Kyril's Journal -- August 4, 2005

Disneyland

Thursday August 4, 2005

We watched a little TV when Faol got home last night then went to bed. He couldn’t sleep so got back up and went downstairs. I was so tired that I just slipped off to sleep but when I got up in the night to go to the bathroom he was still up on my laptop (his needing a new power supply). Perhaps around 6 am he finally came to bed. I hope he gets some sleep now. We were supposed to go to the movies this morning but I don’t know now whether he would want me to wake him up in time to go and therefore get less sleep but maybe have an opportunity to sleep normally, or what passes for normally with Faol, tonight.

I continued to work at putting in the bookmarks and internal links in the Grok Fellowship Handbook this morning. I think I might be done but I find it too confusing trying to go back and forth between them so will need to print out a copy to use to verify that before once more updating the copy on the Yahoogroups site. Hopefully this will be sufficient though and we can move on. I admit to wondering if 18 months is long enough to give this a trial at the rate we seem to move. Well I guess we will find out. And potentially if the majority of people want to give it longer before making changes we can do that at that time.

Faol didn’t make it to work today so he took a vacation day. He suggested that we go to Disneyland. I don’t think I have ever been, if I were, it would have been when I was quite young and no longer remember. He had one pass from a friend and purchased another at a discount from the school district so we were able to both go for the price of two movies. I find it totally amazing that it cost that much on the one hand but on the other once you have entered the park all the rides and sights are covered in the admission price and you can spend from 8 am to 12 am being entertained.

We got to the parking lot, which is too far from the entrance to actually walk there so we took the Lion King tram. At the entrance they did a brief search, looking into purses and packs but it was relatively cursory and went quickly. Still I didn’t much care for it. Once inside on Main Street we saw many shops in themed buildings. We walked down the street and I took a few pictures. We stopped at Tomorrow land because I wanted to see the House of the Future. It was a round space ship looking building, which slowly rotated. We stepped up and a video of “Tom Morrow” talked a bit about it. Mostly covering the idea that it wasn’t movie future but reality. Inside it was largely video screens and computer screens doing games, information, news, etc. One somewhat interesting thing was a small control that played a video but let you change the tempo that it played at, do various visual effects, make it reverse, etc. Afterward we stopped at a place for a slice of veggie pizza, which was large enough for us to share.

I think we took the train ride before we did The Haunted Mansion. We waited in line for the open sided train, which did a brief ride to various stations around Disneyland. It was a nice little ride and included a bit through a tunnel with a diorama of the Grand Canyon, wild life, and then dinosaurs.

The Haunted Mansion was an interesting looking house. Outside was an old hearse, the kind pulled by horses. In this case there was a harness on a non-existent horse to imply a ghost. Inside we stepped into a 5-sided room I believe, but I find that now I can’t call up a clear enough image to be sure if it was 5 or 6 sides. I thought the roof was going up but Faol assures me that it was actually the floor going down which does make a lot more sense in light of the rest of the geography of the site. There were paintings on each of the wall and they unrolled showing more of the painting as the room became taller. Ghostly noises and a voice over, or perhaps it was the guide, spoke about the 999 ghosts and spirits in the house. It could be 1000, were there any volunteers? Then we went down a long wide corridor with decorated molding along the top of the walls, and paintings of ghostly figures that were lit up. Faol told me to work my way to the left before we got to the right hand turn at the end of the corridor. There were two busts that seemed to turn and follow one as we passed. They appeared to be carved in rather than sculpted out with some kind of optical glass over it. I found it a fascinating effect. It would be fun to have God and Goddess statues like that. As we continued we got to a cave like room about two stories tall. It turned out to be the start of a ride. Small carriage like cars with a black shell back slid up and Faol and I got on. It had a bar like a roller coaster that we pulled back. Then it took off speeding along through the tunnels filled with dioramas of ghostly people, a bit like a roller coaster in turns and drops, a suit of armor leaned out towards us as we passed, the lid of a coffin was pushed up by its occupant. It was fun, detailed, not really scary since it has to be suitable for young children but still a hoot. I love the complexity of the whole set up.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride was a boat ride. Of course we waited in line again though not for very long. We got in the boat and took off. There were several major drops that kicked up a splash of water and we went through tunnels filled with pirate dioramas, skeletons and piles of treasures, a skeleton in a large fancy bed surrounded by the requisite jewels and gold coins and gold armor, etc. Again, I loved all the detail of the dioramas, and the architecture and size of the artificial environment.

We walked around a lot. Eventually Faol said we were going on an actual roller coaster. I was somewhat nervous about it because I do get motion sickness, particularly on spinning rides, though like the tilt a whirl. He said I would be fine on the Big Thunder roller coaster. That was the first place that we saw people displaying a special ticket and going in the “Fast Pass” lane, while we were in the “stand by” lane. We couldn’t figure out what it was right then and were a little concerned that we needed to have another kind of ticket for this ride but that turned out not to be true. So off we went fast around a curve, back around the other way, sudden down hill drops that made me slide on the seat and feel quite unsettled. Faol said that he was coming up off the seat a bit too. Finally I got the hang of bracing my feet and holding on so that I didn’t get thrown about so much. Every so often we went slowly up hill and I had a few minutes for my inner ear to settle down again. It turned out to be enough and I never got close to feeling sick, and it was fun, though I really don’t think I would want to deal with a lot more than that.

