can take the subway to it. We took an Uber to it. It's not like the hassle of going to Disney or something like that where it's in LA but not really in LA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually better planned than any of our theme parks yeah it's right there and when you show up I thought we were in the wrong place because it's just a mall is what you see like you get dropped off there's this giant archway a huge clock and then you walk in and it is a mall there's a Chanel and there's a 7-eleven and I

kept thinking we must be in the wrong place. And we're walking through this mall of just normal stores. But every so often you see something weird that's like, oh, okay, there's a mural that looks like it's from ancient Greece on a column, but it's a little cat girl and she's holding a staff and she has a bow. And you're like, that's a little abnormal. And I don't know what that is. And there's a guy named Donkey Digger. There's all these, you know, characters.

Maurice, and he's dressed like a Roman emperor. He's a pig. He's got a little mustache. He's holding a bunch of grapes. And you're going through this mall and you're just going down and down and down. It's kind of my recollection. You're like, you're going like through escalators and stairs and thinking we must be off. And then you go through a doorway and just like kind of, boom, you realize that you are in a theme park and the theme park is in the mall and it's like structured mall-ish like you can stand on the railings and look down kind of imagine like a maybe like a four-story spiral yeah where you're you know at the bottom looking up you can just see all the rings of the theme park unveil itself to you like a seashell at once interesting did. Did it feel at all? Cause watching videos,

it almost reminded me of like Vegas, like the mall parts of Vegas. Like it seems similar where it's like, there's like, you know, a sky painted on the ceiling and then there's a very expensive clothing store, but then you go and you're, you go to roller coaster mere feet away.

Right. Yeah. It definitely has that. Well, it has that sound like the Vegas sound where you know, everything is just noisy and overlapping. there's no store stores like normal stores once you get inside the park of the mall uh there's no like chanel in the park there's just stores where you can buy you know ears for mascots who didn't seem like they played a big role i couldn't find

stories of the mascots anywhere but like i bought a pair of fox ears that had a cactus in the middle of them. Whoa. Yeah. And I don't know who that was. But yeah, it was a nice little cactus, like a succulent type. And my boyfriend bought Dalmatian ears. My friend bought a cat that had a polka dot bow.

And then what you start to see is like just tons of overlapping chaos. Because since it's not a theme park structured around a narrative or like the fairy tales like we have in Disneyland in particular, it's kind of just structured around ideas of things that make you feel like you're somewhere else. So there's ancient Greek kind of things, Egyptian things, French looking areas. A lot of ancient Egypt is kind of the main theme. A lot of that. A lot of ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh, right,. A lot of that. A lot of ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh ride. Yeah.

Just to feel like you're somewhere else. Yeah. But all of them kind of clash in, especially if you have a view of this whole massive arena-sized atrium. You're seeing like 20 different themes all jammed next to each other. Yeah. They're all just sort of right on top of each other in a way that's overwhelming,

but kind of magical because everywhere you look is just something fascinating and strange. You know, a pharaoh next to a robotic dinosaur. Wow. Wow.

That's pretty cool. I was going to say, we're always so upset when things aren't separated and theme parks. We don't want like this they talk about like sight lines you know if you can see a comcast building in universal while you're in harry potter or mario it's upsetting you know it's a theme park fans but also if it's like there's themes overlapping you want everything sort of contained but this does seem interesting literally everything on top of each other you can

see it all at once that almost maybe is good in my mind. I haven't been there, obviously, but maybe I do like that. Yeah. I like the mall aspect very much. You get a giant mall walk before you're even – The indoor nature, I'm deciding how I feel about it. I feel like in Japan I got to do a lot of cool packed hyperactive indoor environments. But there is something still like unsettling about it to me.

I don't know. Did you feel anything off about the indoor nature? Well, as a very pale person who sunburns and gets sweaty and Korea is really hot in the summer. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. But yeah, it's disorienting because you look up, it feels very brightly lit in there, but you look up and there's these hot air balloons running around the ceiling, but they're like light up rise that are attached to the ceiling on a track. So you can take a hot air balloon and just sort of go around the entire upper part of the park and you can look down there's a there's like um an ice skating rink so you can watch people ice skating in the summer while you're up on this hot air

balloon that's on the roof that sounds good yeah that sounds like if city walk had like a people mover on the top of it yeah wouldn't that be awesome because i could see city walk from above yeah and i would say like i'm a big fan of the indoor mall theme park. Like, one of my favorite places I've ever been to in my life is Kazakhstan because their weather is either, like, extremely hot or extremely cold. Where I was, it's, like, very high up on the steps. And so most of their stuff is designed to be taking place indoors. And one of their malls is shaped like a yurt. And inside this yurt, it also has just, like like roller coasters kind of going around the top and then also a beach with like imported sand from the maldives and water that you can soak in wow it's incredible like everywhere you go is just amazing wow wow

jeez that's nuts have you been to mall of america ever yeah i have also a fan of that yeah yeah with the cheese curds i don't know why we can't get cheese curds in Los Angeles. So I've never had the cheese. I've never been to Mall America, first of all. But I've had cheese curds, I think. Where they're like deep fried and all squiggly. And it's like when you bite into them, they yell at you. They make a sound? They're squeaky.

Thank you for backing me up on that. Have you had Jason Good cheese curds in Los Angeles? Yeah, I have. Because near where my mom lives, there is a very nice cheese shop run by Mennonites. Oh, on the East Coast. Yeah, on the East Coast. And they sell both cheese curds and they also sell deep fried cheese curds. And it is delicious. It's like artery clogging, but it's delicious.

I've had them here somewhere and I don't remember where. And they were okay. It's catching on as like a bar food like fried pickles I feel like. More and more sports bars I feel like have them on the menu. Canada, a lot of that too. Yeah. Of cheese curds? Yeah, yeah.

Did you have them there? Yes. Not my deal but I'm glad I tried. I want to imagine they're good because we all carry around cheese sticks like they're something healthy. Yeah. Sure, sure. I don't see the difference between a cheese stick.

It's just you peel the cheese stick apart. You have these little curls. Sure. And then you get to put your hand in there and it's really fun. Why don't I like the word? I think curd. Curd. It's weird to me.

Mm-hmm. A curdle? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. It reminds me of the process. Right. The industrial nature of it. And blood curdling screen maybe is added there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's close to some more negative words I feel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah reminds me of the process, the industrial nature of it. And blood curdling scream.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's close to some more negative words, I feel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So maybe that's it. Yeah. But it's just cheese. Plops.

Gone plops. Cheese plops? Yeah, yeah. That doesn't make you think of anything else? Not me, no. What do you mean? All right. We'll think of it.

Well, the cutify plop and then we got it. Cheese drops. Sure. When somebody has a blood curdling scream, does that mean that the person screaming is having their blood curdle or that it curdles the blood of the people who hear it? Oh. Hmm. Hmm.

Blood curdling. I think for that salmon. The quality of the scream would suggest that it makes people's blood curdle. In the vicinity. Yeah, I think so. Right. How does blood curdle? It's a good question that I. I've broken this phrase this phrase apart yeah i don't know the answer to that what is that biological process

yeah how do you curdle blood hmm yeah does it literally happen does it like uh blood curtains thicken right more of a gravy texture i guess it would kill somebody if your blood curdled yeah if all of it did right at once yeah so if it's a blood curdling scream it could make the screamer curdle and it could make everyone around them curdle so it's sort of like a self-inflicted banshee wound yes wait wait wait wait banshee wound is very specific because the scream of a banshee would would kill. Does it kill you?

Yeah, it kills you, right? Kill or wound or maim at least. Yeah. But does a banshee scream curdle blood or does it do something else? Does it like blow out something in your brain or you have an aneurysm or something? Because it's so loud. As somebody a little Irish, I feel like I should know this. Well, Jason and I don't know anything other than we know that the X-Man, Banshee.

Yeah, I've been thinking about Banshee and his daughter, Siren, who's also a similar power set. They both have similar screaming powers. And we know that that can just hurt. I think they can adjust the level of scream. So they could just stun their opponent. They can use it to stun. They use it to fly. Yes, they can also scream.

We don't know exactly how it works, but they have little wings on their costume and they fly with the scream as well. Yeah. I wonder if they screamed at a cow, if they could curdle the milk inside the cow and then they could make the cheese curds. This is a good idea. This is a MythBuster. That's a very good. I like the unique use of powers because I'm sure that's never been done I like the unique use of powers because I'm sure that's never been done

before in the comics and it's been 70 years of whatever 50 years of X-Men how many years? 60 yeah 60 I think if you guys don't know this then who will? I just watched an anniversary

live stream and I don't remember the number plastered all over it. We don't want to remember because it will say how old we are. Like it reminds us how long we've been looking at these comics. You want to hear like X-Men. X-Men. 15 years. 15 years of the X-Men. Right.

Yeah, yeah. It's also going to get overshadowed because 1963 is the first Avengers too. And they're like, you know, they're going to get all the love because they made so much money. They're so popular. Everyone loves the Avengers. The biggest event of 1963 was the starting of the Avengers. Yeah.

Of course. The most important event in film. Amy, you know. Can't wait. Bring them on. I think you've written before you want three times the amount of Marvel movies coming out every year.

