Odds and Ends

This is a photo I took between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. I just loved the speckles on the flowers.



It's hard to tell in this pic, but sitting on the rocks are live ducks. I just enjoyed the combination of audio-animatronic birds next to live birds.

This picture at the Matterhorn is nice. It's accross from the Tomorrowland Terrace, and I just think the bridge makes it feel as though this is a separate little world.

I think this is supposed to be Tinkerbelle's house. Either that, or it could be a random fairy house. I flipped through one of the Disney Fairy books once and discovered that Tinkerbelle's house looks like a giant teapot (or cooking pot, I can't remember). So this could just be a random fairy house. Either way, cute.

Windows '09, Part 2

Found this window display off to the side of the new Bibbity Bobbity Boutique. I'm glad there are more window displays in Disneyland, because for a long time you could only find them on Main Street.



I wonder if the display will be rotated to have other princess stories presented? They might even be able to do Sleeping Beauty and use some of the old dolls from the castle walk-through, seeing as how they aren't used in there anymore.

There was something a little disconcerting about this display to me, for some reason. Some of the dolls looked a little creepy to me. Also, part of me was expecting them to move like the ones on Main Street. Still, it was cute. Most people didn't even notice it, and you can't see the strollers parked beside it.

I like this picture. It's really hard not to take a good picture of this, no matter what camera you use. I guess you could take a lousy picture of the Queen if you had your hand over the lense or something. But there are some places that are just great photo places in the park, besides the ones the planted signs point you to.
Not to spoil the magic for you, but I once heard that the Queen doesn't really have arms. Her sleeves are stapled to the backs of the curtains. When the edges get frayed, the sleeves are pulled out more and stapled again, and this is repeated until the sleeves need to be replaced.
I don't believe this information should spoil the magic, really. Coming from a theatre background, I enjoy learning about how a show is put on. But sometimes people can be a bit sensitive. I posted my picture of the booby door on a geeky Disney forum I take part of, and there were some people who took a particular interest in telling me what a horrible person I was, as though I painted the door that way. Of course there will always be jerks out there who can't laugh, and I feel sorry for them. Laughter saves lives, even if it's as small as a juvenile snork.

Windows 09

After walking around the castle to enter Fantasyland, I came upon this window. It's near the new Bibbity Bobbity Boutique. It's a gift shop and salon for making little girls look like princesses. They also have a few things for boys, but the main focus is little girls.
I used to wish they had stuff like this when I was a little girl. Sure, we had Disney princess costumes, but nothing like what's been available in the last ten years. When I was a kid, all I had was my She-Ra costume. She-Ra taught little girls to be self-sufficient scantilly-clad women with unnatural hair colors. When I first heard about this place opening up, I wished they had some stuff for adults as well. Then I saw a mother and daughter who had both received makeovers at the salon, and I was glad that it was normally for kids.


So, as you can see, this window is a tribute to some of the major Disney princesses: Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Aurora and Cinderella. Each throne is themed to each princess with an appropriate throne and a momento on the seat representing something important about their story. Snow White's has the flowers she picked in the forest before the huntsman nearly hacked her heart out and an apple like the one she took a bite from that put her in a coma. Happy times; real character-builders.
Ariel's throne is adorned with sea plants a shell, and a turquoise pillow is on the seat with her beloved dinglehopper sitting there. I've never seen "The Little Mermaid 2", but I'm sure at some point Eric told her that it wasn't for her hair. I hope.

Below you can see Belle's and Aurora's throne. Belle's is stocked with some books for when it gets boring and the ladies run out of stuff to talk about. Also, resting on the seat is a red rose like the enchanted one the Beast kept as a reminder of his impending doom, had she not been there. That's one way she can make sure he won't take her for granted.
Aurora's throne has flowers on it (I'm assuming roses since her under-cover name was "Briar Rose") and a ball of blue yarn on a pink pillow. The color symbolism is nice, but I kept asking myself, "Why yarn? Sleeping Beauty never knits." But then it dawned on me that it's there because she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel. Her movie never delves too much into her personality, so it's hard to guess how Aurora might react to seeing something that's made by the thing that nearly killed her being used as a sweet tribute to her.
Also below are Jaques and Gus leading into Cinderella's throne.

Cinderella's throne has two of her girly mice friends (I'm sure they have names, but I don't know them), the blue sash used for her first dress (the one that her stepmother allowed her stepsisters to trash while she was wearing it) and one of her glass slippers. And that gorgeous reflection in the window is yours truly. Please note that even in a window reflection you can see that I don't tan.

Little Stone Animals

After taking pictures of the ducks, it occured to me that I could totally use this day of Disneyland by myself to take pictures of anything I wanted. To my right was the castle, so I began my pretty photographic adventure.



Sometimes, when it's crowded or you're with groups of people, you don't always take the time to notice the little things Disney has put in place to add to the detail of their parks.

