Yeosu Expo 2012: Sky Tower Overview

After a largely uneventful train ride from Yongsan station to Yeosu Expo station, conveniently across the street from Gate 3, I converted my internet ticket for my Expo pass, stowed my overnight bag in the last (whew!) available locker, and made my way to the "Sky Tower", a pair of converted cement silos that are the tallest edifice at Expo 2012, and also the location of the Observation Deck.

When I joined the line, this was the first thing that greeted me:


A wonderfully frozen cold pack, that was welcome indeed even after only a half-hour in the searing heat. This was the second:


The attendant said the wait was 1 hr 30 min., but it was actually 20 min. less than that. The Sky Tower is 73 m. tall, which is no kind of record, but it also contains a pipe organ, which now officially holds the Guinness Record for Loudest Pipe Organ. You can see the pipes in the middle pic, and the bottom pic is the booth where the organist sits:




From this bird's-eye view, you can see the whole site laid out: top, the massive building is the International Pavilion, with all the national pavilions (except Korea's) inside it; the second shot shows the water (the Expo theme is 'The Living Ocean and Coast'), with the Theme Pavilion and 'The Big-O' in the middle ground, and the fancy-schmancy on-site hotel at the back. The orange-roofed block behind the Big-O is the Aquarium; the bottom picture faces east and shows the Energy Park at far left, the sponsor organizations at mid left (such as the UN, the BIE--World's Fair organizing group--and Korail, etc), and the Korean mega-corps including the funky Hyundai pavilion, Samsung, SK, LG and GS/Caltex. To the right of GS would be Lotte, then Posco.




The Hyundai pavilion was a crowd favorite, though I'm not sure why--sure, the video had some cool features (and I may show it in an upcoming video I'm going to cobble together)--but the biggest attraction was the robots. And you didn't even have to go through the exhibit to see them. They were doing their song-and-dance routine in the plaza in front of the building, not the staging area for entry or exit. The wait for the pavilion was about 45 min., but the wait to get my picture taken was less than ten.



After entering the Sky Tower facility, but before going up to the observation deck in the glass elevator, there is an inside theater which shows a four minute or so video featuring a CGI dragon and scenic panoramas of the Korean countryside. When you leave the Sky tower, you go through an area which shows off a desalination system (converting salt water into the potable kind). As a bonus, you get to keep the cup!