We were actually at the "Seal Day" event hosted by the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro - supporting a friend's booth. Her son was in Charlie's kindergarten class last year and she is also now my optometrist - hence the "eye" in this photo below:
The boys were dressed up as there was a costume contest at Seal Day. Graham is Iron-man and Charlie is... a Power Ranger??! No wait, he is a Transformer here + mask but as you can see, the outfit is waaaaay toooooo small! The outfit comes up to his calves now. Haha! So we made him change :-D
Anyhow, on the way out, we noticed that the gate to the Fort MacArthur Museum was open. So we parked and decided to take a stroll:
Woah!!! Impressive!!!
It's amazing how well preserved this place is, considering it was formally created in 1914! I guess it is made out of cement :-) It was a training center during WW1 and the first large gun batteries for harbor defense were installed in 1917:
We entered one of these rooms and there were still old radios and even old newspapers from WWII as well:
We went down these steep stairs:
Into a tunnel... it's crazy to think that this was what was being used during the war!
This is where the gun would have been:
What a view!!!
You can see the Korean Friendship bell in that pavilion (towards the left). We are overlooking Angel's Gate park here. The bell was presented by the S. Korean government to the US in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial of the US and to symbolize friendship between the two countries.
I obviously can't read Korean so struggled to figure out what these two figurines represented:
What a beautiful pavilion, also known as the Belfry of Friendship:
Here is a close-up of the bell. Looks like Statue of Liberty holding hands with... wait, "Goddess of Liberty" which bears some resemblance to the Statue of Liberty. Guess I should have read up on it first! And the other figure is a Korean spirit figure named "Seonnyeo" who is holding the S. Korean national symbol:
Beginning in 2010, the bell is struck 5 times a year with a large wooden log (slightly seen left of the bell):
The colors and patterns on the ceiling of the pavilion are so pretty:
Time for a we-fie! I think Charlie was crying/being grumpy about something here so he was hiding behind me:
Looks like this is the place to fly kites too:
Absolutely gorgeous ocean view:
And on the other side, the view of the harbor and lots of homes:
We are definitely learning a lot of history around here!
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