What happens when the magic has technical difficulties?

After a day of packing and moving some things (and a couple other things), the Poppywongs, Emmett and Daddy went to Disneyland to see if we could see the “new” Fantasmic that is part of Disneyland’s new “Nightastic” celebration for this summer.  It opened this past weekend, and clearly, there are some kinks to be worked out.

First things first.  When we got there, the parking garage said “Disneyland: Filled to Capacity“.  Not to be turned back, we decided to go to the park to see if they would let us in.  Lo and behold, people were filing into the park as per usual.

They had some Honda Insights in the entry plaza, and Dad and I took a look.

Once we got in, the parade was about to begin, so we watched it again.

waiting for the parade to begin

clapping with the music

Straight away to the carousel

He waved at me!

over to small world

Then over to Buzz Lightyear

Where I got a personal best

... and so did Emmett!

After that, we went over to the Rivers of America to wait for the 9:00 showing of Fantasmic.  We had quite a lot of time to kill, and we had to turn away a lot of people who were eyeing our table.  Dad even got asked if he was leaving… in TAGALOG.  I guess all the sun is making us look Filipino again.  At any rate, to kill time during the wait, we:

Practiced saying names with Mah Mah

Tried on a Woody Hat

A Mickey Mouse Club cowboy hat

And a Davy Crockett coon-skin cap

we finally settled on this one because they could monogram it. The back says "Emmett"

We drank some coffee for some energy boost

So, after waiting and waiting and waiting, 9:00 finally shows up and then 9:01, 9:02… after about 5 minutes, we hear them announce that there is are “technical difficulties” that are delaying the beginning of the show.  At 9:20, we see the workers rolling up the ropes that mark off the seating area, and everyone was saying that the show was cancelled.  They finally made the announcement shortly after that, and we decided to stay for fireworks instead of brave the angry crowds right away.

Emmett and Mah Mah were noting how the "Sing-Sing" were going BOOOOM!

It was a pretty cool show

We overheard that the technical difficulties had been overcome and that the scheduled 10:30 and 11:30 shows were still going to happen, but we couldn’t stay any later than we already had, so we left and resolved to send a strongly worded email to Disneyland about how our Fantasmic experience was ruined by a non-cooperative dragon.  We’ll see what happens.

Graduation on a Thursday?

Emmett and I observed the first call night of this rotation by going to Disneyland to see what had changed since we were there last.  Quite a few changes, but there’s still a lot of construction happening.

They're redoing the rocket ships. Looks a lot more colorful than the monochrome version that was there before. Wonder if this means a re-coloring of all of Tomorrowland?

We went on Small World. They've redone a lot of the inside.

It's now "the happiest cruise that ever sailed 'round the world"

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

Alice and the White Rabbit

Cinderella and the mice

Pinocchio

Aladdin and Jasmine (and carpet!)

Mushuu

Mulan (I think...)

Pumbaa and Simba

The Three Amigos

Ariel and Flounder

Lilo (I think...) and Stitch

Woody and Jesse

The second famous chef I've seen at Disneyland, Kerry Simon was giving a presentation at CA Adventure

Kerry Simon was on Iron Chef:

The Ferris Wheel is back up and running

Construction for the new "World of Color" water show

Ma-Se-Ca!

Good day, though a bit crowded.

Oh, and…

CHECK OUT THIS SCORE!

PoTW 3/14-3/20

We went to Disneyland with Mah Mah and Yeh Yeh today.  Emmett was in hog heaven, having Yeh Yeh chase him around California Adventure.  We went on Alice in Wonderland, Buzz Lightyear, Winnie the Pooh and then we ran around in the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail at California Adventure.

Story of the day:

While waiting in line for Winnie the Pooh, Emmett began to dance to the background music (“The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things…”).  Not knowing the limits of his own strength, both of his feet left the ground at the same time, and he fell flat on his butt!  Not only this, he had the presence of mind to keep his head from hitting the cement.  What a smart/foolish child.

Since then (it’s been all of 4 hours), when  you tell him “Jump, Emmett!”, he does this:

Happy Friday everyone!

