So the phoenix comes and kills the dragon and the Power Care Bear Rangers win!

The first theme of this blog post is animals! Ironically, there are no real live animals involved... Well there's one--Guess what kind of exotic animal I happened to capture on film in South Korea and win a prize. The second theme is fireworks.
The title of this post kind of gives away the ending, but how the hell do we get there? A phoenix killing a dragon? More importantly, I know you're thinking... Power Care Bear Rangers? I thought they were just a legend! Nope. They just live in Korea.

Let's begin. I was walking around my city (Ansan) one day trying to find the library and wandered into a big park, entitled Lake Park. Lake Park is filled with really cool things like: a lake, giant flower gardens, hearts made of flowers, a skate park(!), and a form of zoo I've never seen before.



Aforementioned heart made of flowers.
*side note: aforementioned is a ridiculous yet useful word that I'll never use again.

Most interesting is a big field in the park with all kinds of animals in it. But, they're just statues. Still, the statues are life-sized and pretty cool looking, so I was impressed.

Lions,

tigers,

and panda bears. OH MY!

Aww but they're such a cute panda bear family...

Taller than the trees. That's why giraffes didn't survive in Korea.

The polar bears just don't seem to fit in do they?

Later I met one of my friends at her college, Kookmin University.

These dragons greet you at the entrance, but these are good dragons--protectors. Not like the evil dragon we will encounter later.

We wandered into the Art building and they had a neat sculpture exhibit.

This is clearly of Dr. Seuss influence.











Her brain has evolved.








My friend, with some little girl statues that soon came to life and started killing everyone.







They made me one of them, so I survived.

A giant head obviously needs a giant hand to scratch it.

Next up, my first Korean theme park experience--EVERLAND! Everland wants to be like Magic Kingdom, but not quite as cool since it's lacking Disney characters. There was just one really cool roller coaster--it was new but made of wood, claiming it had the steepest drop of any wooden coaster in the world. I believe it. I rode it twice. I'd talk more about the park, but the rest of it was mostly balls and I don't want to bore you. It was still fun.

Right to left: Allyson (from Ohio State! Gator Bait!); Lee; and yours truly

From right to left: Pear; Apple; Pumpkin
aka Tweedle-dee; Tweedle-dum; Tweedle-deedum

We went in October, so there was a Halloween theme. There were performances and a parade with the Halloween spirit as well.

Tim and Nina

For those of you playing along at home, here it is. The real, live animal. A camel! Who could've guessed that?

Sir Leon the Mark

Two losers...Nhan and He-ran

Ok, other than the rollercoaster, the most exciting part of Everland was the final light and firework show. It was crazy. It had a live performance with the five Power Care Bear Rangers that really looked like friendly bears dressed in power ranger fiber-optic-light-up suits: white, red, green, blue, and pink rangers. They were fighting some Demon Lord. There was smoke and lasers and pyrotechnik explosions and fire and it was awesome.



Here's the White Ranger, the leader of course.
Wish I had pictures of all of them, but just imagine this guy in the different colors and you'll have the right idea.














The enemy: Aku from Samurai Jack

Aku called out his evil fire-breathing Dragon zord to kill off the Power Care Bear Rangers. Click to enlarge and see the dragon better. Keep in mind this is HUGE, because I'm over a football field away from it.

But, the White Ranger called in his psychedelic, color-changing Phoenix zord to vanquish the Dragon.

Color-

Changing

(btw Those red, green, orange, blue, and yellow beams are multicolored flamethrowers. I could feel the heat from where I was standing. Awesome)

Cue 15-minute nonstop, shell-shocking fireworks for the finale.

Next up, more fireworks. My pal and coworker, Victor and I traveled to Busan for the Busan Fireworks Festival--my second trip to SK's second largest city.

We met some chicas.

And some crazy people.

And somehow saw the only firework show that could top what we saw at Everland. They had fireworks shaped like hearts! They had flying bird things that were shedding rainbow sparkler fountains. And an entire bridge was choreographed into the show.

Nothing left to say

See you next time. (씨 유 넼스트 타임)