The Setting: April 2010, a cool spring morning.
The Place: Shilla Millennium Park, Gyeongju, Korea.
The Story: Adventure!
Shilla Millennium Park is like an amalgamation of Colonial Williamsburg and Epcot Center; it's chock full of culture, history, and other vag-tastic stuff that parents try to sell their kids because they don't want to take them to Six Flags. Among its many--I hesitate to use the word "attractions" because they don't really attract anyone...more like "things you see on a mandatory class trip-ions"--are life-size monuments, park-like grounds, and an army of listless reenactors whose expressionless faces make you feel a little better about the decisions you've made in life.
To-scale model of a trash bin
To-scale model of underwhelmed children
But on this particular day, during an otherwise peaceful celebration on the park's main performance stage, disaster struck! Right in the middle of a traditional Korean dance parade composed of what appeared to be the smallest village in the whole Shilla kingdom, an enemy vessel sailed into the unguarded port next to the town square/royal bedchambers. The local sentries were taken off-guard as the hostile forces slew man upon man with wooden swords and well-choreographed fight sequences.
Asian rappers often cite this battle as a call to end yellow-on-yellow violence.
By the end of the massacre the village lay in ruin, and the invading army returned to their ship drunk on victory and probably low-grade soju from backstage. It was indeed a dark day for this town/city/empire (it was never really explained, in English anyway).
This was the best I got.
But just when all hope seemed dashed to bits--by wooden swords--a group of brave and inexplicably alive villagers mounted their ship cleverly hidden behind a stage curtain and pursued their attackers with a vengeance. In a hail of cannon fire and ear-splitting digital sound effects, the two vessels met head to head on the briny, capricious wakes of the waist-high pool. What ensued was one of the bloodiest naval battle reenactments ever to take place in the history of Korean education-themed amusement parks.
Each actor represents between 1 and 1,000 people.
In the end our heroes emerged victorious and the kingdom was saved, thus ending a tale of Korean gallantry and perseverance that to this day serves as a paradigm for the nation's noble cell phone manufacturers and AAA baseball players. To witness it firsthand was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, available for viewing at 10:30am & 2:30pm Monday-Friday, with a third performance added on weekends, weather permitting.
And what trip to an edu-musement park would be complete without seeing a guy riding on a horse shooting a bow and arrow at stuff?
Surely not this one.
In fact throughout the years of class trips and family vacations taken as a child, I don't think I've ever NOT seen a guy riding on a horse shooting a bow and arrow at stuff. Gettysburg, The Alamo, even Alcatraz Island, which in retrospect was a little misguided but hey it made for good entertainment, and it taught me almost as much about the history of our nation's penal system as did Sean Connery in The Rock.
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen" is a line that I still say to myself when I'm in a harrowing and painful situation, like riding my bike up a really big hill.
As I made my way to the park exit, which at this point seemed to be many lifetimes in the distance, I saw on the hill in front of me one of the most recognizable sights in all of Korea, a replica of the Bell of King Seongdeok.
Also known as the Emille Bell, this 1,300 year-old artifact, which now resides in the National Museum of Gyeongju, is the largest preserved bell in the entire country, and a symbol of the Korean people's industry and engineering prowess.
Standing at over 12 feet high and weighing approximately 19 tons, the bell is embroidered with beautifully intricate floral patterns and East Asian calligraphy. This true-to-life replica seated proudly atop the park's tallest hill gives all of its visitors a priceless taste of the fortitude, history, and dynamism that embodies the nation of Korea today...
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