We’ve been away too long…

Emmett and I decided to take advantage of the weather and go to Disneyland and California Adventure today.  Upon showing up, I’d realized that it’s been about a month since we’d been there (I know… too long).  Some minor things had changed, but on the whole, most of the construction is done, and many of the Angelinos had crawled out of their respective holes to come enjoy Disneyland before all the tourists show up.

New decoration in the entrance plaza

Stopped by the Carousel. After we were done, we said "bye bye" to the horse.

I cleaned house at Buzz Lightyear. This is only the second time I've broken 100,000

Emmett was trying to steal Jessica Rabbit's mail. Hmmm.....

Over in CA Adventure, we learned about the history of tortillas.

We stopped for some dinner. Perhaps the Fun-See was not a good idea.

We watched Aladdin at the Hyperion Theatre. Aladdin was asian! Made me think that I could do it!

He was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day, so I strapped on the backpack and hoofed it back to the car.

It was pretty busy there.  I think the crowds are going to start to pick up now.  Gone are the days when we could show up at noon and go on any ride we want.  Oh, well… at least it’s sunny.

Picture of the Week 2/6-13

Due to the uncontrollable nature of our subject, we’re changing the format of Comparison Friday.  I am proud to introduce: The Picture of the Week.  Here at Picture of the Week, we will strive to show you a picture that properly characterizes that week.  This week’s picture:

Christina took the USMLE Step 3 exam this week, a 2 day exam at the Prometric Testing Center in Anaheim.  Emmett and I went to Disneyland.  He’s getting much braver running around by himself, but is still terrified of the characters from Brother Bear.  Case in point: he’s all ready to go down the slide all by himself, and he turns around to see one of the bears, Koda, waiting at the top of the slide:

Wanting to get away from this monstrosity, he frantically begins to scoot himself to go down the slide, only to find that the other bear, Kenai, is standing at the bottom:

(Kenai’s butt was too large to go down the slide, so he was simply waiting at the bottom to “catch” all the children going down.)

Emmett is now at an impasse: stay up here near one bear or slide down towards another one?  Rather than make any kind of decision, he starts crying, at which point I ran up the slide to grab him and take him away from all the scary large fuzzy bear-people.  In retrospect, I wish I had snapped a picture first, but my parental instincts took over.

I’m sure he’ll get used to the Disneyland characters sooner or later.

Happy Friday, everyone.

77 Degrees in January

Mommy’s on call again, and because we went to the Aquarium last time, we went to Disneyland this time!  ‘Twas a balmy 77° in Anaheim.

They're repaving the streets. My guess is that they use the "off season" (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May) to do all of this construction so that by the time summer rolls around, they'll be all shiny and new.

The carousel, again. This time we only went once.

Teacups! We got chided by the ride operator for being too haphazard (video below)

The slide at Goofy's House. Emmett actually went down this slide three times all by himself!

Tortilla samples from the Mission Tortilla Factory!

In the "Disney Animation" building, there's a large chair. Here's Emmett in the large chair (from Beauty and the Beast?)

The Toy Story Zoetrope. Very cool. (Video below)

Turtle Talk with Crush. Also Very cool (video below)

Then we met up with Wall-E (who is taller than Emmett)

All in all it was a good trip.  A bit windy, which made for some good wind power collection.

Comparison Friday 2.20 – Buy One Get One Free

Yesterday, Emmett and I spent most of the day at… you guessed it… Disneyland.  Seeing as how we didn’t go on any rides last time, this time we tried to go on as many rides as possible.

This is the worst ride of them all.

Heimlich's Chew Chew Train

Emmett looking around at all the large food. This ride was literally about a minute long.

Flik's Flyers

This ride lifts you up in the air and spins you around.

Then we made our obligatory stop at the water fountains, where Emmett was dry for all of 5 seconds.

He took it upon himself to clean up all of the leaves from the area

After taking off his wet shoes and socks, we headed over to Disneyland.

Because most of the attractions are under construction, they seem to be relying more heavily upon the street performers and characters.

This year's theme is "What will you celebrate?"

