got rice?: The Millennium Empire, Day 2

We had big plans for Sunday, May 31st. Since our camera died on Saturday before we could get any pictures of the royal burial mounds, we were going to try to visit as many of those as we could, and since a big temple was on the way, we planned on stopping there first. However, there were many tourist attractions in the vicinity of our hotel so we decided to check out a few of those before we started on the others. After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel (lots of bread and butter, fruits, and hot soup) we headed in the general direction of the Silla Millennium Park, the Gyeongju World Expo, and an amusement park. We decided on the Silla Millennium Park because Katie gets sick on roller coasters and the expo looked a little lame.

It turned out to be a good decision because the Silla Millenium Park was a lot of fun and there was so much to do that we ended up spending the entire day there (by "entire" I mean 10:30-3... we had to get back to the bus station because the bus back to Tongyeong only departs four times on Sundays).

Statues of the twelve zodiac animals lined the entrance to the park

Katie posing under the ox. Our 1985 birth dates make us oxen! :P

At 11:00 there was a Korean play at the main stage. The play was about the founding of Korea, the invasion of the Chinese, and the battle to regain control of Korea in which the Koreans were victorious, obviously! The entire play was in Korean, so we didn't understand any of what was said, but we pieced most of the story line together for you.

The founder of Korea ascends the waterfall/cliff-boulder elevator and discovers Korea. A vacant castle was awaiting his arrival.

The Chinese come and conquer Korea despite half of their army being flag-bearers

The Koreans discover the three heavenly treasures that will aid them in their efforts to reclaim Korea as their own. The first of these is the gigantic flaming sword.

The second is the suit of armor that is way too big for anyone to wear

And, of course, the third and final heavenly treasure is the magical flute that comes out of the enormous jug (this is a terrible picture, but it's the only one we have of the flute, sorry). It seems magical flutes are as helpful in Korea as they are in Mario 3.

Armed with the three heavenly treasures and a high ratio of flag-bearers, the Koreans storm to victory.

All of Korea celebrates! The end

After the play was over, we started exploring the rest of the park. There were a couple other stages that were for little kids, like the puppet stage. What Katie and I found interesting were the areas where they had different crafts on display, such as wooden carvings, pottery, glass painting, etc. They also had historical areas where they had replicas of people's homes and how they changed throughout the centuries. We could never tell the difference between the different homes and since none of the signs were in English we never found out anything about it, but it was still fun and interesting.

A bunch of clay people

Katie mimicking a carved wooden face

Asian Mr. Magoo!!!

Us with our clay friends

This is how we would have looked if we lived in Korea 1500 years ago

A random waterfall - great for a hot day

Later in the day, there was another event at the opposite side of the park in an arena. Here are Silla warriors wielding flags, yet again.

(note from katie: these guys reminded me of a part in

Mulan...remember the part where all the chinese troops are finally getting awesome and they do all the cool karate-type moves? totally what these warriors did. it was great.)