Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Visit to Los Angeles

Jun 20, 21 2009 - Visit to LA




Enchanting Disneyland LA

The photo links are here

Saturday Jun 20th 2009 Vivek and myself left the house from Fremont at 4:30. We drove to LA. It took us a long time to reach LA with several stops as the car had some heating issue but luckily Vivek solved it. But we touched Disney Land only by 1 p.m ( almost 7 to 8 hours of sitting/driving) Actually one can do the trip in less than 6 hours.

Disney Dream Land
Disney Land is a dream place to visit and I am lucky to have seen it. Actually I was not at all super excited about it as fun rides were never my favorite past time and I imagined it to be kid's stuff. But the beauty and quality of fun at Disney is to be experienced to understand it. I was amazed at the vision, the management and the planning to perfection of entertainment at Disney. You really felt you got more than your money's worth. If you have some of the child left in you ( and did not kill it with age and cynicism) then you are sure to have a blast , enjoy and cherish the memory.

It is situated at the outskirts of Los Angeles known as Anahiem in a sprawling campus . It is a Theme park and a holiday resort. On your birthday you can ride free. The huge place is covered with attractive greenery, flowers, water bodies, pretty buildings with architectures looking elegantly classical , walkways. All the buildings house shops or cafes.
The parking lot is so huge and we have to take a train to go to the park itself. I read that Walt Disney ws very fond of trains and had one in his backyard running for his children , so he wanted a train visible thro out the park. Generally you can spot a train running with people in many places. Even we went in one such train rides.

The area of the park is divided into several themes with several rides thrown in. Some of the themes are

  • Main Street USA has very pretty buildings and the street looks awfully busy. Actually these buildings house shops and cafes inside. Lots of free rides like horse buggy, small carriages etc are plying the roads .
Main Street USA
  • Animal World is set in a sprawling water way and you take the ride in a small boat with about 20 more people. There are lots of animals like elephants , giraffe, Zebra, tiger, hippo, rhino, monkeys , pretty skulptures, tribals etc.. on the route. They all look real but really are not. The ride winds its way thro' dense woods. The boatman gives a running commentary and keeps you entertained and informed.
Animals in Animal Kingdom are not real
  • Adventure Land consists of several rides. We took "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Indiana Jones" and walked up and down Tarzan's dwelling. The former is a boat ride to the carribean with all scenes of the pirate way of life, fabulous music, narration, darkness, scarry turns and drops . The movie is a copy of this ride. The Johnny Depp look alike is there . All the pirates and their ladies partners and everything looked so real , so alive.. I wanted to go on the ride again. I liked the experience a lot.

  • The Indiana jones ride made me tired as we had to walk a lot thro' winding stone ways to reach the boat and lot of hype was built about it, it was a boat ride in darkness with terrible turns and dead drops in water and (supposedly) scarry scenes like a deadman popping out hanging by a rope, deafening sounds and dialogs and another vehicle coming to collide with your boat etc..

  • New Orleans is set in a water body resembling the Missisippi river with a ride in a ship called "Columbia" , a boat house set in the middle of water, a ship called "Mark twain" and several small boats which are self driven by the riders with oars. We took the Columbia ride which has a captain and several ropes and wood work resembles the ships of olden days. The captain kept us amused by witty ramblings and behaves as if we were sailing in those days. The route is set thro jungle area with animals and tribals and lush greenery.
View of Missisippi river aboard the ship Columbia

  • splash water mountain is set in a high hill - has roller coaster rides and rides thro' rapids.
  • Future World has several rides - submarine ( finding Nemo.. ) , bullet train type ride which we took, and more such rides which we did not take
  • Its a small world is a cute ride in a small boat inside a tunnel like route with loads of toys and dolls resembling children from all over the world and all dancing to a tune its a small world the music resonates thro' the route and one emrges from the ride feeling very happy and hopeful.
Dancing toys in the Its a Small World

I just loved this ride so much that we took it a second time. The whole area is vibrant with plants, flower beds and a pretty castle in the middle which has several doors . Cute little figures emerge out of so many spots from this castle periodically and march to a song . There are several plants cut out in animal shapes.
The Disney parades is one of the highlight of the day . There are 2 or 3 floats with all sorts of disney comic figures ( actually people) , loads of balloons and some theme for the display. The day we went there was live music and party dance . Several boys and girls and the comic Disney characters dressed prettily danced to a live DJ belting out music ( actually sang) . It was such a joyous feeling to watch this in the middle of the streets of USA . The whole atmosphere was so charged with excitement.


