Soo....Disneyland. We had a great time although it gets exhausting. It's so perfect and so immaculate, but also so artificial and jam-packed with people, that after a couple of days you kind of feel like you've just wolfed down a giant bucket of ice cream...you gots a gut-ache and a toothache. Anyways, we had two hectic, fun filled days, decided that was enough, and sold our last day of tickets (whoops, sorry Walt) and opted to spend some time doing other things instead.
Day 1 we spent at Disneyland. After our perfect little tram took us from our perfect little Timon & Pumbaa parking lot to the perfect gates, we high-tailed it for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to start the trip off with a little coaster. We basically did every ride in Disneyland that day, Splash Mountain twice. We were there about 12 hours, with a break to run back to our car to wolf down the food we had packed in the trunk (non-Disney food is strictly verboten within the park). By the time I dragged Edy out of the park at 9 pm, I had had enough Disney.
Day 2: California Adventure. It kind of boggles the mind that Global Mega Disney Corp or whatever it's called these days basically created an entire park the same size as Disneyland (which took 50 years to evolve to the state it is in today) in a year. But they did. And it's beautiful. It's sort of the teenage cousin of Disneyland, with slightly more scary rides. I don't know if it was because it was 9/11 or what, but the park was empty. We didn't have to wait in line for anything. On our first trip down the Grizzly River Run, we shared a raft with a couple from Abbotsford, Char and Brent, who we actually ended up spending the entire day with. It was fun to have company to eat Pineapple Whip with at the Tiki Room. Char and Brent are also, like, Edy, "ride people," so the peer pressure to do scary non-Dani rides was kind of unavoidable. I even ended up doing the Maliboomer, which is one of these scary elevator rides that basically shoots you up 180 feet in 3 seconds, then drops you back down again. When they strapped me in (internal monologue: "OMIGOD! WHAT AM I DOING!? STOP!), this big plastic screen came down over my face. I asked the Friendly Attendant what it was for. "Oh," he said casually, "that's the scream shield, so they don't hear you in the hotel." Note to self: no more rides where scream shields are necessary. Ever.
Funny side note: Banksy, London-based guerilla artist extraordinaire, is someone that Edy and I both follow. We spend one entire night in London driving around Soho on Edy's bike looking for his latest guerilla art piece. Well, it turned out Banksy was in LA while we were there. In fact, he was at Disneyland. In fact, when we went with Char and Brent to line up for Big Thunder Mountain, it was closed, because Banksy had snuck in and put a life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, in an orange jumpsuit, right in the middle of the ride. Tooooo funny. And we totally missed it. Turned out he also had a warehouse show in LA starting Friday, which was a problem because we were going to San Diego. We were desperate to go to the invite-only opening on Thursday so we didn't miss it, and even emailed the infamous Perez Hilton to see if he knew where the show was...he claimed he didn't, but lo and behold, the next day there were pictures of Brangelina attending the opening on his website. Thanks ALOT, Perez.
Day 1 we spent at Disneyland. After our perfect little tram took us from our perfect little Timon & Pumbaa parking lot to the perfect gates, we high-tailed it for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to start the trip off with a little coaster. We basically did every ride in Disneyland that day, Splash Mountain twice. We were there about 12 hours, with a break to run back to our car to wolf down the food we had packed in the trunk (non-Disney food is strictly verboten within the park). By the time I dragged Edy out of the park at 9 pm, I had had enough Disney.
Day 2: California Adventure. It kind of boggles the mind that Global Mega Disney Corp or whatever it's called these days basically created an entire park the same size as Disneyland (which took 50 years to evolve to the state it is in today) in a year. But they did. And it's beautiful. It's sort of the teenage cousin of Disneyland, with slightly more scary rides. I don't know if it was because it was 9/11 or what, but the park was empty. We didn't have to wait in line for anything. On our first trip down the Grizzly River Run, we shared a raft with a couple from Abbotsford, Char and Brent, who we actually ended up spending the entire day with. It was fun to have company to eat Pineapple Whip with at the Tiki Room. Char and Brent are also, like, Edy, "ride people," so the peer pressure to do scary non-Dani rides was kind of unavoidable. I even ended up doing the Maliboomer, which is one of these scary elevator rides that basically shoots you up 180 feet in 3 seconds, then drops you back down again. When they strapped me in (internal monologue: "OMIGOD! WHAT AM I DOING!? STOP!), this big plastic screen came down over my face. I asked the Friendly Attendant what it was for. "Oh," he said casually, "that's the scream shield, so they don't hear you in the hotel." Note to self: no more rides where scream shields are necessary. Ever.
Funny side note: Banksy, London-based guerilla artist extraordinaire, is someone that Edy and I both follow. We spend one entire night in London driving around Soho on Edy's bike looking for his latest guerilla art piece. Well, it turned out Banksy was in LA while we were there. In fact, he was at Disneyland. In fact, when we went with Char and Brent to line up for Big Thunder Mountain, it was closed, because Banksy had snuck in and put a life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, in an orange jumpsuit, right in the middle of the ride. Tooooo funny. And we totally missed it. Turned out he also had a warehouse show in LA starting Friday, which was a problem because we were going to San Diego. We were desperate to go to the invite-only opening on Thursday so we didn't miss it, and even emailed the infamous Perez Hilton to see if he knew where the show was...he claimed he didn't, but lo and behold, the next day there were pictures of Brangelina attending the opening on his website. Thanks ALOT, Perez.