These animals from "Sleeping Beauty" are a great example. Disneyland opened in 1955, but "Sleeping Beauty" didn't reach movie screens until 1959, so the castle doesn't really look like the one from the film. The castle in Disneyland Paris has the advantage of hindsight and really looks like it. That castle even has an audio-animatronic dragon underneath it that sleeps, wakes up an shoots fire. I would love to see that some day. I can just imagine that discussion with whomever I go to Paris with one day. "So, what do you want to do today? Shop? Eat cheese? Go to the Louvre?" "Actually, could we leave Paris and go to Disneyland?" DLP is actually outside of Paris, for those who don't know or never cared to ask.

These squirrels are just freaky-looking to me. I don't blame them, though. They are practically hanging off the wall.

Duckies!

They are so freakin' adorable! The CM to the right of the screen (with the star hat) was gently escorting them to the woodsy area. She was explaining that a handler usually took them to water, but everyone was keeping their distance, while snapping pictures.

This time of year rocks.

The Booby Door

So this is the picture I intended to take. I noticed it the last time I was there, but didn't take a photo for some reason. I have to wonder if this was why Imagineering chose the color scheme they did for this building. Maybe a couple of them were cracking up about the idea over lunch and wondering if they'd be able to get it past their bosses?
It would be the same kind of inside joke like the video box for The Little Mermaid was, or the priest in the little mermaid was. Or that scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or that part in The Lion King, or... well you get the idea.
Anyway, it's pretty amusing, don't you think?

Mickey's Funwheel

Yesterday I went to Disneyland by myself. Originally I was going to meet up with friends, but plans fell through. I decided to go anyway, and it was a fairly quiet day. California Adventure was pretty busy, though.
Anyway, there was a picture I'd been meaning to take since the last time I visited. This was not the picture, but I had never ridden the Fun Wheel before. I'd never ridden it while it was the Sun Wheel, either.
For those who may not know, DCA is being remodeled and refurbished. Theming the Fun Wheel with a giant Mickey face is part of that model (and also a little creepy. The Orange Stinger you can see off to the side is going to be peeled and themed to that Mickey cartoon where he's a conductor on a bandstand and the tornado hits. It should be very cute.
So the Fun Wheel was nice. It has swinging gondolas, and I'd never been in one before. There are stationary gondolas like a normal Ferris wheel, and then the ones you see on loops actually gravitate towards the center and sway as the wheel moves! Just in case the height isn't enough for you.

The rest of my trip

So, I haven't posted in quite a while. I'm just going to post the rest of my pictures so they may be enjoyed.

The following day, we all did the Vegas thing.  We went to the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace.

Obviously, we liked the fountain that explained the story of Atlantis. We also rode the fabled spiral escalators!

We also saw two shows that night. First, we saw "Ice" at the Riviera. I recommend it, highly. We then got to see "Fab Four Mania" which was also awesome. We got in for free because they hadn't sold out that night. In fact, the audience was so small that "John" made a comment about how all fourteen of us made it there. The four of us girls were the loudest (and the cutest, I may add) that the gentlemen on stage kept using us as their target audience. They threw out a free T-shirt intended for Brigg, but and old man behind us caught it and refused to give it to her. Oh well.

After that I was on my own, and went back to my room at... Treasure Island! I chose there specifically because of the bed they advertised. I can't tell you what kind it was (I think it was from the Serta line), but it was heavenly.

The next day, I hit up the spa and got my hair styled. For some reason, I can justify spending about $100 to get my hair done, but I can't justify $85+ for a pedicure. Fortunately, no one saw my feet (but they weren't that bad).

I went to the Wet spa at Treasure Island.

Then I put on a pretty dress and walked around the strip.

They were redoing the volcano at the Mirage at the time. I haven't heard anything about it since it opened, but I'm sure it's amazing.

 

I walked back to Treasure Island, and a couple was getting married before everyone on the Siren's ship. The dude in the crows nest was the ring bearer. He swung down and presented the ring and then promptly hit on the bride's sisted (the maid of honor).

I had lunch at a restaurant at the Venetian called Cantonello's. It's very nice. The seafood risotto I had was delicious!

The next day was the last day of my vacation, and by that point I was pretty vacationed out. That night, I went to the Improv at Harrah's and it was great.

The comedian listed at the top, John Caponera, was hilarious. My face muscles were actually sore the next day from laughing so hard. I found a video of him on Youtube doing pretty much the same material as he did when I saw him, but his energy wasn't as high on the video as he was in person. Either we were the best audience ever, or he's perfected his act since that video was posted. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see this guy, do.

Got a pretty good shot of the outside of the Venetian.