Then we went over to the Jungle Cruise. It was a good thing we went so early, because every time we passed by it later, the line was at least 30 minutes long. We waited about 10 minutes.

On the boat. Our pilot was very funny.

Then we headed over to Carnation Plaza to have some lunch.

... where Emmett proceeded to mess up the changing table in the family restroom.

Teacups!

I think Emmett was mostly confused when we were in the cup... that is, when he wasn't eating raisins.

Then we went to go fight the evil Emperor Zurg

The ride shut down twice in the middle, but I managed a decent score. At least you can see Emmet's head this time. I need to find out where this camera is.

Then we went on Pirates. This was the first time that I'd been able to go on Pirates since the earthquake experience.

Emmett seemed slightly amused.

Davey Jones!

At this point, Daddy needed to get off of his feet, so we took the grand circle tour of Disneyland on the train.

Emmett sat next to me. Note that the shoes had dried out by this time.

We match!

Then we went on King Arthur's Carousel. He liked it so much we went twice (after the first time, he made the sign for "more"/"again")

This picture isn't the clearest, but the expression is priceless.

Then we went on Dumbo

They changed the seatbelts! No more belt loops, there's a latch closure now.

He was much more interested in controlling the up and down this time

After a short nap (and a couple laps around the park) we went on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I had no idea this ride even existed.

It's basically a story book ride with the maquette figures inside.

We decided to go over to California Adventure for dinner (it's less crowded), but we stopped at Tarzan's Treehouse first.

The view from atop the tree.

There's a play area at the end of the treehouse path where you can play the pots and pans. Emmett is barely tall enough to reach the bottom pans.

Before dinner, we went on Mike and Sully to the Rescue!

It's basically a cab ride through the Monster's Inc. story. It was super empty in there, so much so that we got our own cab.

We stopped at Harryhausen's for sushi.

We sat and watched a weird show about being "drawn to the magic"

Then we ate dinner over at the Pacific Wharf (Emmett chose to eat standing up)

We got mommy a present (which we're sure she'll love)

Then we watched the Pixar Play Parade (again.  I won’t put any more pictures of it).  This time, one of the Monster’s Inc. characters came up to Emmett and stuck out his hand.  Emmett did not like that.  For the rest of the parade, whenever someone or something came even close to him, he crumpled up in the back of his stroller.  Maybe we stand a little further back next time.

Emmett waiting for the parade to start:

Then we went on one last ride:

King Triton's Carousel! We went twice.

Again, with the priceless expression.

All in all, a very busy day.

Chew Chew Train
Water Fountain
Jungle Cruise
Teacups
Buzz Lightyear
Pirates of the Carribean
Disneyland Railroad
King Arthur’s Carousel (2x)
Dumbo
Winnie the Pooh
Tarzan’s Treehouse
Mike and Sulley to the Rescue
Pixar Play Parade
King Triton’s Carousel (2x)

I don’t think I’ve ever been on that many rides in one day before.  I love going on Thursdays.

Big social weekend coming up, and there’s sure to be plenty of pictures!  Stay tuned!

15,000 steps and no rides

Christina has gone another month of inpatient service, which means call every fifth day.  Emmett and I decided to take the opportunity to go visit Disneyland yet again (all the sun and the 80° weather helped)

I resolved this time to try to spend as much time in California Adventure as possible, and not to go on any rides (which proved to be a wise move, as it was pretty crowded today).  I also took along a pedometer to see how much walking I actually did, as well as my solar/wind battery charger to take advantage of the sun and the Santa Ana winds that blew through today.

Pictures!

Here's my wind/solar power collector setup. The wind wasn't quite sufficient to make much of a difference, but it was fun to try to catch some power.

Lightning and Tow-Mater! I think these are the same cars from the parade.

Our first stop was the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, because Emmett loves to run around there.

Emmett wanted to climb into this tunnel, but he kept backing out

But eventually, he made it all the way to the other side! (I had to run around to greet/encourage him from the other side)

He also enjoyed the bouncy bridge.