You said it's not enough. It was the headline on one of your articles. I'm just very excited that I feel like when I look at the landscape, they are dying and it's wonderful. They are definitely dying out and it is time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Not because, even if like. I mean the comics. I have the comics. I still have the comics. I wrote them as a kid. So I'm not I have the comics. I still have the comics. I wrote when I was a kid. So I'm not like if the movies go away, it's OK. They're not going to go away. But if they go away, it's OK.

Also, like if they don't go away, just like something else, too, I think is the I think it's the cultural monopoly. That is, of course, if they were to keep doing that in their corner. But also there's lots of other more inventive movies to check out the only thing that uh marty scorsese said which made me more excited about the movies is he called him theme park rides i was like yes he's right more more what he intended as an insult i know um yeah little did he know that the that's the marty that's the problem that we're not getting enough theme park attractions of these movies. We all get delayed and cut. E-ticket.

We want more E-tickets, Marty. Well, and Mike, that was a little like Carol Burnett tugging on her ear. That was a little message to you because you're friends. You call them Marty. Like you're buddies. Of course. Yeah. Me and Marty.

Just like Marty Short. Marty Short. I don't know if you know this. We're friends. So I say Marty. Yeah. Yeah. Very casual.

Well, I think, okay, to go back to your journey into getting through the rungs of this multi-tier. What is it? Like it's four stories, the theme park part? Yeah, it's four stories. And if you took a different turn in the mall, you could go to an aquarium that's on a different side that I never saw. Or there's also like a folk museum, which I didn't get to, but I think it's sort of mannequins of different

clothing periods throughout Korean history. Something like that is maybe my guess. Wow. And this, yeah, the entire property,

by the way, yeah, there's the ice, there's a classical concert hall in this facility too. It is the, it is the largest cinema in Asia, which boasts the biggest non-imax screen

on earth like the biggest regular screen 35 millimeter so that's there's a lot of biggest throughout this entire because that skyscraper also is like the highest observation deck and this is the uh lote world is the biggest indoor theme park and like just uh biggest record breaking throughout this thing well the ice skating rink is huge it's got a giant glass ceiling a few stories above that letting in all this natural light but then there's so many parts like watching videos there's so many parts of this park that feel very intimate again because of the low ceilings there's like gift shops or some attractions where it's just like normal room-sized ceiling. Yeah, normal.

They have a Panda Express there if you get hungry. Right. It's sort of like being in a mall Panda Express, except it's classier. It's sort of brown, nice wood, a little beige. It's got a sign that says like established 1983. It had two giant stuffed pandas in the front. So it's just a little bit of like normal inside of the chaos. Did you eat there?

Yeah, I did. I went to – the first thing we did is when we got there, we had ice creams at this place called the Pharaoh Snack because that was right by our first ride. And we got giant soft serve cones. I feel like mine was grape or raspberry. I can't remember because we found out very quick that the lines were short, which I've have heard online that the lines are like crazy long. But when we were there, there was almost no weight at all. So I bought an ice cream thinking we were going to be in line. And then immediately they're like, you're on the ride and you can't have that ice cream. So all of us were just holding ice cream and we shoved them completely into our mouths. It got through it, which is fine.

But the meal that we had was from a place that specialized in hot dogs. And so, you know, they have like the plastic hot dogs outside. So you can pick which one you wanted. And I got this one called the white snowing. And it was covered in a white cream that I believe was garlic because they have a hot dog also called the crunchy garlic. And so it had all of that, but then also just powder that I think might have been Parmesan cheese. It was a little bit hard to distinguish, but it was beautiful.

My friend got the bulgogi dog, which was gorgeous. They had one that had kind of the rice cakes, I think, on it. Wow. These are extremely innovative hot dogs an area where often i find innovation is uh lacking yeah well lacking but also then you try innovation and it's uh not well executed and unwanted on my part yes that's true i mean hot dogs of the month that won Disney, those are all bad news. We went to Disney, we did an episode last year and we ate every hot dog at Disneyland. They're all the same base dog, basically, and then they just

throw a lot of crap. You end up just liking basics, more so, but these sound like mind-blowing. These are good. These sound like good. Conversation pushing forward. They're much more innovative than ones Disney had. Yeah, Korea is the innovator of hot dogs, right? Corn dogs, right? Their corn dogs are very intense.

That is a true thing about Korea? I don't think I know this. Oh, yeah, like if you go even here to the Koreatown Mall, it's like a fifth and western. They have a really good corn dog place. It's got the studded french fries that are embedded in it. They're really textural, kind of modern art looking hot corn dogs.

Whoa. Yeah. Doughboys just did a place. I forget what it was. They just reviewed a place. I should look it up. But yeah. When I wasn't even really that familiar with the corn dog phenomenon.

Yeah. There's a whole world. I mean, Korea is just really innovative. I feel like that will be one of the. Well, actually, no. I'm going to take that completely back because everything in Latte World is such a direct rip of Disney that it's

it's enchanting it's yeah it is strange how stuff is either like oh that is a gag directly from the Indiana Jones ride but then there's other things where it's like yeah this is so much of everything you can't say it's a ripoff because it just is all things, you know?

Yeah, it's such a mashup. And like you should say that, you know, Shin himself, the founder of Lotte World, has kind of a history of taking things and making them his own. Like there was this huge fight when he was getting the candy company off the ground where, you know paki the chocolate dipsticks sure they accused him of stealing the idea of paki to make his own company which he calls pepero they're also just chocolate dipped sticks okay huge fights back and forth and he wound up winning because he i believe blocked paki from being sold in korea whoa yeah and then he formed a holiday called pepero, which is a holiday in Korea where everybody buys his and gives them back to each other.

Wow. I feel like we could just say he stole Pocky. Yeah. Probably. His ghost isn't going to sue me, but yeah, steals it, makes it his own, becomes incredibly successful. Wow. That's hell of a move also. Like started that, all right, it's M&M Day in America and you have to buy M&Ms and exchange them with others. That's a hell of a move also. Like started that we're all right. It's M&M day in America and you have to buy M&M's and exchange them with others.

That's interesting. Even just about like copyright, whatever, like food. Like I'm I'm I should look into it because it's interesting to me how like you can sell the same cereal and just call it something else. And it's like a little bit different. Like it just tastes a little bit off of like Rice Krispies and just call it like crispy piece crispy pieces not crispy pieces that sounds bad but uh there's got to be a better one until you think of one call krispies with a c and then like a z at the end yeah well krispies like the store brand of frosted flakes is sometimes called frosted flakes because it's just a description of what you're selling i think oh that's interesting there's one or two where it's just like they get away with the same name because it's just a phrase that's interesting oh wow i mean i wonder if there is you know like there's a movie that just came out guy ritchie's the covenant if like does kellogg say like kellogg's

frosted flakes and the possessive makes it singular to them? I think that's right. That movie also, like, it doesn't, that's one that doesn't feel like a real movie, I guess. Because I feel like, doesn't, hasn't Guy Ritchie had, like, two or three movies out lately? Yeah. And this feels like a Faith Flicks movie or whatever? He had Operation Fortune Rue de Guerre, I think was what it was called.

Oh, right. Yeah, and this is his very serious one. It's actually pretty good. Oh, good. Yeah, I was startled. I had to review it, and I was like, here we go. No, it's really effective. It's very flawed, but powerful.

Oh, okay. I was proud of Guy Ritchie. It's getting over the top positive reviews because everybody's like, I can't believe Guy Ritchie made a good film. Yeah. Have you ever seen the film that he did with Madonna? We just watched that at a summer party.

Oh, Swept Away? No, I've never seen that. I was trying to explain that to my girlfriend recently because she was talking about Madonna's boyfriend or husband or something. I was like, but she divorced Guy Ritchie along, swept away, and just her eyes glazed over while I was trying to like, no, swept away. Remember, it was a real bomb for both of their careers. It's wild.

Like, I love Madonna. So I'm coming into this from that direction. Yeah. But when you watch that movie, you just think he hates his wife. Like, he hates her. She's never been filmed to be unattractive in the way that that film shoots her to be unattractive. Even when her character is supposed to be hot, he films her like she's a witch. And it's just hostile and mean and everything about her is terrible and in a way that has no warmth to it at all. And it's not supposed to be, I think, as bad as it is. It's just,

it's just, it's, it's so toxic when you watch it. And I can't believe that she didn't like divorce him as soon as she saw the first Daily. Maybe she never saw one. No, actually, no more room in this theater. I see some chairs. No, don't worry about it. Recently, I was like, this person's wife is in this movie, and they've been written to be the meanest character I've ever seen. Now I want to take a guess.

I feel like I have a guess. Go ahead. Is it judd apatow well no judd writes all these great moments where his wife gets to have uh fake sex with many of hollywood's hottest leading men so i'm not sure what that one says that's a trade-off the character might be mean but at least there's a hunk involved. So that's good. And neither of these instances, though, are when someone, they make themselves very ugly or very mean, or they're going through such struggle to try and win an award.

It's not that presentation. It's definitely not that. It's definitely not that. It's definitely that. It's like she could be, you know, because part of the story is about like she's marooned on this desert island with just this hunk who she's mean to relentlessly. So mean to him. And then he's mean back. But she's in full sunlight and he somehow figures out how to shoot her so that her face is covered in wrinkles.

And he's like, that's going to be hard to do. A beautiful woman on the beach. Yes. How do you arrange it with the worst, harshest? Who's the hunk? It's this guy whose dad played the hunk in the original version of it because it's based on like a Lena Wirtmuller film from the 70s that's supposed to be about toxic masculinity and domination.

