28/09/05: In which we experience “The Happiest Homecoming on Earth”
Friday, 23 December, 2005
We're up on time and out the door by 9 am. Traffic was absolutely horrendous and I was glad Kenneth was driving and not me; being on the wrong side of the road was disorienting just being in the passenger seat. I fell asleep in the car as we drove all the way across the city.
I woke up as we reached Disneyland. They dropped me and Ben off and we caught a tram from the parking site to the entrance of the theme parks and to Downtown Disney. Part of me thinks that all of LA is just a movie façade with sets giving you the illusion of what's there—which is nice, but not necessarily real, and it makes you keep looking for the reality behind all of that.
We lined up to have our bags inspected by the staff. There were lots of people everywhere. We bought tickets—1 Park for 1 Day (USD $56/head)—but we forgot to specify which park (there are two; the normal Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. I had left it up to Ben to choose and he decided on Disney's California Adventure as I'd never been there before. The last time I came to Disneyland was 1990). We had been telling the girl at the box office that we were from Australia and that Ben had never been there before and I guess she just assumed we wanted to go to plain old Disneyland. Anyways, the lady at the gate sorted us out (since it was just the same price) and we were in.
(NB: To do both parks in the one day costs more and really you'd be too exhausted to do it. I think that ticket option is just there for the foolhardy or to push the majority of customers into buying the 2-Park 3-Day pass.)
Already the sun was beating down upon us and I was glad that Uncle Joe and Auntie Ruth had gotten us to take water bottles as Disney's California Adventure had very little shade cover. We went first to the white water rapids and got soaked.
Quite nice for a hot day. And then we went to Soaring Over California which was air conditioned (they strap you into a rows of chairs that lift up off the ground in front of this massive floor-to-ceiling screen where they screen footage of landscapes to make you feel like you're really flying over California).
By this time it was lunchtime and we were hungry so we went to the Hollywood Backlot where Ben said he felt like having a hot dog (being in America and all). We ate at umbrella-covered tables on the sidewalk while Mickey Mouse signed autographs and took pictures with little kids in the background.
(I had this great idea for a photo: Ben holding a sprawling Mickey Mouse in a headlock. But Ben would have none of it though.)
We had a quick look in the shops but there wasn't much there, although I was sorely tempted by The Muppet Show Season 1 on DVD. Instead we went into Muppet 3D (which was the best thing about the park, in my opinion!)
Outside there were all these props, including crates containing Miss Piggy's luggage (labelled with things like “hats” and “more hats”) and a statue of Beaker being subjected to some wicked machine:
Going in, we found everyone sitting or standing around in this room which had all these TV screens across it, featuring various Muppets telling us what was going on and giving us a bit of a “pre-show” show (e.g. Sam American Eagle singing a song and Rizzo the Rat dressed up as Mickey Mouse). We were given 3D glasses and ushered into the big theatre where Statler and Waldorf called out their sarcastic comments from their usual box. There was an orchestra of penguins in the pit and the Chef was apparently running the projector (and firing off the occasional cannon).
The film was an oddly postmodern with all sorts of Muppet mayhem thrown in for good measure and a large serving of let's-get-the-audience-to-experience-some-of-the-reality thrown in (so it rained on us, there was actual smoke in the theatre, bubbles came down from the roof as the character on screen blew them). The finale showed the entire film going astray.
Went went into the Disney animation and Sorceror's workshop where we saw Crush the Turtle from Finding Nemo:
They must have done some sort of pre-animation or standard moves because he would swim around answering all the kids' questions in his terrible Australian accent (Ben says he can't stand Crush the turtle because of that accent and he refused to sit through the whole of Finding Nemo when I borrowed the DVD off a friend) and it all looked like he was alive and he was really there.
In the Character Gallery there were alternate sketches for Ursula from The Little Mermaid, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and others. Chicken Little was there, obviously trying to promote his new film (which I think looks absolutely ridiculous and have no intention of seeing on the big screen). We snubbed him just like Mickey Mouse.
The Aladdin musical was just finishing so there were people streaming out the doors and down the steps. We walked to the end of the backlot and saw the Hollywood Tower (where they drop you x number of floors in the dark). I wasn't game to go on that one so we turned around and wandered around the other side of the park—riding the spaceships, the hornet swings,
the Mulholland Drive mini rollercoaster (which was enough of a rollercoaster for me ... this is where I discovered the hitherto unknown fact that my husband actually loves rollercoasters and other scary rides. He thinks they're fun!!) and the ferris wheel
(which had gondolas that scared me by rocking back and forth on their tracks). I get mild motion sickness so such things are not much fun, whereas Ben doesn't seem to have any troubles with his head or his stomach. I thought of our old minister, Shaun, who gets motion sickness at the slightest thing (he once got motion sickness from filing) and who cannot be a passenger in someone else's car (he has to be the one who drives) and wondered how he copes with rollercoasters.
