[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 4]

(Time to finish this thing up. This past weekend, I finally had a chance to take a real trip to a real place for the first time in a long while, and it was damn fun. Will try not to waste much more time on this kind of crap.)

So with Indiana Jones fastpasses in hand, we headed for the cantina. Actually, Kayo headed for the little girls' room whereas I headed straight for my long-deserved first beer of the day. We finally reassembled and took spots in one of those 30-minute fast food lines that earns Disney its riches. Guess who in the parallel line? Abuser Dad. He went way out of his way to avoid eye contact, even when I called out to him in my usual friendly way. It was lame.

Food bad. Beer good. Wine bad. What made the lunch was the live mariachi band. It was the best I'd ever felt at a Disney park. I took a five-minute break to pick up Raging Spirits fastpasses as well.

Indiana Jones OK as usual. Raging Spirits horrible.

On to the comically racist Arabian port. The Sindbad ride was fine. What was better was coming out to see the characters in full force taking pictures with the proletariat. Of course, with the crowds we couldn't manage a picture with anyone except the resolutely unattractive, mangy monkey from Aladdin. And then the live actors came out. Jasmine was astounding. I placed her at 17 years old, ASIJ Chofu campus, then walked away from the illegality of it all. Thankfully Kayo snapped a few pictures.



Then another line, this time for the Magic Lamp thing. Behind two girls in full Disney gear: Minnie ears, miniskirts, neon pink tops. Oh wait, scratch that. The two girls' ages added up to 120 or so. The whole line was dry heaving. Oh well, where else can you see this (if you're into that sort of thing) besides Disneyland? Then again, I suppose Exotic Erotic night in the Castro is a viable answer.

Magic Lamp cast was quite poor. Much worse than my first experience, not worth a third.

Boats, popcorn, end of day. A thoroughly memorable Disney visit, complete with a near fight, honest mariachi music, hot Jasmine, and dozens of people dry heaving at the sight of geriatric Minnies. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Which is why I should have stopped there and gone straight back to civilization. Instead, I wheeled by the gift shop and bought my girls the caricatured mini-replica of the Flounder coaster at an irrationally exuberant price. Checked it out at home the next day, and the lift hill didn't work smoothly. Not happy. Disney. Made in China.

In sum, fully satisfied by this visit, and I probably won't need to check the place out again for a long time.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 3]

We should have walked, but we elected to wait for that utterly pointless electric railway to Port Discovery. By the time we got there and walked a bit more to Central America, it was about a quarter to noon. I knew there would be beer at this part of Disney Sea, but I retained focus and ran for the Indiana Jones fastpasses instead.

We wouldn't be able to use the Indiana Jones fastpasses until 90-120 minutes later or so, so we decided to check out one of them shows. Mystic Rhythms, I believe. We lined up about 25 minutes before the 12:15 curtain, something we would never do if not for the fact that the rest of the Disney fandom seemed to be doing the same, and then the strangest thing happened.

While Kayo was looking at her map, a little being that we the people of Hawaii refer to as a menehune suddenly apparitioned itself right behind us. For those among us who aren't culturally savvy on the old legends of Hawaii, Mr. Menehune is best described as resembling an 84-year-old midget Inca (scratch that, I haven't done any research on average Inca stature during the relevant period).

Mr. Menehune started going off on Mystic Rhythms, saying that it usually clocked in at between 20 and 21 minutes in length, but on one rare occasion it came in at 22, and that he was wont to watch it twice in a day followed by a beer and pork-and-beans at the Yucatan watchamacallit, and that the best seat for first timers was right side, ten rows from the stage, but that because he wanted to touch the butterfly (?), he was going to angle for a left bank aisle seat. He went on and on. This dude was fascinating.

So we asked Mr. Menehune, "It's obvious you come here a lot -- how often?"

Mr. Menehune told us that he has made over 3,000 trips to either Tokyo Disneyland or Disney Sea. We quickly found out that the whole cast knows this guy. They are almost certainly magnetized by his affection for beer, which is the noblest trait of humankind.

This guy is awesome. We tried to get a picture with him after the show, but thought better of it in honor of his privacy, and then he disappeared into the wind.

And finally it was time to honor the menehune with a beer. Or two. And a glass of wine. Which is precisely what I did at that ridiculous excuse for a Mexican joint next door.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 2]

I dang near got into a fight at Disney Sea.

After a brief stop for some typically horrid and overpriced Oriental Land food, we made it back to Tower of Terror. A few minutes into the fastpass queue, I noticed a fastpass on the ground. I picked it up, perhaps with half a thought to using it myself or donating it to Kayo, provided that no claimants appeared.

Not long thereafter, though, a girl of about seven or eight started backtracking along the line, looking at the ground, followed a few paces back by her father. They had just started getting into one of your run-of-the-mill parent-child arguments, when I guessed what the root of the problem was and stepped forward with the dropped fastpass. The father took it from my hand without a word, compared it against his, and then, with his hand in a fist, rapped his daughter hard on the top of her head. Then they tried to recover a few spots in front of them in the line.