And it's a really tricky, brutally ugly film. And I like the idea that Madonnaonna and guy richie were probably watching this movie like in his movie theater and talking about it or because i don't know why else you'd make this movie and then had the idea to do it and then it was just cruel and punishing and terrible but they watched art house films together is my theory which is lovely it makes them feel like me and my boyfriend watching criterion and i appreciate that and if you picked one and said let, let's do it. But yeah, they got the son of the guy from the first movie to be the guy in this movie.

I don't think he really ever made that many other films. That's a really strange guess. Yeah, I've never seen this. You know what else in terms of, I guess, I don't know. Maybe there's something up with Guy Ritchie's eye because maybe it's just me. I thought that his presentation of Will Smith's genie looked really ugly and weird. I forget. I forget that that happened,

that we saw it, that we did an episode on it. We went to a theater. We reviewed it for the show. Yes. Right before you couldn't go to, that was one of those, now you can't go to a movie theater. And before we could just waste time on this.

We saw it. We paid money. We visited a place to watch that. go to a movie theater and before we could just like waste time on this we saw we paid money we visited a place to watch that there I have a lot of positive memories from 2019 for whatever reason that one doesn't bubble to the top you're kidding yeah okay

okay theme park way okay so now we've gotten your your you had to down a popsicle later on. You had some hot dogs. Okay. Yeah. But now you're, okay. You were talking, rides.

Let's get into rides a little bit. What was that first one you were about to go on? Yeah. The first one that we went on was a ride called Pharaoh's Fury. Yeah. Yes. And Pharaoh's Fury is probably the showpiece ride there. It's like the really elaborate one.

And it is just, you enter like it is the Indiana Jones ride. You know, there's hieroglyphs everywhere really setting the tone. You get into a Jeep. The Jeep has a steering wheel that you could pretend like you're driving. And it even kind of kicks in with a little blast of like the John Williams horns. But it's all Egyptian themed. And you're just kind of driving around and there's like crocodiles and dragons and like the

blasting air dart kind of gun thing from Indiana Jones. And creepy shadows on the walls. And I swear as I was riding it, I felt like we were taking the same turns and drops as the actual Indiana Jones ride. Like it didn't just feel like it was taking the idea of it.

It really felt like somehow they had a blueprint, a blueprint of the track. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It's you can't copyright a little shape. You can't copyright a road shape. Yeah. But it really felt like it had those same kind of veers. There's a part where you think this giant thing is going to fall on top of you, sort

of like the rolling boulder and it plummets down. It pretends like it's crumbling around you. So you start hurrying and jerking back and forth. And, you know, the whole theme park is really obsessed with the color neon purple. So there's a lot of like neon purple lighting and stuff to make it feel a little distinctive, but yeah, it felt like, it felt like like I guess it felt like the Indiana Jones ride. This ride is to the Indiana Jones ride as like if you were in the 80s and a kid wearing like a mask of Indiana Jones was trick or treating at your door. That's sort of what it felt like. I guess maybe it would be like if Harrison Ford was trick or treating at your door and he was wearing a mask of Aladdin. Right.

Sort of like that. So you're confused mainly. No, I'm very confused. That's the effect. But it was awesome, honestly, to like be in a mall and then be on this ride. And I still don't quite understand, even having been there, where all the track is in the mall. Because you just see the entrance from kind of the archway of it and it's just there.

And I don't know where the track goes. It feels like a magic trick. Like you just sort of disappear into a portal yeah i can't remotely think of the physical layout of this place now it works because every ride through i watched like how do they have that too wait so this this ride goes way up into the rafters but then also there's a rapid ride i don't know if I've ever seen an indoor rapid ride. So where the hell does that go? And then there's a whole like underworld area. And I don't like my mind is boggled by thinking of how this all fits in. You have to like build the structure knowing all that was. You can't like add on as much.

It feels like that. Seemingly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like Disney can add on because it's land and it's outdoors. This ride. You mentioned Indiana Jones.

There's a moment. There's a moment, there's a gag they do in this where you're in a dark section, there's bugs on the walls, and the headlights flicker on. That is one for one from Indiana Jones. Exactly, yes. But that said, there's a moment in this ride where you're going into a big statue of Pharaoh's mouth at some point, and there's a projection above you that like draws the eyes up and then there's a roller coaster style drop and i don't think i've ever seen that before oh it reminded me of the boulder drop but yeah oh okay yeah i but okay yeah that makes sense to me it does that similar gimmick where it draws your eye up and then the drop is below you and i will say there's

a lot of rides here that are focused on going in and out of people's mouths. Yes. Well, I saw this crazy clown train kind of situation. Fantasy dream? Yeah. Did you go on that? That's my favorite ride.

Oh, boy. I was going to save it for the last one. We can talk about it now. Oh, we can save it. Also, up to you if you want to build to it. I'm happy to talk about it. I'm happy to talk about it. I do want to say really quick.

So we're talking about the indoor part of the mall, right? Yeah. I didn't know until the very end, maybe an hour before the park closed, that there was an outside part of the mall. That there's this place called Magic Island, which is connected to it. And when you exit through the bottom of the mall, I think it was, then it opens up and you're like, oh, there's, you know, Sleeping Beauty's castle. And it just is the castle, but it's all lit up. And I've seen like online call it Magic Castle. But what we saw there, I think it just said Hotel Castle on the sign from my pictures.

But yeah, it is just the castle all lit up. Yeah. And then it is so, that is the most Disney World ripoff aspect of this by far. Yeah. They did a good job. It's very impressive. There's a worse ripoff thing. Yes.

I've seen worse Disney ripoff theme parks. In like abandoned, I need to like try to catalog where are all of the weird ripoff castles. Because I know there's like an abandoned one in China. Yeah. But I don't know the deal with that. But yeah, this is a thriving, vibrant Disney World ripoff castles. Because I know there's like an abandoned one in China. Yeah. But I don't know the deal with that. But yeah, this is a thriving, vibrant Disney World ripoff castle. Well, the weirdest thing about it is when you get to the castle part, there's all these photos everywhere and they actually are stills from the Disney Snow White.

Like stills from the actual Disney Snow White. And that's where I don't know how they get away with it. There's also like kind of a really creepy looking mannequin of Snow White that doesn't look like Snow White in the slightest, just sort of lying in a bed, you know, as though she's knocked out unconscious. But yeah, several stills of just straight up Disney Snow White. That's the part that's the most audacious. I'm proud of them.

Wow. But it is this part of the park where Fantasy Dream is, the greatest ride. And by the time we got there, the park was closing. So we rode this ride three times in a row by ourselves. It was the greatest thing I've ever been on in my life. Awesome. Wow. It's that great.

Okay, okay, great, great. I stumbled across this in the YouTube channel Attractions360 that has a lot of great ride-throughs. They just called their title for it was unique and creepy dark train ride. Accurate. Is that too harsh? Do you love it more than that title? That doesn't sound like anything I went on. Wow.

It's not creepy. Okay, maybe it's a little creepy. It's not dark. It is like, it's like being inside an electric crayon box. And it's not unique at all because it's just, it's a small world, but redone with candy. Yeah. With the latte candy, the famous candy. It's a nod to the roots.

That's great. Yeah, it's like a lot of, I feel like the count to me was like there are 200 alive lollipops and candy canes. And flowers. And flowers. And flowers. And flowers, yeah. The candy connection makes a lot more sense why the ending of this ride, spoiler alert,

is just a mini candy amusement park. It's amazing. And it starts off kind of janky. There's like this, you go into a clown's mouth, but there's also this hand-painted clown on the wall that looks like it's from the 60s. This park opened in 89, I think. But the painting and the font looks like 1960s.

It's kind of wild west and neon orange. There's a lollipop who looks like he's under arrest and a clown who's a very classic clown kind of yelling at him and and then yeah you go into this clown's mouth and there's all this these willy wonka-esque neon tubes like rainbow tubes kind of coming like in the boat ride type yeah yeah yeah so you're going through that and it kind of twists and turns and you're in this little train car and then just like stuff gets going on a grand scale you go through this marsh where there's an aladdinish wizardy looking guy but then these doors open and it's just like instant flowers and mushrooms it's it's you know when roger rabbit when he enters toontown that's what it feels like right yeah yeah and

everybody's just singing at you about i i mean i'm assuming it's about how great candy is but i don't speak korean which you know it really cuts down on understanding a lot of the mythology of everything happening in this park. But, yeah, there's like bees who are inside giant mushrooms and they pop out at you and they're playing trumpets. There's random little bits of actual fuzzy stuffed animals that kind of don't go against the shiny plasticine texture of everything else. Oh, yeah. Look at this scary cat with dilated eyes. Yeah.

This is very upset to be alive. Like she's cooking. Yeah. Kind of a Mr. Rogers, like a cousin of whatever that cat. I forget the name. There's a room with a lot of colored spheres and a very large man.

I don't know if he's supposed to be a genie or wizard. Yeah, this guy. It's like these beautiful colored like orbs. Can I see him? He's sort of genie-ish. Oh, yeah. Big, thick beard. Very robust beard.

