I'm sitting in the toilet writing to save time in my own strange manner, since Auntie Mae arrives at 9am tomorrow and the room is in a whirlwind with my mum trying to pack everything even though she needs them in the morning. I'm writing this with the pen I stuck into the 3-pin adaptor several times to create a 2-pin plug, and it has gone all rough as punishment for my maltreatment. I foresee a long night.

My legs and toes are completely numb now and it' funny the way I can't say it's because of some hard long distance workout, but instead, due to walking around and around Disneyland! Reminds me of how Gina sprained her ankle coming out of the bath and Mamaleng told her she could at least blame it on a swimming accident, while for herself it'd be obvious she fell out of a bathtub or something equally stupid.

We all lay abed a bit too long this morning. It rained on and off in short bursts for about an hour, making us all irritable because we couldn't decide when to leave i.e. mum wanted to leave right away, I wanted to wait until the rain cleared up properly so I wouldn't have to wear a huge, embarrassing raincoat that makes me look like a bat. I still had to wear it, and anyway, when the guys across the street are wearing tiaras and Matrix style coats, no one's going to stare at anything.

The plan was to finish up Fantasyland rides first, which was what we did. The weather turned sunny and very warm as we queued for It's a Small World- probably about the third ride my mum has been on at all- and we amused ourselves taking pictures of the animal grass sculptures. The lion in particular was ridiculous looking, with bristly horsehair sticking out of his green head for a mane. After about fifty renditions of the song, I still feel like it's a kind of freaky alternate universe. Here are the Swiss, dancing on mountains, ducks bobbing their heads mechanically over an over again forever more. Let's all sing together, the Hawaiians underwater, while the Chinese sow their crops to the same beat. But the stereotypes have to come first, right, before we can begin to learn anything.





I saw a guy who looks exactly like a cross between Macaulay Culkin and a Hanson brother, I SWEAR. He was in the line behind us for Peter Pan's Flight, which garnered a line way too long for about three minutes of pseudo-flying. It was solid pseudo-flying, anyway. I wish the stars were that numerous.

And it's lunch-time already. Due to our breakfast limited to over-sweet cinnamon pastries, we were hungry. Han and I led mum back to New Orleans Square to explore delicious/beautiful dining ambiences. We settled on the Blue Bayou, sitting waiting in the lobby for a while- set up to look like an old-fashioned parlour. I listen to a woman in one of the waiting groups reminisce about one guy's first visit to Disneyland when he was a wee lad. Now he's about 20ish (my guess), in a wheelchair (nothing too serious from what I see), solemn, but still happy 'cos you can't be anything else here! Disney should employ ME for promotion of Tired Taglines.

The Blue Bayou is entirely in darkness, just as we saw it when we sailed past in a pirate boat the day before. Only candles on each table and colourful lanterns light the area. I wonder what the waiters do when customers lose things on the ground- come around with torches while they crawl on the ground and search I suppose. It is strange and exciting eating while monkey/other assorted wildlife noises punctuate the background murmers and boats pass silently by every few seconds beyond the veranda, their not so silent passengers whooping like hyenas/waving giant Mickey four-fingered hands, golden ears glinting in the gloom. The simulated sky is the coolest part- the moon constantly shapeshifts or disappears "behind a cloud" momentarily. It makes me think of a certain wizarding dining hall, only it wasn't dark out while we dined on clam chowder and spicy seafood rice.




(I am confused now, writing this two days later, on the mean streets of the real L.A., i.e. Sunset Boulevard, where everything is disturbing yet bewildering. It will take some time for me to revert to the Happy Place that is Disneyland mode.)


Where your resident princess can pay you some attention.

We headed for Mickey's Toontown which made me feel exactly as if we'd wandered onto a Version 7.0 King's Quest set- a LIVING CARTOON. Bright plasticky buildings with exaggerated curves and dips in the doorways and windows, and the sun suddenly emerged, drowning us in hot light. Han and I decided to be childish and take the Go Coaster with a lot of little kids climbing over the dividing walls. A kid behind us: "Do you think I'll be scared?" "No, dear, there's nothing to be afraid of." "Can I scream like this (insert anonymous frog sound) when I'm on the ride?" "Yes, but not now." It lasted for about half a minute, truly, but it was great fun, whooping over the shrieks. We emerged to meet mum scarfing an ice-cream from Daisy Duck's Yoghurt Stand (or something like that).







The D.U.H. (Department of Untapped Hilarity) are EXCELLENT and LAME. They were doing a series of comedy sketches reminiscent of Whose Line is it Anyway? where they write down a series of actions e.g. Going to Chuck E. Cheese in a Santa Suit on Anita Baker Day (yes, it's all-American lingo) based on audience suggestions and they have to act this out to another cast member speaking in nothing but gibberish. Do they have a special code language? Your guess is as good as mine (it sounded like Simlish to me). But they were great, particularly in Disney parodies. One of the guys, who we suspect to be the Juliet from the day before, made a superb HissyFit!Cinderella.