By this stage it was really really hot in the sun and we were getting a bit sunburnt and dehydrated. Along the waterfront near the ferris wheel there were all these stalls where you could play games (like throw the ball down the clown's mouth) and there was a fishing one where everyone wins a prize for catching one of the fish. I had a go for fun and “won” a yellow puffer fish (which one of my Andrew friends thinks is the ugliest fish in the world. It was my mascot during the exams):
I also went on King Triton's carousel (I love carousels) but Ben did not.
We went and got an ice cream together (Ben got this Minute Maid Frozen lemonade which was delicious)
and sat by the fountains near King Triton's carousel to eat them. I noticed that all these kids who walked past licked their lips when they saw us.
When we were done, Ben decided he wanted to go on the Maliboomer (one of those ones where they drop you 180ft. This one was outdoors). He went alone as I wouldn't come. Instead I took pictures of him.
Because it was so hot, we went into the Golden Dreams cinema (air conditioned) to watch some silly ideologically-driven film about the history of California, starring Whoopi Goldberg as the Spirit of California. Parts of it were interesting though; I hadn't known that the Chinese and the Japanese were in California so early on.
The hot day meant that there weren't many queues for things (I could't imagine what it was like in high summer when all the kids were on school holidays). Where there were queues, they were quite short and, while we were waiting, I quizzed Ben on Greek vocab.
Our final stop was A Bug's Land. We walked into a giant ant hole where we found another waiting room, featuring posters from well-known movies and musicals that had been altered to include many-legged creatures:
(others included Antie and The Dung and Me). We went into the cinema where we saw another 3D film about how hard it is to be a bug, starring Flik and a host of other insects. Again, there was smoke, water spray (which was the poison from some sort of bug), a poke in the back and, as the lights whirled and Flick said, “Now before you leave, just stay in your seats for a moment while we let all the cockroaches and maggots get back to their places, there was what felt like a cockroach running underneath me on the seat. I squealed and jump three feet in the air and Ben laughed at me.
In A Bug's Land, everything looked like it had been fashioned from leftover garbage; the entrance was made of an old cereal packet; the toilets were an upside-down tissue box; there were drinking straws for poles and paddle-pop stick benches. I insisted on dragging Ben on all the rides, even though they were all for kids: Heimlich's Chew Chew Train,
Tuck and Roll's Drive'Em Buggies (slowest dodge 'em cars in the world), Francis' Ladybug Boogie,
(which had spinning ladybirds, not spinning teacups, and we had to go on it anyway beacuse our friend Cathy made us promise that we would) and Flik's Flyers.
Certain sections of the area also had these fountains which would squirt water randomly out of the ground. It was a welcome relief from the heat and I ran through them.
Ben wanted to go back and ride the Hollywood Tower of Terror (the one where they drop you in the dark) so I said I would wait for him in one of the shops. I saw all these very pretty costumes for kids, taken from well-known Disney movies—Tinkerbell, Cinderella, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, etc.
I bought some gifts for people who like Disney stuff and then, while I was waiting for Ben, I went through all the photos on our camera and deleted the unnecessary ones.
Then it was time to go. We had half an hour before we were being picked up so Ben and I went into Downtown Disney and wandered around the shops. In Häagen-Dazs Ben got a Bailey's milkshake and I had a mango sorbet sipper (which tasted like heaven in the heat).
I saw another one of those Build-A-Bear-Workshops and asked Ben if we could have a look around.
(This shot was taken of the Build-A-Bear workshop in the Kodak Theatre. I just wanted a picture of the “Stuff Me, Fluff Me, Dress Me” signs.)
I thought it was a complete travesty. Inside there were bins full of different bear skins, like this one:
You're supposed to stuff the bear skin (but apparently you don't even do that; the shop assistants do it for you), then you dress the bear and then you print out a birth certificate for it. I thought my mother-in-law would have been appalled.
It was getting late so we caught the tram back to the parking lot and then got a bit lost, trying to get back into the parking lost. The rest of the family were there, ready to pick us up.
We drove to Little Tokyo for dinner where we went to Sushi Gen where I ate the best sushi I've ever had (I think) and I wondered if Neil had ever eaten there. We ate until we were stuffed and then my dad and Helena said we must try some moji for dessert:
It's ice cream covered with stuff that has the same consistency as dumpling skin and it was extremely cold. I quite liked it.
We drove home. I tried to help Ben get cable properly on the big TV. We got one working but not the other. I found it scary how much unnecessary television there is in the world.
We were pretty tired. Ben said, “I'm looking forward to going home.” But that was three more days away.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments
Oohhh…that sounds like so much fun! I really hope I get to go to HK Disneyland before I get too old and lose my sense of adventure and before the mainlanders make it yucky!!