A little scary. But that's at the beginning of the ride. And towards the end of the ride, there's like a Merlin-like figure. And if you squint, it's like, wait, that's a large Merlin, but it's also a fox. It's a large fox. He's cute, I think. I like this fox Merlin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's cute, I think. I like this fox. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. He's cute. This is really like, I feel like as a kid, I wanted a Candyland ride really badly. And I don't feel like, is there a good American candy-based ride? I don't think so. Not Hershey's Chocolate World? I mean, you're not getting like the color out of that. This gives you like, you you know gumdrops and jelly

beans molly which is what i we've talked about before i was not a chocolate kid i was a multi colored candy nerd sprees tart and tinies kid so this feels like fulfilling that promise yeah there's kind of a part in the ride that feels like it's covered in smarties it looks to me to me it looked like dr mario oh yeah but yeah i think it's definitely supposed to represent the smarty landscape yes this is yeah this is my dream my childhood dream of like a candy land that you can visit is this the best candy ride listeners if you have been somewhere with a better candy ride let us know but it seems like maybe i don't think this is going to be the hottest take in the world. This might be the best candy ride.

Might be the best candy ride. I don't know. Because like what are the other Reese's Cup challenge at Hershey World or whatever? But that's still like, I don't know. It's a shooter and it's not as magical. Chocolate's a little rough, I think, because you're dealing in brown and brown's a little dark. It's not as fun. You have to put colorful costumes on top of the brown chocolate characters.

Yeah. You have to give the, but like a brightly, an every color in the rainbow candy ride. It's vibrant already. Because there is chocolate in this ride. Right, right, right. Oh, sure. The pockets of it. Oh, please include it. Certainly.

Like candy. Hershey's Kisses, Naked Hershey's Kisses. Yeah, there's a really, there's like a, there's a crazy, I think this little kiss is high, I think. Yeah. He's going nuts, I think this little kiss is high, I think. Yeah. He's going nuts. He's on a trip. This is, I think, just watching a video of it, on one end of the spectrum of like, this

is the strangest ride I have ever seen. The other end of the spectrum is this ride, is it pronounced Vipass Salt Kraken? Vipass Salt Kraken? Oh, the one in, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where was that again? I've already forgotten where the ride is. This one is in Europe, and it's based on a beloved drama series, like House on the Prairie and Green Gables kind of drama series. But it's a ride based on very mundane events.

I've seen this ride. I don't know why I've watched a YouTube of this ride. Perhaps through Eva. I know she was repping this after we talked about it, I believe. Maybe. I think I was watching a movie that I heard a reference to the story it was based on as well. Like what a beloved story it is.

It was like Holland or something? Swedish. I'm sorry, I was right. It was a TV movie or a show? Astrid Lindgren. It was a limited series TV show that was very beloved and heartwarming from the writer of Pippi Longstocking. It's a theme park all based on Pippi Longstocking. And of course, the story Carlson on the Roof.

Oh, that's right. Also written by this author. With a K, though, not a C. So that's all the way at the end of one spectrum because it's strange. There's a ride and it's very mundane of like, well, we've got to get home. It's almost time for dinner.

Like, and then there's this where it's like, well, there's a magical creature and then you go through the candy cane amusement park and then there's a wizard like this is just so much of everything it is and it takes this twist right at the end where you're going through just delirious happy candy everybody has their hands up they're screaming there's a lot of black light every all the candy canes seem drunk and then right at the very end when you look to the left there's a bunch of candy behind

jail bars and it just they look sad there's they're definitely appealed her she's kisses back there and i was watching the video i took with my boyfriend on like our you know second or third ride and i just heard my boyfriend say in the saddest voice why are the why aren't the presents wait what is it he said why aren't the presents escaping from prison? Because there are also little wrapped gifts there too. But yeah, they're all just behind these bars and there's a sad very overfed looking dragon on the other

side. So it's almost like don't have too much candy or keep away from candy or this candy misbehaved and it deserves to be eaten. But is this maybe the candy that they've somehow litigated out of the country? Yeah, that's the Pocky Company. Right, that's like Pocky.

Don't eat the disgraceful Pocky candy. So he's like punishing the candy that he's been able, or what's the gentleman's name who ran it? Shin? Yeah, yeah. So he's just, yeah, maybe these are representations of the candy he has put out of business in the country. They're being detained. He's holding them in a cell unless they give up and say, well, we will not try to do business in your country. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know if there's any – I don't know if there's been an interview with the Imagineers who did this. Wow. I mean, I like – you know, it's rare but a common component of a lot of the most fun, weird, dark rides especially is punishment. Stakes. It's Mr. Toad, obviously. You go to hell. There's a dark side to your actions.

In this, it's not all fun candy land. Some of the candies have to be in jail. It's the Caribbean has jail. I really love that Sanrio boat ride. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where the character Bad Bats Maru is, I forget what he's up to. He's a peeping Tom, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

He's a little pervert. Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. He's trying to, like, take a peek at something he's not supposed to see. And then later in the ride, he's getting punished. He gets spanked in the ride. And this is the kind of weird i like i love every one of these rides with punishment in it maybe this is needs to be a recurring theme more often yeah now that i'm thinking about it there was a photo op in the mall where you could pretend to be in jail as well

and there are these two giant toddlers in it like you can sort of the i guess they look like the kid and who from roger rabbit but it was like dangerous oversized toddlers with teeth sticking out in jail uniforms almost like tweedle d and tweedle dumb but like toddlers yeah and the lack of context of knowing if these are characters from the latte universe which really doesn't seem like they had on if like the people weren't labeled on the way in right like maurice i wouldn't have had any idea that there was a story yeah do they live anywhere else is there are there like uh are there tv shows in the the lottie verse yeah i mean i'm so curious like because these characters are on the uh front of the website and i love the look of these characters

um but they're all dressed in like school outfits are these the primaries? I wonder if that's the donkey yeah that must be donkey digger yeah well let's talk about these characters a little bit starting with the basics and we've been not sure how to say this word but I feel like undeniably their Mickey is Lottie now it's spelled with a Y

it's Lottie and Lori and one is in kind of a tux with some red. And then one is in a dress with red and polka dots and a bow. If you can imagine that outfit and if it reminds you of any other big characters in theme park world. But Lottie and Lori. Mike, do you love Lottie and Lori? Well, I'm looking at this different I'm looking at this newer these versions of them.

Whoa. Which I think are awesome. They're kind of like Cartoon Network or sort of throwbacks like Schoolhouse Rock a little bit. Is that one dabbing on the side? Yes, he is. Yes. That's why I really like it. If it's an out-of-date dance, Mike loves it.

That's right. If he was doing the Macarena, I'd be even more thrilled. But yeah, yeah. He represents the Che-Balls hitting the dab on the people of South Korea. So that's Lottie and Lori, I'm assuming, right? I guess so. Yeah, these are very different. I'm looking at these much more like Disney-fied versions on their website. Right.

So, yeah, certainly from these these and they're all in little it says blooming world school so i think that's maybe like they're back to school like you know how they have like an event at disney or something or tokyo will have like the halloween season and they'll have the disney characters in like different outfits um but yeah these certainly are cute for sure and i like them yeah um and then yeah i think i saw the ones you're talking about too yeah yeah here's the vibe just pretty like classic they're going for classic disney yeah i mean clearly it's lori lori is ripping mini off hardcore here yeah as far as her look um but she has her own interests that are different than many uh from their description lori who spreads warm love is the

symbol of lottie world Adventure together with Lottie. She has such a good heart, is a courteous friend. She's always spreading warm love to many people. What are you just saying? That if she's the opposite of Minnie, Minnie's a bitch? No, not the opposite. I'm just saying I've never specifically heard of any interest Minnie has in warm love. I don't think he has any minnie always makes me

think of one of my friends once profiled hallie bieber you know who is married of course to justin bieber and she said she walked into a room where hallie bieber was as justin was in the main room living his life and hallie was just sitting on the bed looking out at nothing not on her phone not reading a book not watching television just sitting on the bed and out at nothing not on our phone not reading a book not watching television just sitting on the bed and that's how i've always pictured many wow like no real like vacant if she's not with mickey then what's going on what's the point what's my point if i'm not with mickey my identity is standing next to this person, this character. It sounds like that's not Laurie. Laurie seems like she's busy spreading warm love when she's not with Lottie.

She spreads warm love to many people all the time. And it's an after the fact. She is also the pretty girlfriend of Lottie. It's not the first thing in the bio. It's after the fact. So that speaks to some some unique identity there's also like 10 or 11 other characters listed on the website we'll get to them wait what were you gonna say i was just wondering if pretty girlfriend implied the existence of you know a different

girlfriend the smart girlfriend is the pretty girlfriend of lotottie. Lottie is dating three different animals at once. What animal are they? I saw raccoon, but they are more, it's a lighter brown than I associate raccoon with being. I thought they were foxes at first glance. They're sort of chipmunky as well. They look like tails from Sonic a little bit. And he was a fox. I guess.

They are light raccoons. Right. Does it say anything about Lottie hitting the dab in that description? Lottie loves to hit the dab. He is our friend who nurtures his dreams with a bright, warm heart. So if a dream of his was to do the dab, then he would surely nurture that dream and probably do it. Okay. That's cool.

That's the only information I can give you at this time. All right. Jason, other characters? Yeah, go ahead, please. Well, Maurice is a little pig. He's the wine expert. Oh, you mentioned Maurice. Yeah, yeah. A little pig. He's the wine expert. Oh, you mentioned Maurice. Yeah, yeah.

