The House of the Mouse

Friday 25 March 2005 (continued)



No matter how you look at it, Disneyland is a scary place.

You park your car, and are herded to a Lion King tram. There, you board with lots of happy people and are deposited at the entrance. You visit a ticket booth that happily sells you a ticket for US$53, and ask if you want a ticket to the California Adventure theme park right next door as well. You shake your head, no, and wonder at the sheer audacity of selling tickets for each theme park separately. You join a long line of people at the gates and wait to be herded in for a magical experience.


Walt and Mickey

It's hard to be a non-child and still be amazed by the experience. Perhaps I might be old and jaded and cynical, but I looked upon the whole thing with a mixture of fascination and distaste. I mean, when you were a kid, all you wanted to do was go to Disneyland. Yes, the legend extends beyond America's fair shores to wherever the Mouse has left his mark. And here I was, actually in the damn place, and yet I wasn't amazed. Yes, the childhood innocence was there, as evidenced by the tons of screaming kids running around. But it was impossible not to notice the crass commercialism running underneath everything, what with the overpriced - well, everything - that they tried to push at every corner. And what's with the overbearing "Have a magical evening!" that every park employee tried shoving down my throat? I'll have a shitty evening if I damn well please, and there's nothing you can do about it, so fuck off. Magical evening, indeed.



But there's one way you can try to avoid thinking about all that. And that is just to stay away from anywhere selling anything, and stick to the rides. Which we did as soon as we forced our way through the crowds. I might've killed a kid or two along the way. I'm not sorry. Fucking kids.


King Arthur's Carousel, which was full of said fucking kids

Very quickly, a rundown of the rides we went on:

Pirates of the Caribbean - great animatronics, but pretty ho-hum.



Haunted Mansion - good holograms, blah otherwise. There was an annoying middle school kid reciting the lines as the elevator went down, and I wanted to shoot him in the head. Kids like that should be slapped and whipped with chains.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - pretty decent roller coaster for kids.
Star Tours - I fucking hate simulators. They shove you in a box, show a movie and shake you around. What's the point of that? It only makes it lamer if you use Star Wars characters in it.
Matterhorn - a decent ride. Not extremely exciting, but just enough not to make it boring.


The Matterhorn's in the mountain behind the Teacups

Mad Tea Party - teacups, pretty much. One word: spinney. You either love it or hate it. Me, I'm not a big fan of spinney rides myself, but what the hell.


John, Arielle & Cameron in a cup


Spinney rides make for cool pictures


Quite possibly the best picture I've ever taken of Kevin

Indiana Jones Adventure - fucking awesome. I really got into this one. Best ride at Disneyland, hands down.




Inside: you ride in the little jeeps in the background

Peter Pan's Flight - I have a weakness for the story, and Jingli loved the Disney animation, so I guess it was nice. Safe and very kid-friendly, but nice and fuzzy.


All ready to revisit his childhood

There were fireworks close to 10 pm. I got shitty pictures of those.

After the fireworks we ran into Nazi crowd-control theme park employees, forcing every street into a one-way street, insisting you take roundabout routes to go where you wanted to. John contemplated yelling, "But my little brother! He's over there!" and just making a run for it.

I could find nothing to buy at the gift store (yes!) except earrings for Angeline, and a really great Nightmare Before Christmas T-shirt for myself. They didn't have my size though, and told me to return tomorrow. Ha! I'll be in the fucking Grand Canyon tomorrow, assholes!

Here are more pictures.


The bunch of us in front of the California Adventure entrance
From left: Me, Jingli, Kevin, John, Arielle & Cameron

Some poser pictures:

Disneyland's so scary, even their benches are shaped like Mickey's head.



I find this next picture intensely disturbing in some way. Perhaps it's got something to do with the huge disembodied mouse's head floating behind us.



After we got back to the car, we decided to go back to Hollywood again to shoot The Sign from the Kodak Theatre. Yes, we were that desperate and sad (fucking tourists). Unfortunately, we drove all the way back, only to find that the fucking sign wasn't lit up at night. Bastards.

And so the Road Trip began.