As they were moving along, I yelled at him, saying that there was no reason for him to hit his kid. He turned around and shouted, “We have our own way of educating our children.” I responded that what he was doing bordered on criminal, especially in everybody’s Happy Place, but he kept going and put some distance between us.

So I took off my sunglasses, which were the most expensive but fragile thing I had on me, and handed them off to my queuemate, and then chased old f**kface into the first of the Tower of Terror stalling areas. I caught up to him from behind, laid a very courteous slap on his right shoulder, and (making sure I said this loud enough so that the rest of the docile Tokyo Disneygoers and cast members could hear it) explained, “And you didn’t even thank us for recovering your ticket. Just what kind of education are you talking about?” Of course, there were a few more Japanese F-word equivalents mixed in.

I’d gone through a few candidate initial maneuvers in my head in the preceding few seconds, and because he was wearing a horrible blazer with an oversized lapel, I had been giving more passing thought to Osoto-gari than other approaches. But it was a waste, as he immediately and profusely apologized like a pansy. And unfortunately, the rest of the Tower of Terror experience proceeded without incident.

That was my adrenaline high point of the day, which kind of made everything else anticlimactic.

This goes without saying, but all this time, the only thing the rest of the losers in line could do was wear that “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!” expression on their silent faces.

But with our second uneventful Tower of Terror ride squared away, it was finally time to enjoy the best of what Tokyo Disney Sea offers: beer.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 1]

April 12 was sunny and warm, a perfect day to spend at Disney Sea. That's what the other half billion people in the park thought too. OK, to be fair, it was more like 350 million at Disneyland and 150 million at the Sea. Still, it was the first time in about 20 years that I can honestly say I had a good time over there at the old landfill. Best. Disney. Experience. Ever.

On the eve of the trip, I will admit to being a little hesitant to hand over yet more money to the Disney and Oriental Land empire. I have tried to like the place, both Land and Sea, on the four occasions I've visited in the last half-year. In fact, in the space of a mere five weeks, we visited Maihama in a wide variety of every permutation possible: solo visit to Land; wife and kids at Land; all family members (humans, that is) at Land; and me and wife at Sea. Unfortunately, we've always felt empty, broke and disappointed after every visit (but at least the kids' smiles made it almost worth it on those two particular occasions).

But I decided to try again anyway. For one thing, I figured that it would be my last real chance to hit a park before the 12-day work weeks returned with regularity, and my parkhopping partner-in-crime was about to re-enter dance boot camp as well. Besides, I had a few lingering memories of the last time I felt like I wasn't bleeding money to Iger, which was when I timed a visit to Disney Sea to coincide with the arrival of a typhoon. (That time, the storm kept the people at bay for a precious few hours, during which I nabbed multiple rides on everything that remained open. Then the typhoon subsided enough to embolden the masses, which forced us to take refuge with the expensive, not terribly tasty lunch at a Hotel Miracosta restaurant.)

I was going to try to do it the right way this time. I resolved to pay full fare and arrive before the park opening. This wasn't the easiest thing to do on four hours' sleep and a slight hangover, but I was determined to get my money's worth. But once I got to Maihama, and then to the monorail, I started to feel that dark, pithy feeling in my tummy. The crowds everywhere. The faces of frustrated parents and grandparents at 8:30 AM. That "I hate Disneyland" feeling.

Of course, "hate" is going much too overboard but it flows off the tongue better than "dislike." I'm not 100% sure why I dislike Disneyland. Yes, cleanliness, efficiency, and orchestration are all good things. But perhaps it's the same reason I don't like even the best of the Spielberg films. Needless to say, I marvel at his witchcraft and ability to create total immersion, but in general I prefer art to leave me a little breathing room. (Not to say that I'm immune to oppressive pure intensity, though. After all, I think of Richter as the greatest pianist in recorded memory.)

At least the Disney Sea lines weren't a third as bad as the Land lines. At 8:45 or so we were a couple of hundred people deep in one of maybe a dozen lines, waiting for the 9:00 AM opening. We didn't clear the front gates until a good ten minutes past 9, and then I took off with both of our tickets, heading for the Tower of Terror fastpass shack.

I sprinted in the precious few areas where there was enough room to do so, but otherwise had to resort to a poor Barry Sanders impression. At any rate, under no condition was I going to allow myself to come to a walking pace anywhere. I caught a few looks and comments at the edges of my vision and hearing, all conveying some sort of "There's no running at Disneyland" sentiment. Well, I needed some way to get a little exercise at the park to compensate for the ubiquitous junk food, so I'm afraid I didn't have much choice. Besides, I hadn't done any running since a short 3-mile session on the prior Tuesday.

Just as I neared the fastpass shanty, I caught sight of another sprinter trying to overtake me on my right from a different angle. Fat chance, so I accelerated and blocked him out as necessitated by the rules of engagement. Meanwhile, Kayo did her job and had completed her more comfortably paced jog to the regular queue. This was her first Tower of Terror experience. (No point in describing the rides, I guess.) We hit Journey to the Center of the Earth next, then walked back to Tower of Terror to exercise the fastpasses. And finally the fun part of the day began.