A little mustache. And in their stock photo, seemingly drunk at the moment, I'm a Maurice fan. Is he your guy, maybe, of all these, Scott? Of these guys. And look, it's not, do I like him more than the French aristocrat? Yes, I do. Do I like him more than the bulldog woman who has like big

testicle jowls? Yes, I do. I'm just saying it's a low bar and yeah, I like the drunk pig. I wonder if the existence of Maurice who is holding wine, as you point out in that picture, is why they do have a ride called Drunken Basket. Because instead of teacups

their ride is called drunken basket it is just baskets spinning around but it doesn't seem to have an alcohol theme besides the name like the middle of it is just a giant animatronic snake coming out of a crock and kind of opening and closing his mouth and i was wondering what the baskets were made for like i googled like how do you make soju or something if it's like a traditional drunken basket oh event but it maurice just looks like he's holding a nice pinot so maybe it's just a nice yeah yeah i know i i what he's holding looks very delicious to me i think he's got good taste drunk a basket i i don't know is the idea that like the the basket it's that spinning around will give you

a drunken feeling without even consuming alcohol maybe that's the it is like the notion there alice and the teacups is all like obviously it's they're just talking about drugs and that's like they're simulating what it would be like if you were hallucinating i think on the teacups that's your view of what the teacups are? Well, the whole Alice is, oh, she takes the potion or whatever, but we're just talking about hallucinogenics. So it's like, it's trying to disorient you. But yeah, well, that's other parts of the movie though. The teacup part, she's having some tea.

But it is interesting that it's teacups in that ride and not vials or something. That's true. Not the magic vials. And I would say hallucination but i think i think you're bringing this air you think so yeah i've never thought i have never thought of the teacup ride as being a simulated hallucination no jason i think uh there was probably already half a dozen companies making spinning teacup rides and they're like oh we want one of these what is it closest to oh yeah al Alice has a

tea party. You don't think Bob Gurr was thinking when he put together the teacup ride? I assume he did. He was like, we're going to simulate tripping here. I don't know. I don't know where he stands on the hallucinogenic enthusiast scale. Pro. I'm going to go pro.

There are some that are pretty on the record as pro. Roley. Roley. Rest in peace. Just passed away. Just passed away. He was pretty upfront that he's like, yeah, I did some drugs.

Sure. So I don't know. Maybe I'll look into it. Maybe I'm wrong. And you'll, well, just take a bunch of hallucinogenic drugs and tell me which one is exactly like spinning around for two minutes. Well, you know me. I'm always doing hallucinogen drugs and tell me which one is exactly like spinning around for two minutes well you know me i'm always doing hallucinogenics so not necessarily hallucinogenics per se but i gotta say like taking a few hits off a joint and then watching fantasy dream was kind of a bad time

oh really that was kind of a little intense oh jace Jace. Oh, no. I watched all of the rides, the jungle, the rapids ride and the other ride. I was just like, I regret putting this off into the evening. I regret doing this. This is fascinating. I didn't know this was part of your research sometimes, that there was a little bit of stimulation involved. Well, I had already watched a lot of like day in the life kind of we're going to Lotte World.

And I watched the vice documentary and then i was i find i don't know i was having a hard time locate i think because attractions 360 kind of more describe the name i think i looked up the lote world website found what their english translation the rides were and i was having a harder time finding those and then once i found a few ride throughs i found all of them that's all very interesting now now what were you smoking dude what were you puffing on pretty chill indica but uh still there was a lot going on in that fantasy dream where i was like this is the strangest thing i've ever seen jason was keeping his lips zipped in the world talking about how wonderful it is. Best candy ride. And then you're thinking of terror.

I liked it. I was just like, Oh man, this is, there's so much happening here. Look, in case you didn't know, I mean,

Jason is the wild one of the three of us because he takes six hits of weed a week. Wow. Mr. Lewis Cannon. I'm going to try to sound cool when I say this so that you take me seriously. Like I know what I'm talking about, but like, does,

does blazing bro. Does that help you feel like you're on the ride like when you're watching now you're speaking his language now you're talking to him on his line he called me bro it's been 300 episodes now he's connected now he's locked in that i i think is held more by the size of the screen like uh on a bigger tv it does feel more like then what do you do do you plan in front of the biggest screen you can find and try to pretend like you're on the ride well i usually just like as i'm going through stuff i throw stuff in my in like a playlist on youtube or watch later you're not answering my questions do you sit in front of a big tv and pretend you're on the ride with uh i sit on the couch and watch it and then I type on a computer

my observations. This is much more boring than the bit you're looking for. You're looking for some fun thing where you're like blazed up and then you like kind of go up to the TV and like hug it and watch the screen. Hug it? I don't have a big wingspan, Mike. My arms

don't go very wide. So what is a big TV? You can't hug the TV. I'll get it. It's your old TV and, Mike. My arms don't go very wide. So it is a big TV. You can't hug the TV. It's a big TV. Yeah, I'll get it. It's your old TV, and you know what it looks like. You gave it to me. I gave Jason my old TV three years ago. So yeah, it is a big TV.

Yeah. But yeah, you don't get that close. No. And you don't bend your body around like you're on the ride. No. Mm-hmm. Okay. No.

More often than not, I hit the 15 seconds back because I was typing and missed something. It sounds like you take one hit of marijuana. Yeah. You sit and point yourself on the couch and you just like stand still really like rigidly and then you start typing furiously as you're watching. I'm at work. You know, one of my favorite fast signs is sitting very still and watching things. A very Bieber-esque move.

I have to ask, did you toke up and watch Fly Venture? Their California Soarin' version? I missed Fly Venture. I think I didn't. Because, again, there's so much stuff here. How? What does that fly over Seoul? It flies over hell.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Fly Adventure is, it starts like it's real, and you are in Soarin', you're in the little chairs, your feet are dangling, giant screen, everybody's moving around, it feels real. But you quickly go from overlooking the ocean, like Soarin'. Then you're in this avatar land where there's all these floating pools with waterfalls leading from one pool to another so you kind of sail around these pools for a little bit and there's these neon flying fish and then these thunderstorms

start to happen and you go into this wormhole and when you come out you're flying over at this desert with all these like impossible cliffs that are just really jagged and you're going into these gullies and these birds are attacking you. Then there's dinosaurs because there's just dinosaurs. If they can put a dinosaur in the park, they're going to put a dinosaur in the park. Then these fireballs start coming at you and this rock monster starts attacking. Oh, I just landed on him. He's so scary.

There's lava firing out of him. He has glowing blue eyes. Oh, this is a bad trip right here you're describing. So if you were blitzed out of your mind. This is what he saw when he watched the candy ride. He saw this instead. But then there's like lightning and tornadoes and hurricanes and lava. And like lava birds.

This is, I mean, it's very inventive, but it's terrifying, the lava bird. So on top of everything else, they fit a flying theater in this building yeah that's insane to me yes what was the when you were sitting on it what was the like was it like soren basically where he was just kind of an open chair and you were like hanging out yeah exactly like it was exactly like soren i don't remember they were piping in smells to go with everything like magma smells magma smell what does magma smell like just like i don't know like burning just like charred so yeah i could probably just do incense and then it would work yeah it's just big cyclones yeah you're right this is some very end of the world shit this is a for a genre

of ride that is typically like the wine tour of rides this is maybe the only one i've seen that is scary yeah even the music is a little roland emmerich oh my god yikes god i missed the again the size of this place i didn't even see the words fly venture the the great clunky title fly venture yeah that's it looks cool though oh my god interesting um that's like because uh in disney, they have a Pandora ride, an Avatar ride where you're on like the mighty Akron. You're on one of the beasts. But that feels much more like appropriate for a ride like this with a lot of action. Yeah. Like in a motorcycle position versus like just chilling out in a chair in the sky.

Yeah. It really felt like you were going places you shouldn't see. Interesting. Yeah. like in a motorcycle position versus like just chilling out in a chair in the sky. Yeah. It really felt like you were going places you shouldn't see. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. But, you know, to even just keep thinking about the scale and how they fit things in, the longest ride by far is their knockoff of Pirates of the Caribbean,

which is called The Adventures of Sindbad. There's an extra D in there. Oh, we love our Ds and our Sindbads. Sindbad, yes. We've talked about this before. Sindbad. Wait, is Sindbad real? Are we wrong for calling it Sindbad? I don't know.

Well, look, culturally, our Sindbad is the stand-up comedian who does not have a D. So that's, I think, what is stinging our ears the most is that the one that we know doesn't have that extra D. But maybe, I think, what is stinging our ears the most is that the one that we know doesn't have that extra D. But maybe, I guess, the story.

Oh, my God. Who, again, you know, first kid is my main Sinbad pop culture. Of course. But I think, yeah, I think that maybe the real story. Most. I do have the other D. Yeah, there's a Tokyo Disney ride that we love. But I think most places we were looking at, it does have that D in there weird doesn't it yeah this is like my mandala effect i never knew it actually

had a d i was making fun of it the whole time thinking it was the joke the joke is on me we've had the same thing there's a stunt show in islands of adventure in florida that always yeah it was like sticking in our head the whole vacation sinned bad sinned bad it's why is it so upsetting yeah i think there are like american versions of sin bad that call it sin bad i think without the d yeah there are so i think yeah there's but i think maybe around the world it's more more d sin bad than non-d sin bad do you think when our sin bad like comedian sin bad goes to korea and tries to order a coffee and he gives his name as Sinbad, they add the D? Yeah.