Then we went to go see the Brother Bear Totem Ceremony. Kind of mystic and native-american-ish, but there were also talking totem poles and large bears walking around (I just realized that it looks like one bear is giving the other one a massive right hook).

After that we went over to the Hyperion Theater to watch the Aladdin musical.

It's a big theater.

All the singing and acting was really good, and the Genie was really funny.

Emmett really enjoyed it! He clapped after every song, and was pretty attentive through the whole show (it was 45 minutes). Towards the end, he was getting a little squirmy.

We passed the High School Musical 3 show on the way out, where we were told that Senior Year is the defining moment of our lives by some very perky "teenagers".

We headed over to Disneyland for a little bit only to find that most of it is under construction. I guess they do all the work now so that everything will be ready by Memorial Day. This is Pluto dancing. He's very limber.

Emmett fell asleep at this point, so I took a lap around Disneyland and he woke up as we were on our way back over to California Adventure to see:

Playhouse Disney, Live on Stage!

This wasn't at all what I expected. Turns out that it was more of a puppet show than anything else. But, we did see Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Daisy, Donald and a really energetic Filipino looking guy.

As well as Handy Manny (who has a cleverly named screwdriver named Felipe)

The Little Einsteins (who actually mentioned the name Rimsky Korsakov)

and Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Roo, and some girl wearing a hat.

It was an interesting trip, when all was said and done.  We didn’t go on any rides and we saw two (well, two and half) shows that I otherwise might never have gone to.  I took a grand total of 15,525 steps.  (To stay fit, you’re supposed to take 10,000 a day.)

One last trip for the year

Emmett’s Mah-Mah and Yeh-Yeh drove us down on Sunday so Christina could go to work on Monday.  The rest of us went to Disneyland for one last trip in 2008!

Emmett says, "Come on! Let's GO!"

Emmett insisted on pushing his stroller EVERYWHERE.

We went on Small World again

Here’s a time-lapse video of Small World, for those of you who have never been:

For lunch, we went to Big Thunder Ranch, where Santa Claus was playing hide-and-go-seek with Emmett

Emmett was a bit intimidated. Santa was a large large man.

He ran out of steam when we got in line for Buzz Lightyear

Where I trounced the competition once again.

Emmett likes the Jack Skellington earmuffs

‘Twas very crowded.  We ran into Derek and Ryan Miyahara in front of Toontown, where he told us that the Tongs and the Ogawas were also there.  It was a good trip.

Birthdays, Small Worlds, and Guy Fieris

After dropping the birthday girl off at work, Emmett and I went down to Anaheim to meet up with the Lew clan for another day of Disney fun (everyone was jealous of Emmett’s NINE trips to Disneyland).

Among the more memorable things about this trip: Guy Fieri from Food Network was there filming a special!!!

Guy Fieri is this guy (host of Drive-Ins, Diners and Dives):

And here he is at Disneyland (apparently wearing the same shirt):

Such was our brush with “celebrity”.  (He’s a lot bigger in person.)

We went on the Haunted Mansion Ride, reworked for Christmas:

Is it me, or do they all look the same height?

A gingerbread coffin

Emmett in his white sweater under the black light

While everyone else went on Indiana Jones, Emmett and I went to go look at the newly revamped Cinderella Sleeping Beauty (thanks, hannah) Castle:

Looks the same from the outside

They had redone all of the little “scenes” in the Cinderella Sleeping Beauty story with new technology that allows animation like never before:

Emmett and one of his Biu-Kao-Foos outside the Tiki Room

Emmett likes to imagine that he's big people

It's good to see that all is well and organized at Disneyland

The "new" Small World, revamped for Christmas

New boats, same water?

Waiting for the Boat to go

Emmett enjoyed the ride

After Small World, we ate lunch in Tomorrowland, and then went to Toontown for a bit.  Emmett and I decided to go home at that point, and we returned later with the Birthday Girl to celebrate at Rainforest Cafe:

Emmett running towards the Blue Elephant because his safari was about to begin (not really)

Emmett got the Pot Roast (not really)

We got the volcano!

And a birthday song:

A good way to celebrate a birthday.  And we were stuffed up to our eyeballs.