Our feet were still killing us, so we debated on going to California Adventure at all, but I'm very glad we did. It's beautiful, with wilder rides and an avalanche of couples having romantic nights out. The faux Hollywood area we wandered into devoted much time and space to animation, which we nerdily adore. The theatre combined several screens, transitioning between the best Disney-song moments from Hercules, Pocahontas, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, etc. Hercules, Cinderella and Sorceror!Mickey were wandering around in the flesh. I tried to queue for a picture with Mickey, but he went and wandered off halfway to star in his show. What a diva!








The exhibition was fascinating, not least of all because Hercules and Cinderella got tired of being ignored and started chatting with one of the staff. Han aimed her camera at them to catch them in such a perfectly dynamic act, but Hercules must have caught on and scooted off. DARN. Did you know that Pocahontas was supposed to be accompanied by a raccoon, a hummingbird and a turkey, but they cut the turkey in the end? Or that Sebastian the crab in The Little Mermaid originally went hippie with dreadlocks and a mustache?

Not the hippy version, just a strange, cheeky, cloaked one


A short but exceedingly cool live show included Mushu the Mulan dragon, on screen, arguing with our live host. The intro was the best. Mushu hops onto the screen, glares around at the host ("Who are you?"), glares at the audience ("Who are they?"), then stomps around a bit ("I'm a real dragon!") only to find '(c)DISNEY' stamped on his tail and looks horrified. Background disappears to be replaced by a bluescreen ("Where's China?") Priceless, I tell you.

The spooky Hollywood Hotel we saw looming out above everything turns out to be a ride. It is furnished to look like a fancy but dusty, abandoned hotel.



We crowd into a little room similar to the one in the Haunted Mansion, carpeted with bookshelves and spooky music, and watch a black and white TV show that tries to eerily describe how previous guests have dropped into the Twilight Zone through the ill-built elevator, which is what we are ushered into eventually by staff dressed as bellhops. If you have nightmares about falling several stories in a broken-down lift or felt ill while reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, this is not the ride for you. That's what we did- rise, drop into complete darkness, rise high enough to a window that is actually the crumbling-away bit of the top of the building where you see right onto the streets far, far below, then drop again. My stomach literally fell into my feet.

We exited the area to find ourselves smack in the middle of a Bloc Party, involving Pixar character waving on floats- the caterpillar and stick insect from A Bug's Life, Mrs. Incredible, Sully from Monsters Inc. etc.- and very energetic dancers who continually waved signs proclaiming things like SCREAM, SHOUT, DANCE. The music was a poppy but wonderfully danceable remix of stuff like Celebration, Hey Ya ("shaaake it like a Polaroid picture!"), Footloose and the Macarena.


After snacking for a while at a bake-place fashioned to look like a high tech train carriage, on white chocolate chip cookie and juice, we took a slow walk to Paradise Pier, designed like an expansive wharf overlooking still water, with carousel-style music giving the whole place a most magical air. We dashed to the Orange Swings, which literally is a ride involving swings flying in wide arcs inside a giant orange- you get a wonderful view of the sea and all the lights on the shiny-happy rides around it. We rode it twice. I realized that sticking out your feet indeed make you swing a lot higher.





There was this ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL-looking rollercoaster I would not go on in a million years. It looked even worse than the Lethal Weapon ride my brother forced me to go on at Movie World, after which I felt as green as an apple. So we opted for the ferris wheel, which even then is divided into Swinging and Non-Swinging ones. My mum was horrified to find we were in the Swinging queue and dashed to the Non-Swinging one by herself. We were in the same carriage as this couple I estimate to be about college age, and the girl kept laughing and scrambling all over the place, while the guy looked queasily and the dizzying height. It was FREAKING COLD up there and car slid up and down precariously as we proceeded higher, but again, the view was amazing. It was so sparkly and quiet being above almost every other being in the amusement park.

After alighting, we tried Ariel's Grotto for dinner, but it was "closed for the day". So we found an open area in the heart of the wharf, food court style, and settled on Mexican joint Cocina Cucamonga, eating tacos and nachos, which in my opinion was just like junk food, aside from their avocado and bean sauce (the latter tasted like sweet potato).



Hitting Downtown Disney again afterwards, thing is- there's still lots of shopping to be done! Han and I were continually fascinated by store after store. We bought OC bag at Roxy (which strangely had a very wide, unfamiliar range), engraved earrings at Something Silver (where I saw an enchanting silver bangle with turquoise dragonfly charm and just eye-feasted for a while), message pins from a little bookstore with an impressive range of children's fiction. Also found an autograph shop selling- Bob Marley autographed guitar, HP/LOTR posters signed by cast, etc., all for astronomical prices. Of course, loads of browsers, wonder how many are mad enough?


And on the way back, we spotted the legendary House of Blues, raced into the pounding music to fannishly examine merchandise. As usual, all cool designs are guy-size. Do they honestly think all girls want to wear heart and flower/swirly design tees? I said as much to the guy at the counter, and he just grinned.



We leave Disneyland and the O.C. tomorrow, but I'll leave a bit of myself behind, and bring some of it with me- this utopia, which, how many times in a person's life, can one experience? The Happy Place exists mainly in imagination.


And of course, only in your imagination, you can sit in a teacup.

(All pictures from Anaheim here, and here)