Yes, I do think that. And does it confuse it with any other Sinbads who are waiting for coffees as well? I think it happens all the time when it's over there. Korea problems. The Sinbad ride you mentioned, you're right, it is very long. It takes place seemingly 90% in caves. And again, very low ceilings, real low clearances on this one.

I mean, I love this. This is what I want. The intimacy on the rides is what I always talk about. And that's what does it. Low ceilings, close quarters. Yeah. I like feeling like cozy like this on the ride.

I think Jason's concerned. I don't think you like the, I think you're feeling claustrophobic just thinking about it. Well, you know me. I like enclosed spaces. I was just amazed at a place that's so grand in scale, like a giant atrium with a giant ice skating rink, an indoor amusement park next to an outdoor amusement park. I was just uh taken back by how many things feel so intimate yeah yeah well i guess you know to pack them all in there mike you were talking about the only the like lack of expansion abilities and i think one of the only

times they were able to add something else was like because where else do we go we can't really go outside well there is this recently there is this level of the mall that we could take over that is as everything we're describing very low ceilings and they were like how do we justify it and it became like this world of goblins and trolls which is called uh what underland did you go to underland was underland there i don't know if we did it feels like we we did go to some wild west wild west thing where we were riding horses we did go to this astro blasters knockoff where you're shooting dragons i feel like these things are all in the basement together wow but goblins i don't know if I saw goblins. I think maybe. I don't know.

Again, it's hard to track the zillion things here. So, yeah, I don't know. It's the only way they can fit all this in. Yeah. They take them all out. Low clearance places.

We did go on their Space Mountain knockoff, which was called Comet Express. And the structure is a lot like Space Mountain where it's a dark ride. But the one difference they have is that your seats rotate more like you're in the Haunted Mansion.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So your seats can kind of wobble back and forth as you're in the dark ride. And it's not perfectly dark because they on purpose have a bunch of black light planets and aliens surrounding you. So you're sort of zooming in the darkness and then sometimes there'll be like a giant Saturn or a giant alien yelling at you. That's good. Yeah. That's what I want in Space Mountain.

In Space Mountain and Disneyland, there is, I've said this before and I don't know, there is a giant, like either it's an asteroid or it's a planet. If you look, but you can't see it because it's too dark in there. Unless it's like the Star Wars overlays happening, it's a little brighter. But I want to see planet. I want that because space, I understand, is actually dark. I don't care. I want big colorful planets. I think you get that in France.

I was too scared to go in France, but I believe you get that there. I saw a review of this ride, several reviews or comments about C comet express that said this ride is better than at least some of the space mountains okay yeah like maybe not that that france one or right disney but like well i know it's heresy to some people to say that the florida one is is bad painful and it's a refurbishment or the tokyo one which they they're blowing up and just starting again but i that's a pretty good review of Comet Express, better than some Space Mountains. Yeah.

Seems good. By the way, all of this is situated on a lake. I don't know if we've said that yet. This whole massive complex, there is a lake, and the Magic Island part is built on, I guess, stilts, you would say? You take a footbridge out into the Magic Island part. Yeah, I guess I just thought the lake was fake or like fake water.

It's real. Did they just build this on a body of water? Yeah, I don't quite know how the body, it looks pretty sizable, the water. Wow. So maybe it is fake? No, I don't know. No, no.

I think it was already there and they built on top of it. Like Mexico City? I don't know the geography of Mexico City, to don't know. No, no. You think it was already there and they built on top of it. Like Mexico City? I don't know the geography of Mexico City to say either way. Like Key West? Now I'm just saying things out of my mind. He knows Key West. He knows Key West really well. Like the lake that the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium is on in Orlando, Florida?

Now we're talking about Seven Seas Lagoon in Orlando? Yeah. Now that's a body of water. I also... Oh, go ahead if you had something. Oh, well, this is a long tangent. Did you have something? No, go ahead. We mentioned school uniforms earlier.

And when I was watching some of these, like, this is my life in Korea, or like, I moved to Korea now, so today I'm going to Lottie World. And one of them just very casually said, it's popular to dress in school uniforms at Lottie World. And one of them just very casually said, it's popular to dress in school uniforms at Lottie World. There's a couple places to rent school uniforms nearby. And I had to rewatch this whole segment of this video. And then I did find a news article from a Korean news outlet. I think that works in conjunction with the New York Times. And this is countrywide.

This is a thing that you can do. You can rent a school uniform close by to change into change out of your clothes, change into the school uniform. And then you go to the theme park. And I was like, oh, like oh god is this gonna be weird and it seems just like oh we just like taking nice pictures in it and it makes us feel like we're kids again was the justification and it is very popular like there were rows and rows of like shirts and vests and pants and ties and skirts this is what they should have done for your school pictures yeah you should have done for your school pictures

yeah you should have been renting school uniforms for the day yeah we never wore school uniforms before but for the pictures yeah it would have looked a lot nicer than the shitty fake tuxedo i my takeaway from this is that uh disney disney fans are leaving money on the table. Yeah. Not having like a rent Disney bounding rent clothes that look kind of like characters. When you rent uniforms, Jason and I headed down to Anaheim 8am. We make a quick stop outside of Anaheim to rent little boy school uniforms. We put them on.

We have the little shorts, like the Angus young from ACDC, a little shorts, little school boy outfit on. And then we go to Disney and feel more like kids than we already do why do i feel like a country that invented pizzagate will not get the joke yeah that's fair yeah that is currently eyeing the operations of this company and hoping for any slip up like oh i think it's like a pedo place ron desantis is furious at the rent the business of

renting little school boy outfits to adults and you by the your plan you are insisting that and thank you for leaving me out of the plan no i feel like you don't want to do it no i don't we'll meet you at the bar at the hotel yeah at lunchtime also it's possible you already own your own little school boy outfit and you'll just meet us down. Okay. You're not renting like Jason and I are. Yeah. I bought the finest schoolboy uniform. You're still fit for them. That's an investment, and I'll hold onto it.

It encourages me to stay in shape, so I don't outgrow it. You know me. I'm thrifty. I'm no sucker. So you're going to get a better rate on a big lolly outside the park, and then you carry the big lolly into the park.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as it's not too big to fit outside the park and then you carry the big lolly into the park. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as it's not too big to fit through the metal detectors. Yeah, right, right. That could be a problem. It's not clunk. Sorry, you're gonna have to lick some of the layers off of that

before I can let you come in. But my other thing about these schools, everyone in the school uniform rental place seemed like they were having a blast. And then when they were in the park all taking pictures together and taking pictures next to rides and stuff, everyone seemed like they were having so much fun. I was like, Oh,

I kind of get it. And then if you do the rapids, your, your nasty rental school uniform takes all the chlorine water and then you can change back into your regular clothes. You are on board. A hundred percent. And I think about it. Cause we didn't do the splash this. That's a great idea. And I want to think about it because we

didn't do the splash rides because we didn't want to get too sticky. Yeah. That's maybe a good idea theme park wide, I guess, is to let clothes absorb and then you leave those clothes. Renting clothes at theme parks should be a whole business out here. Or before you go into the parks at least.

Yeah. I mean, I said that it's a good idea and yet I do not want to do this myself. The fact that you used the word nasty before the water was part of it. I guess I don't want to pay money and then have nasty clothes handed to me. Well, no, the clothes seemed very pressed, very clean, very dry clean. Like, they seemed in good shape. Like, the headmaster of the school would not be upset with the quality of the clothes because you have they have to be like authentic to what like your

school experience they imagine a headmaster right try to uphold the headmaster's quality you're representing your fictional school when you go into this park so you gotta look neat and tidy i mean i will say as a person who had to wear a school uniform did anybody else have to wear a school uniform no no i did no one took out of school yeah it wasn't wasn't so uh embarrassing restrictive but i really like polyester pants and shorts they're just so easy to wear they're very breathable they don't crinkle i'm wearing polyester pants right now i and it's hard to find polyester and i would like to see an embracing of polyester as a wardrobe choice we've really demonized it and i'd like to associate it became this like uh 70s relic leisure suit do you find

it comfortable i guess i haven't worn a lot of polyester you do find it comfortable though it's not like a scratchy yeah irritating fabric like i'm a person who can't iron and so polyester pants you just feel a little bit slick all day. They don't. They're amazing. They're amazing. And my aunt, sorry, tiny polyester rant. My aunt is trying to make me pants like my favorite pants. But we can't find the polyester anymore.

They don't sell it. So having to buy vintage giant pants and then cut them down to be my size of pants. Why is that? Why don't they just sell like big, you can go to like a fabric store and get it? No. Yeah. We've really been checking. Wow. And so I don't know if sell like big, you can go to like a fabric store and get it? No. Yeah. We've really been checking. Wow.

And so I don't know if anybody has a bead on polyester out there. Anyways. Sorry. But if I could rent polyester and wear it all day and run around. Sure. And then you just throw it in a garment bag at the end of the day and put your T-shirt and jeans back on. Yeah, sure.

