South Korea’s scariest tourist attraction

I did my best to put on a brave face, but this terrifying tourist attraction left me shaking and wiping tears from my eyes.

I’d always considered myself a bit of a closeted wuss, able to hide my fear of ‘scary’ things by plastering a wide smile on my face.

But I was recently ‘outed’ during a trip to South Korea.

For background, I had been invited to check out the East Asian island by Jetstar, which operates three return flights from Sydney to Seoul each week.

One of the activities organised for our group was a trip to Nami Island, which is just an hour from Seoul.

It’s a charming little island that attracts more than 1 million visitors per year — mostly because it is an Instagrammers paradise.

There are stunning tree-lined paths, quaint coffee shops and restaurants, plenty of wildlife including ostriches and squirrels, and cute peddle boats that look like swans.

The ferry to Nami Island.

Are these trees stunning or what?

Visitors have two options to get to Nami Island: by ferry, or by zip line.

Much to my internal horror my tour group opted for the latter.

The zip line from the wharf to Nami Island is almost 950m long, with harness-clad passengers flying over the Bukhan river at speeds of almost 80km per hour.

To get to the starting point, the nine people in our group all crammed into a rickety elevator for an agonisingly slow climb to the top of the 80-metre-tall launch tower.

Once there, we stepped out onto the small platform and were greeted by three staff members who began running us through a safety demonstration.

Several people in our group were noticeably nervous, but not me, nope, I was grinning like a kid who’d just been given a free can of coke by a Black Thunder pilot.

Deep down inside though, I was packing it.

The zip line tower. Terrifying.

Putting on a brave face.

When we were fully briefed and had been shown how to properly sit in the zip line harness, the staff members asked who wanted to go first.

I remained quiet, purely because I’m a gentleman and thought it was only right to let some of the females in the group go first.

I honestly felt sick as I watched my fellow travellers pair up, get strapped in, and fly down the zip line over the open water.

And then it was my turn.

I was about to get strapped into the zip line seat on the right when I had a vision of the line snapping mid-flight … very Final Destination of me.

I quickly asked Kelli, who was my partner for the terrifying experience, if it was OK to swap to her seat on the left instead.

She agreed, presumably because I asked with such a big smile on my face.

My nerves were peaking as I sat in my new harness, and it suddenly popped into my head that I’d never taken the time to write a will.

Who would end up with my collection of Golden Girls DVDs if this thing went badly, I thought to myself.

And then it happened - The safety gate swung open and the staff member hit the launch button, sending me flying through the air at an ungodly speed.

The view from the top.

It’s a long way down.

I did my best to block out the fear and focus on the advice in the safety briefing: “Keep your legs straight out in front of you”.

It was a simple instruction, but it proved rather difficult for me as I could NOT stop my right leg from violently shaking as I plummeted towards the island.

Tears started streaming down my face due to the wind stinging my eyes, and as the ride started to mercifully come to an end, I wiped them away and forced myself to smile, knowing those in the group who did the ride earlier would be watching my reaction as I touched down on Nami Island.

I laughed heartily (pure acting) as I got out of the harness and walked towards the group, convinced I had successfully managed to hide my sheer and utter terror at the ordeal I’d just been through.

And then Kelli sidled up next to me and announced loudly in front of everyone: “Gees, your leg was really shaking up there!”

The group looked at me, my smile faded, the truth had been revealed

“OK, I’m a big wuss,” I told them. “But I swear the tears were actually from the wind!”

They didn’t buy it.

Pretty huh?

The tears were from the wind, I swear!

Other highlights from South Korea

Nami Island is just one of the many incredible places to visit and experience in South Korea.

You can check out some of the other great things to do in the video at the top of this article, but I would highly recommend visiting N Seoul Tower, sampling some Korean BBQ, walking around the stunning Starfield Library, and taking a tour of the DMZ to get a peek into North Korea.

Jetstar adds more flights

Jetstar has been flying between Sydney and Seoul for just over a year and is set to add a fourth weekly flight from February next year due to popular demand.

At the moment, you can snap up a one-way flight from Sydney to Seoul for as little as $359.

The airline is also launching a new route between Brisbane and Seoul early next year.

This writer travelled to South Korea as a guest of Jetstar