We stopped at a vendor’s booth and bought 1 churro to split. It was about as long as the distance from my fingertips to my elbow, extruded pastry of some kind then dipped in cinnamon and sugar. Yum!

A rope was set up creating a separated space so that people could gather to watch the big Fantasmic show. It took place in a large pond/small lake with a stage and the Tom Sawyer Island in the center. Mickey started it off from the stage but most of the show was in the lake. Water fountained up and the colored lights shifted and morphed. A fan of mist was sprayed up continuously to form a screen for the projected video clips of Fantasia, and other bits from other Disney movies. Boats with dancing psychelic monkeys, I assume costumed dancers:) floated by. Later boats decorated with colored lights went by with pairs of dancing characters, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and her Prince, Ariel the mermaid and her love. A sailing ship went by obviously either pulled or under mechanical power since it wasn’t under sail. It was Peter Pan fighting with Captain Hook and the pirates. A huge alligator followed behind. The wicked Queen from Snow White changed Mickey’s fantasy into a nightmare with Night on Bald Mountain and a huge dragon. She also grew taller and taller, her robe getting longer and longer, until she was several stories tall. But Mickey as the Magician’s Apprentice had a magical fight with her, each throwing fireworks at each other. Of course he won. There was quite a fireworks show after that. And we were quite close so had a great view. Of course, during the show as I am not very tall it was a struggle to see. Periodically Faol would kind of half lift me up so that I was on my tiptoes but he supported some of my weight to make it easier. Nonetheless packed in rather tightly I couldn’t really move to adjust my stance much and my leg muscles began to get tight, fatigued, and then achy.

I wanted to see the Castle so we headed over and I took some pictures of it lit up in the dark. I haven’t transferred them to my computer yet so am not sure how well they turned out. Some of them seemed blurry in the tiny window on the digital camera. We headed over to Storybook Land and indulged the younger version of my inner child. We took another boat ride, this one was a little larger than a row boat, I think, though motored. We went through a huge sculpture of a whale’s mouth and throat. This one had very big teeth. The driver did a continual patter with silly jokes. We came out into a kind of lagoon with small buildings along the side. They were houses and villages. One was Alice’s village from Alice in Wonderland, and houses from the Mr. Toad stories, Ariel’s palace, etc. Then we went back to the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which had been closed earlier. We got in line and Faol struck up a conversation with a young woman who was waiting for her boyfriend. We chatted for some time while waiting. Then he joined us and we continued up until the time we got into the little car. It was indeed a wild ride for young children with cut outs and drawings of scenes that were in the way of the car but moved out of the way like a door on a hinge. We careened about through the track snaking through the rooms of the building and ending where we began a few moments later. It was very silly and I had a ball.

The young woman had mentioned the Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom ride. She suggested that by 11:30 pm the lines were really short. So we gave it a try. Not so for us. I suspect that she might have had the Fast Pass because that line was non-existent for most of the time. But I loved the Temple. Outside were stone-like pillars, square with a cobra head jutting out from the top in each direction with a wide bowl/brazier-style balancing on the top of the heads. Instead of fire it had plants. There were steep stairs up to a door with two huge cobra statues guarding the entrance but it was really only for show and we instead went up a long ramp to a door after snaking back and forth, back and forth, for some time. Inside it was a distance to the ride through a small room with high ceiling, through corridors apparently made of huge stone blocks with carvings and murals. We finally came to a large room with “artifacts” and then to another corridor that had a screen at the end. A supposed news reel of Dr. Jones discoveries was being narrated by John Rhys Davies. Past that was stairs going up, more corridor, stairs going down, and finally we reached the ride, which was a jeep-shaped vehicle with 6 rows of seats, 4 seats to a row with seatbelts. Off it went in a jerky fashion, sudden stops, sudden drops and bumps and turns. Faol said it was actually a bit hard on his back. It was fun though. I loved the end where a mechanical Indiana Jones is hanging from a rope with a huge round boulder/ball coming straight at us. At the last minute or so it seems the car drops downhill and so under the ball. What fun!! I want that Temple!!!

It was about 12:30 by the time we got out and back to the tram to the parking lot. Faol had picked exactly the right place for us to park as we were just across from the first tram stop and had a very short walk to the car, which was good since I had been limping for awhile. We stopped at Del Taco for a meal then home to bed.

I found it all quite amazing. I loved the detail, the scope of it all, but at the same time there was a part of me that was quite appalled at the excess. Millions and millions of dollar must have been spent on this extensive playground. Merchandising of all sorts, hats, shirts, pens, toys, schlock of all kinds, was there for the buying, all tied in to Disney movies and shows. Food of all kinds was also available. One could walk and munch and buy, and ride, all day long and not cover it all fully. I am very glad I went and I admit I would enjoy going again and seeing parts that I didn’t see this time yet I still have this sense of having been to a shrine of consumerism, a site for tourists, rather than a trip to fantasy made real. And I also loved the fantasy element. It is a strange feeling.