Miracle fabric. I had a lot of bad experiences growing up of Kmart dress, really shiny, too slick, uncomfortable polyester pants, I feel like. Because they didn't have a lot of options in the Husky Boys section. So I feel like it was the mix of limited selection and like, well well it's going to grow out of this anyway you know I made my fortune selling husky boy polyester selling a husky boy polyester suits and shirts in the 90s

were like really baggy too and it's come back around of course yeah kids are only getting huskier so there's a lot of opportunities for you you're taking over the business i don't know about that we never hear about the child obesity epidemic i feel like we were hearing about 10 15 years ago we don't hear about it anymore we're on to other things yeah there's other focuses yeah yeah the woke agenda mine well mind virus yeah yeah the borg they're

all these kids. They're all doing those Borgs, those gallons of water with vodka. What's a Borg? Do you know that Soppy Boys just did this? What is it? This is like the college getting fucked up. Like, did you ever do Edward Forty hands in college? I've heard of it, but I didn't participate. So this is.

Don't spike the levels, Mike. He wasn't accusing you. No. It was a simple question. I played Flippy Cup, but I did not do Edward Forty hands do it well this is like the the new get it's like okay you pour out half a gallon of water you pour in like a handle or a pint of vodka and then a full one of those mio flavoring things and you shake it up and you just drink that and it gets people insanely fucked up but also hydrated it's called Borg

Borg it's named after my favorite Star Trek yeah yeah yeah why is it called do we know why it's called Borg I don't know why it's called Borg huh interesting but I think it is it's not like the vodka tampons of like 10 years ago or whatever it's not like the Tide Pods where it's like oh this is made up like two people

did this like two couple people yeah this is made up. Like two people did this. And the rest of you had to write articles. This is a real thing. Multiple people listening right now are doing this. Are you doing a Borg and listening to this show? Let us know. Doing a Borg and watching the videos I bet would be more fun than the Smoke and Breathe.

Right through video? Yeah, right through videos are best paired with Borg-ing. I don't know if I'd Borg and do Fly Adventure. Yeah, yeah. There's the hangover ride. Depends, yeah. Could we real quick go back and just, there's a few more

characters we haven't talked about. Oh, sure, we missed everybody. I really apologize for the fact. So the characters, yeah, we talked about Maurice. We didn't, there's Lippy Louie, who's the aristocrat. But then I want to talk about Toulouse. Do you guys see Toulouse? You know, I don't see Toulouse.

Oh, wait, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, Toulouse, I'm, oh, oh, now I, oh, Toulouse. Okay, does Toulouse seem like another character? Yeah. Jason knows what I'm talking about. Scott, you know who I'm talking about as well? There's a character, of of course in the Duffyverse In Disney named Gelatoni

He's an Italian painter cat You're making a big leap that Amy knows the Duffyverse I'm not saying she knows that I explained what he is I put all the context I had right there Disney has like a stuffed animal There's a whole world of stuffed animals It's much more popular in the Asian parks

Than here and one of the characters Is an Italian painter. The only Duffy I know is Patrick Duffy. So I'm really glad that you guys are giving me this. He has his own Duffy verse as well. As a step-by-step fan. But I wonder, yeah. So I wonder who came first.

Toulouse maybe came first. Who do you think came first? You know what we've been. We've been looking at the whole history of this park together think look look inside your heart i don't want to admit you know who can give credit to your your pal gelatoni for coming first okay yeah toulouse looks a little phone i mean some of these characters like okay white bear the darling of the north pole he's got overalls and a cockeyed hat and a little uh cream cone. Sharon Cat, the glamorous

and pretty cat. And she has like a gown on and a feather boa. And human breasts. She's a cat with human breasts. I just want to make sure you see this too, Amy. Only two human breasts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless there's others under the gown that we're not seeing.

But you know, she's got Jessica Rabbit thing going on. Why do I feel like Sharon Cat is going to move in on Lottie? Oh, yeah lottie oh yeah but maybe yeah maybe it's okay maybe that's part of it part of the relationship which kind of lottie's girlfriend do you like i already have a pretty girlfriend so you have to find another quality if you want to be another one of my girlfriends do we feel that sharon katt and jenny hippo are sort of in our hel Helen test where we feel like sometimes the female characters get less fun names than the male characters. You know what I'm saying?

Sharon and Jenny? Sharon, Cat, and Jenny Hippo, which I do like sort of the like just a regular name and then an animal, but it does feel like it's not as fun as Digger Donkey or Burger Meister or Toulouse or Lippy Louie, even Lippy Louie. See, I think Sharon Cat and Jenny Hippo have a little bit of character but like Burger Meister or Toulouse or Lippy Louie, even Lippy Louie. See, I think Sharon Kat and Jenny Hippo have a little bit of character, but like Burger

Meister, the German bulldog, Mrs. Burger, talkative wife of Mr. Burger. Like those, I think are a little more fun. That does not pass the test. Yeah, yeah. When one character, when the male character has a name and the other one is just Mrs. male character, then that does not pass the test. I think we're in the zone of the Helen test. Yeah, a little bit.

They're getting lazier for sure. I'll tell you one thing. The character Fiddler does not pass the test of not being a ripoff of Jiminy Cricket. That's true, yes. That very specific test. Now, I will say, I did not see a lot of lore with these characters,

but I do believe they all showed up at one of the two parades that we saw. Because there's an indoor daytime parade where everybody marches around and then there's a nighttime parade called Dark Dreams and everybody marches around again but everything is covered in black lights and there's more Arabian stuff, more

genies, more lights glowing. But there are people inside of these marching. But I didn people inside of these marching. But I didn't even know their names, honestly. So I'm really glad to get to know more of the names than the ones that I saw statues of. I wish they were more central in the park. You got to do extra research.

You have to have, we've talked about this lately, have a needing to have extra reading materials for the thing in the park to make sense. To know the lore, the full lore. It doesn't seem ideal. There's something about like, oh, now I've learned more and it enriches the experience.

But it seems like you should kind of know who they are and why they're having a parade. I want to know why my ears have a cactus. Oh, yeah. You're right. None of the, because I had this character tab open and I looked as soon as you said that

and I don't see no character with a cactus head. I cannot account for that one i'm not sure any listeners if you've been to this place do you know this pathology really well you get cheese curds in la and do you know why the cactus is there the ears seem very popular i feel like one vlogger immediately walked inside and there was an ear stand and everyone was buying ears i think i have a picture of my ears i'm trying to pull it up oh great oh yeah and let us you know i i think most importantly of anything you've described if there is a good picture of that hot dog i feel like oh yeah we need to see it and the listeners need to see it um send us whatever later can i bring up i didn't realize this uh uh i think i saw the name years ago whenever this happened but there was a viral

video do you guys know what i'm talking about years ago whenever this happened but there was a viral video do you guys know what i'm talking about that was basically showing a ride that was kind of like a giant drop that looked crazy the gyro drop gyro yes that's the name of the actual ride and and someone did some uh special effects to make this ride look extra insane where it would be drop up and then like these like a bit like uh chairs would kind of drop out once it was at the top of its we're seeing we're seeing the kegs oh that looks like a little like that looks like a nice little like cactus pear kind of thing yeah yeah that's fun in the succulent i wonder why it's a very attractive why is it there i don't know that's

um i'm writing fantasy dream by the way. Wow. That's great. But you're right. There are like gyro drops in the whole thing. Because in addition to the rides, there's the carnival ride section, basically, where they've also got bumper cars and all the gyro dropy swings, the pirate ship, all of that. Yeah. So, yeah. But somebody made this to look like it was some insane.

Like a torture. Torture device, essentially. As if you're on this spinner ride and it goes way up on a tower and then every single seat is separately deployed and drops 50 feet in one second. They all swing around completely untethered to a vehicle. Right, like you're going- And then they get sucked back in and then the entire 150 feet it is a it's a really well done really well done except that you're watching it thinking this is just not physically possible there's no way this thing could move this quick so this is

the yeah so because this was going around i believed it all the car like the seats drop out as you go up and then the thing just yeah spins around and it does look like you're torturing a bunch of people at a very high a high distance oh that looks awesome um which i assume a human being could uh survive this but it looks scary as shit too good to be true it's just guy richie style drops like visual Right. It's incredible CGI. The people who created the genie created this. We're learning now. Is that the same CGI wizards were able to complete it.

Have a little respect. That's at least Sherlock Holmes Book of Shadows level quality CGI. All right. Fair enough. You're right. If we're winding it down, anything else you want to shout out ride-wise? Let's just grab bag anything else that was fun that you got to go on in this place. Well, I want to actually grab bag something that's right around the corner.

Ah. And it is a theme park that opened before Latte Land. It opened up in 1983. Uh-huh. It's called Youngma Land. And it is more of like your county fair kind of place. Mm-hmm. young maland and it is more of like your your county fair kind of place where there are like the the spinning copters and the the octopus who like scrambles you around and the in the carousel and everything about that but what is special about young maland is that when latte world opened

it just like killed it totally decimated it like ruined it nobody went there anymore so they finally shut down youngungma Land in 2011, but they kept it open as just a place you can go to, to wander around a destroyed and abandoned theme park. Wow. And it is amazing. Like it's so wild. I think it's $5 to get in. And there's this groundskeeper there and he just lets you do whatever, like total free range. They have the giant swinging pirate ship. You can climb on it. You can climb on anything you want. Like ladders and everything.

