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Published: October 16th 2006
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The Statue of Brothers
This is the statue that symbolizes the unification of two brothers on the battlefield. The larger of the two is fighting for South Korea, whereas the smaller is from North Korea. During midweek I did a little traveling. On the Tuesday we went into Seoul and checked out the Korean National War Memorial. Kovats was running around like a little 5 year old kid because being a history major and all, he loved seeing all the tanks, artillery, airplanes, missiles and other war equipment. I'll admit, it was all pretty cool to see but I wasn't nearly half excited as he was. The Wednesday consisted of a trip to Everland - the Korean equivalent to Disney Land
Most of all the large transportation equipment was outside the actual "museum" part. I found this odd because you could see all this stuff without paying; it wasn't until you went inside that you had to pay....and even then, it was only 3,000 Won ($3). One well known statue is of two brothers embracing one another, called "The Statue of Brothers". The short story behind it says that two brothers fighting for different sides meet on the battlefield. The larger, older soldier is fighting with the South. Where as the younger, smaller soldier is fighting with the North. War in general sucks, but it's especially sad to think of a war in which you
would have to fight against your own family.
Moving on, it was cool being able to see into the cargo holds of the airplanes, specifically the F-5A (US) fighter plane used by South Korea in 1965 against the North Korean MiG-19 (Russian) "supersonic fighter". I also got to see into the cockpit of a fight helicopter - the AH-1 Cobra (US, used by South Korea). I enjoyed this because it looked very similar to the newer version, AH-64 Apache Attack helicopter.
Once inside the actual building we got to walk through a timeline of events leading up to, during and after the Korean War (1950-53). The layout and design of the timeline was well done. Normally I find myself a little bored in museums and such, but this one was really informative and interesting. It included brief videos, an electronic display showing both the North and South pushes of the front line and various pieces of memorabilia from both sides. There was also a large section dedicated to the troops brought in by the United Nations and of all the UN forces, which percentage came from the contributing countries. All in all, it was an enjoyable day off
LVT-P3
This is a picture of a LVT-P3 Landing Vehicle supplied by the US and used by South Korea. It is used on land and in the water. work!
Wednesday was a fun-filled day spent at the Korean theme park called Everland. This place was pretty crazy. Considering I haven't been to Disney Land or Disney World, I'd say Everland takes the cake for the largest theme park I've been to. The property and associated buildings take up a huge piece of land. However, there is a shortage of rides (mainly the lack of rollercoaster’s) compared to what is at Canada's Wonderland. Everland is a fantasy park based on weird, random characters such as the cloned sheep, named Sheepo..? The other two main characters are two things which I believe are mice, but I'm not so sure...
Being close to Halloween and all, the park is totally decked out with Halloween EVERYTHING!! As soon as we walked into the park the first gate that you walk through is a giant jack-o-lantern. After that pretty much every bench, lamp pole and storefront is surrounded in some sort of Halloween theme. I went into one store that sold strictly Lego. For me this was great because I've always had a fascination/love for Lego. Anyways, they had a few life size characters of Harry Potter and Tiger from Winnie
Transport
This vehicle was used to transport soldiers. It says it could hold 30 men plus the three crew members. It would definately be a tight squeeze. the Pooh, so I had to take a picture.
We went on a lot of the rides, and also a very popular attraction called Safari Tour (we stood in line for almost an hour and a half!!....but for a good reason...). For this tour we got on a bus and they drove it into a fenced off area (kind of like African Lion Safari). The tour includes tigers, lions, bears, giraffes, an elephant and zebras. However, the best part and whole reason why Kovats and I toughed it out in line for so long was because....they have two ligers!!! For those that don't know, ligers are a combination of tigers and lions. They are also possibly the largest cat on earth. We had heard about ligers back home in Canada, so as soon as we heard that Everland had some we got pretty excited. To our disappointment, the two ligers we saw were nowhere near the size as the one we saw in the picture (I did however just Google ligers and saw two different pictures showing sizes proportional to what we originally saw). The pictures that we originally saw show an animal standing with its back at about
Sherman Tank
This is a Sherman Tank (US) used by the South. the chin of a full grown man!
To top off my experience at Everland, at night they had a ten minute show with fireworks, a laser light show and roughly a 100 ft. fire breathing dragon!! This was one of the most amazing firework shows I've ever seen. When the fireworks did go off, the noise was similar to that of cannon. They were so loud with so many fireworks shooting in every direction that I was in awe. The part that amazes me the most is that they do the exact same show every single night! How a park does a show of such a great magnitude every night, I don't know. It was definitely a highlight of the theme park/week!
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