I had to get a picture of this. For dinner, I went to a restaurant called BLT Burger at the Mirage. I got a meal that included a 7oz burger, fries and any milkshake I wanted. I discovered I would've been okay with their first option, the burger and shake. The fries were great, but I could really only finish about 5oz of my burger. This is a photo of their twinkie boy milkshake. It's a vanilla milkshake with twinkie blended in.  What you can't see in the back is the half-twinkie garnish sitting in the whipped cream. This shake was amazing... while it was still cold. Once it started to melt, it became a gooey vanilla drink with soggy bits of bread in it. And no one really needs a straw that big. I'm just saying.

After I checked out of the hotel the next day, I decided to get my picture taken at the Mirage by the Love theatre. I'd been thinking about this pose ever since I'd seen the theatre a few days before. It must have been a good idea, because there was no one there before I had my picture taken. The moment someone took my picture like this, a gaggle of girls pushed their way in and started posing like this with thier cameras. What can I say: I'm a trend-spotter.

So that was my ginormous Vegas vacation. In all honesty, I'm not ready to go back to Vegas any time soon. Certainly not by myself. I had fun, and I got to do what I wanted to do, but Vegas is definitely a group thing. At the very least, it's a couples thing, but I've always had the most fun there in groups.

Password reset

So, I haven't posted recently because I forgot my password. I had to notify google to get a new one, and they sent me a url to do that. Unfortunately, I clicked on it a couple of days later (today) and they expire after an hour. That wasn't really a problem. I submitted for a new one, got it a few minutes later and got a new password. I actually think it is my old password, I just finally remembered it. But now I can blog again.  So I'll do that some time this week, not to sweat.

The Rest of Day Three

So, as I mentioned, for most of the rest of the day we all pretty much walked around.  There were always at least two of us working in the tent, which was really all we needed.  I tried working when there were three of us in the tent and I'd feel in the way.  If I was a third working the tent who wasn't showing merchandise or taking money, I'd stand outside and be the "Wal-Mart greeter", as I liked to describe it.  I didn't really need to hawk our wares.  The pretty colors and shiney ribbons pretty much spoke for themselves.

One of the things Brigg wanted to do when we first walked the fair (before it had opened) was archery.  There was an area devoted to archery lessons, and it was somewhat popular.  It came in waves, or as I like to say:

 "Everyone gets the same great idea at the same time."

By this time, we were all pretty low on our faire money, so when we walked by, Brigg said she didn't want to do it.  One of us asked how much it cost, so I looked at the sign: $3!  Along with our booth, this was probably one of the best deals at the faire!  So we all chipped in a dollar and paid for Brigg's archery lessons.

Photo opp!

When Brigg got in line, there were only a few people in front of her.  Once she was the second person in line, the line was super long.

So, you go onto the field with seven arrows.  An instructor shows you how to hold the bow, how to place the arrow between your fingers, etc.  Brigg was a really good shot!  All but one of her arrows hit and stuck the haystack, and the instructor immediately took the credit. "She couldn't have done it without me!" He boasted, so we all applauded him.

This is my artsy-fartsy movie poster-type shot.  I like it.

So Brigg got to do her archery, and we walked around some more.  That was pretty much how our last day at the faire went.  I forgot to mention that on Saturday, we had also seen this show on the Field of Honor called "Blood of Heroes", I think.  It was essentially tag football with armor and (real) weapons.  It was pretty cool.  Our team lost, but it was lots of fun.  After the first play, one of the men from our team proposed to his wench in the audience.  One of the players brought her down onto the field, and the guy got down on one knee.  He was literally her knight in shining armor!  It was awesome, she said "yes", they kissed and the crowd roared!  In the next play, a guy got injured.  He was okay, but couldn't play anymore and had to be escorted off the field.  While we felt bad for him, everyone was extra-relieved it wasn't the guy who had just proposed to his girlfriend.

Once the faire closed, it took us about an hour to take the rest of the merchandise down and pack it up.  But Brigg's uncle insisted on taking down the tent and loading the trailer by himself, so we sat in the van for another three hours.

Once we got back to the room and into our present-day clothes, Brigg's aunt wanted to go out onto the strip.  So all of us ladies went out to Excaliber, Luxor and Mandalay Bay.  We didn't do anything crazy, we just walked around.  If you ever want to go to a coffee shop with great service at midnight, go to the one at the Luxor.  Our waiter was great!  We were really craving ice cream, but there was any listed on the late-night menu.  Our waiter said he thought he could get us some, and when I was a waitress we had to get it ourselves, which could be a time-waster on busy nights.  He came back with these huge sundaes for us!  Jan asked for chocolate ice cream, and he served it to her in a large martini glass with a chocolate swizzle stick!  Put simply, it was above and beyond what we were expecting, so he got a generous tip.

Walking through the Luxor while it's going through it's "ix-nay on the amily-fay" remodeling was interesting.  I hadn't been to Las Vegas in about four years, and the last time I had I stayed at the Luxor.  So seeing it go from it's golden/archeologist theme to it's blue/Chris angel theme was a little bumming, but not so bad.  

After all of the walking we did, we headed back to the hotel for some rest.