Like you can climb on like these big laser trains they have that sort of look like they were maybe a space ride back in the day. They have just everything stored together. So if you wanted to see like, you know, okay, kind of of uh you know like those supermarket rides even that they have for little kids where you can ride a little car up they have just like stacks and stacks of them just kind of heap together outside and you can kind of climb on them everything's a photo op you can just run around and just do whatever you want in this place oh yeah what i'm looking at here is like some kind of spinner ride similar to what we talked about at bowcraft where there's like airbrushed rock stars yeah they've got madonna on it they've got an airbrushed madonna on it

and also michael jackson like bad era michael jackson and then maybe i don't i don't really recognize if these are we're supposed to know who these are or are they ish lopper ish lopper yeah uh julio esca glacius i i don't know but but then there's photos of this is just like Cindy-ish Lopper-ish. Cindy-ish Lopper. Yeah. Julio-esque Iglesias. I don't know. But then there's photos of this is just like, this is just this ride with nobody on it. But then there seem to be photos of people just in the middle. Like they got to climb on and kind of surf in the middle. Yeah, you can do that.

It seems like a potential for danger maybe. But also like it's cool that the guy's just like yeah i don't know your own peril just go run around i don't care they don't make you sign a waiver at all it's one of the most freeing places i've ever been in because you can just climb you can climb if there's everything is overgrown there's weeds on the different roofs at the only facilities i have is like a bathroom stall and i think like a a little what do you call it? Concession? Vending machine. A vending machine where you can buy like sodas. And that's it. Otherwise, it's just like you pay the five bucks, you can do whatever. And if the guy who kind of keeps an eye on things,

not to tell you to stop, but just to make sure nothing gets stolen, I guess, he does this one thing where there's this giant pool of water kind of by the carousel. And I thought that it was just, you know, a leak or a mistake, but it's this deliberately filled shallow pool of water that the guy does, because if you're nice, he'll take your camera and he'll take the most beautiful photo of you you've ever seen, where you're reflected in this pool of water in front of the carousel. And I have a Samsung phone cause I won't do iPhone stuff. And so he like grabbed my Samsung phone, switched all these buttons on it that I don't know how he did. And I've never been able to figure it back and took just like the Spielberg photo of me and my boyfriend kissing of my life. Wow.

Really? Did he direct you in the, like, did he pose you too? He posed us. He directed us. I'll dig this out in a second too. And it's just stunning. Wow. So this man is an artist. This park a second too and it's just stunning wow so this man is an artist this park is amazing and it's just frozen there's a there's like tiny little kids roller

coasters frozen in midair and i feel like if you wanted jungle gym up there he wouldn't stop you wow what's that did you do anything where you were like this is dangerous did you climb anything when i climbed i did climb the ladder in the center of the pirate ship because the pirate ship is my favorite ride and so i yeah i climbed up there pretty far i got covered in mosquito bites so there was a minute where i was like i should not have worn shorts here so i'd recommend not wearing shorts there yeah we got on roofs of things oh no the best one was you know those little carnival rides that you can go on where you're sort of sitting in it's like a kidney bean shaped metal chair and it's all enclosed so the ride can flip the metal chair around and around do you know what i mean so sure yeah you can get in those and he'll just he does not give

a shit if you're pushing your friend into circles oh real okay yeah so that was that was probably the most dangerous thing we did wow this is this is kind of a dream to do this. It feels both scary and exciting. Yeah, and there's just statuary everywhere and it's broken. There's a tiny cop man by the entrance and his hand is broken off and there's Sailor Moon and she's just beat to hell. She's just like somebody just ripped her stomach

out of her chest. Yeah. Oh, scary. And the $5 is like an official booth you give the five or is it you just slip the guy $5? He is sometimes at the booth. But yeah, very casual. Very casual. There's not a ticket or anything.

And I don't think I saw anybody else working there. There's like one employee? Yeah. This feels like a dream. It's magical. It's so magical. It's almost as good as Latte Land. Just getting to run around this place for 90 minutes.

It's just like the flip side of the coin. It's like, you know, here's the fancy high tech one. And then that killed this park. But they found something cool to do with this park, too. It's like a good dismal land or something. Like it's a decaying park, but you get to have fun running around. It's not. Yeah, it's not.

Making a point about commercialism. Yeah, no politics in my failed parks. They ran the numbers of like, okay, it's too much of a liability for the backpack urban explorer guys to come into this abandoned place. Oh, yeah. But if we open the gate of the abandoned place it's less liability than we're just a walk around park and that keeps our bills lower than letting the backpack guys break in every other right yeah it's smart it's smart to turn it around on the backpack guys it's magical so both i mean both of these places just like utterly trippy dreamlike. You get your world of 200 polished candy canes and lollipops,

but then you get your several decaying figures as well that you can climb on and kick. Yeah, your decaying walrus that you can just mount. Wow. If you ever wanted to mount a decaying walrus. Magical. South Korea is the place for you. Jeez, that's beautiful. I don't know. Any closing thoughts here on the way? I mean, this makes me want to King. Magical. South Korea is the place for you. Jeez, that's beautiful.

I don't know. Any closing thoughts here on the way? I mean, this makes me want to go. I know, yeah. There's this like monorail that has like a little character space. Oh, yeah. There's also a whole like cute animal monorail. I know.

That looks really great. But yeah. So there's probably plenty of stuff we could talk about. Yeah. And if you want the lotte world experience at home there is a in the spirit of them ripping things off there is a roller coaster tycoon mobile game rip off latte world tycoon uh which is a one star pretty universally oh man i'm gonna play a terrible mobile game and not get the experience of this place.

You can. Too bad. Jeez. But hey, thank you so much for bringing this to the table here. A wonderful place that I'd like to go. I don't know when the hell we'll get to go. But listeners, you got to go. I think mainly you got to go to to beyond the land.

Right. That first. And if you have time, go to the right. The giant one. Thank you for letting me revisit two of the most magical days of my life. Oh, my God. I'm so i am so glad you could geez and thank you for bringing them to the table for us amy nicholson you survived podcast the ride uh this is wonderful uh let's exit through the gift shop anything you'd like to plug i uh yeah i do my podcast with paul sheer i'm sure y'all know and love that man

he's the greatest yeah yeah and our show is just called unspooled we started by doing the entire afi top 100 going through all of them and seeing if they were as good as people said they were we ended up kicking 60 of the films up from the afi list off the top 100 and now we're just rebuilding so we're going on little detours we're about to do young frankenstein oh cool oh wow we're filling in the holes that weren't filled because it's just like we love Spielberg. He gets nine movies. Sure, sure. Yeah. I do you like then do you pick those? Like, is that just things that you've suspected should be on there or that you're passionate? Or why? I like or are you dipping into like the numbers 101 through 200? How does how does it work?

We are following our curiosity. So it's been nice. We did In Bruges earlier this year, a movie that I deeply, deeply, deeply love. And then Paul made a case for us to do John Wick and I got to talk about what's wrong with John Wick. So yeah. Is Guy Ritchie sneaking on there? Has he gotten one in?

You know, I do kind of want to go back and watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels oh yeah I haven't watched that in a while that and Snatch I remember both being

liking them a lot in high school those were cool movies at the time they were very cool yes like that and Boondock Saints they were cool

and we were cool too Michael well yeah of course we still are yeah we of course we are there has been no cultural fade to Boondock Saints. No.

Exactly where it was at the time. No way. Well, yes, check out Unspooled. Check out all of Amy's writing. And check out, please send us some pictures if you can. I'm so curious to see some of these epic shots you got. We didn't even talk. I wanted to talk about Pitbull today, but we didn't have time.

Are you like, that's right, Pitbull. We have talked about Pitbull, yeah. The greatest live show on the planet. But even talk, we didn't even talk about, I want to talk about Pitbull today, but we didn't have time. Are you like, that's right, Pitbull. We've talked about Pitbull, yeah. The greatest live show on the planet. But that's, we don't have time.

So sorry, you come back and we'll talk about Pitbull. We can talk about Pitbull and we can talk about the theme park in Guatemala. Oh, wow,

yes. Oh, that's great. Yes, please, anytime. As you're bringing us some stuff we truly have not covered,

taking us to real other worlds. We haven't done enough Pitbull. And there's not been a full Pit bull episode. Certainly that. So that's that's high on the priorities now. But thank you so much. As for us, you can find us on all the socials at podcast.

The ride merch is available in our T public store for three bonus episodes every month. Check out podcast to read the second gate or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier club three. You'll find all of that at Patreon dot com slash podcast. The ride as well as it just depends on Jason's feelings about it once he sees the photo. If you put the high school fake breakaway tux photo on, if you make it for the world to see, or if you pay wallet. I, oh, oh, it's my decision. I guess so. Is that right?

I guess it should be your decision. Well, no, no. It really shouldn't have been. Although we should have an official vote here. Maybe Scott and I can all vote you. Seems really shouldn't have been. We should have an official vote here. Maybe Scott and I can vote you. Seems like that's already been decided. Amy, vote?

I believe that you should. Get the addresses of all the listeners and send them a physical copy. That's what I vote for. Go back, get the negatives from the nice little photo taking place. And you pay for the shipping. You pay for the photos. You pay, not Scott and I.

You pay. That's what I voted for. I voted for that one as well, yes. Okay. All right. Wallet-sized high school photos of Jason coming to all the listeners. Coming to your mailbox soon, yes. Okay, bye.

Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram, at Forever Dog Team, and liking our page on Facebook.