South Korea Welcomes March of the Santa Penguins

(Nov. 17) -- It was "March of the Penguins" meets "March of the Wooden Soldiers" in South Korea as a popular amusement park opened the holiday season this week.

This little guy was one of a dozen penguins dressed as Santa and his reindeer at the Everland amusement park in Yongin, just south of Seoul.

The "reindeer" penguins sported antlers, which, oddly, appeared to sprout from their backs -- probably because penguin heads aren't really designed for silly hats.

And as the little procession waddled past cheering children, a man in a Santa costume tossed fake snow into the air.

Since penguins don't live anywhere near Santa's North Pole workshop -- in fact, except for the Galapagos penguin, none of them have a natural habitat above the equator -- getting them to South Korea took some real Christmas magic.

Either that or just a trip over to Everland's zoo, which features these endangered African penguins, also known as jackass penguins because of the unusual braying sound they're known to make.

The annual Santa penguin procession kicks off Everland's winter festival, "Christmas Fantasy." The celebration features a street decorated with 2 million lights, a themed area with 80 Christmas trees, artificial snowfall, Christmas parades and a holiday-themed fireworks show.

Everland is South Korea's largest amusement parks and one of the world's busiest, with more than 6 million visitors a year according to Coaster Grotto.

That makes it the world's No. 2 non-Disney theme park in terms of attendance, and ranks it ahead of well-known theme parks such as Disney's California Adventure and both Universal Studies theme parks in Florida.