Its a dance party



Fireworks at the castle is at 9:30 p.m. lights up the castle in different colors accompanied by music and fireworks.

Music, laser show , fountains and fireworks show called Fantasm at the New Orleans water area depicts a story of conquest of good Micky over evil Micky with fabulous music , drama , lights, figures created with laser, fire, fireworks, dance , lit floats of the boats, ship with boys and girls dancing... It is a dream vision and one can only experience it to understand it. It is at 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

There were pretty cafes everywhere with lots of tables and chairs for seating and great views. We did not go on all rides as there were so many of them and we had time only for some.

The night lighting of the entire park area is awesome and makes the whole place take on a festive look. The day we went the park was so crowded and even at 11:30 night people were standing in queues for rides.

Some Disney facts are here
  • Walt Disney won 26 Oscars
  • He just lived for 65 years (1901 to 1966) and created this brand (1923) along with his brother Roy Disney
  • 1,50,000 employees and a turnover of $ 35 Billion, assets valued at $67 Billion
  • Has 2 daughters one of them adopted
  • Hailed from Illinois
  • Took the art of animation to a exceptionally high level of technological expertise
  • The workforce at the theme park is excellently trained and appear to enjoy whatever they are doing. The dancers seemed to be loving to do that.
  • The theme park had top class management to manage such massive public entertainment and crowd day in day out. The park's working hours are 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. there was constant cleaning going on and things were maintained 100%. Even the rest rooms were massive and managing such huge crowd . Everything was managed and organized with clock work precision.
  • Disney resorts have hotels and theme parks and club memberships
  • It is a massive business - the entertainment industry
  • All the rides had fabulous music , dialogs .. which means execellent speaker systems installed everywhere. The animated figures of human and animals in all the rides were technologically very superior. The rides were all child-friendly and safe.
My heart felt gratitude to this great human being "Walt Disney" . We left Disney land at 11:45 with aching legs , so tired and headed to our hotel room in Santa Monica a 45 min dangerous drive with a sleepy vivek driving half in sleep .

Jun 21 2009



Blue Waters of the pacific Ocean


Busy Santa Monica Pier

We left the hotel at 10 a.m to Santa Monica Pier. We parked the car and walked around the famous 3rd street so full of life so vibrant .


3rd Street at Santa Monica

The Santa Monica pier jets out into the Pacific ocean. Lots of holiday revelers in colorful summer clothes were enjoying this warm Sunday and "Father's day" too . The ocean looked beautifully blue, the trapeze trainer was swinging in the hot sun his body chiseled like a Greek god



Swaying in the air - trapeze trainer


Is there anybody there? Live singing

there were loads of other business all over the place - engrave your name in a rice grain, get a hand painted cartoon caricature of yourself, hats, dress sellers in cart, guy singing into a mike with proper music system hoping to catch the ears of some holidaying hollywood music producer, and lots more. It is really a happening place - Santa Monica beach. So many visions, so many tramps !!

Beverly hills
We then drove to Beverly Hills - It is such a beautiful place of the rich and the famous. The streets look so pretty , decked with huge balls of flowers hanging from poles, beds of white roses and lots and lots of palm trees.



Hanging Balls of flowers on the road


Brand Stores and car expo


Dream Cars

There was a car expo right in the middle of the road and so many expensive and slick looking cars were on display. Vivek was so excited and clicked so many photographs with his iPhone. There were all sorts of the most expensive brand shops on either side of the road like Armani, Chanel, Cartier etc..

We drove around Beverly admiring pretty houses of the Hollywood celebrities.



Pretty Houses of the rich and the famous at beverly Hills

One house seemed had 15 Ferrari cars parked!! I felt the place looked so much like a nice suburb of Pune or Mumbai or Chennai - I told vivek "You should buy a house here". and he found that very funny - like Beverly Hills was so unaffordable

Hollywood
We then drove around Hollywood.




Hollywood sign is on the hills behind


Streets of Hollywood


Kodak theatre


Photographs with famous film characters

and saw the Kodak theatre where the Oscar award ceremonies are always held. Many people dress up like famous characters in films ( like spiderman, batman, pirates of the Carribean etc.. .) and take photographs with the visiting crowd for some small amount. This is a business here. We did not have time for Universal studios .

We drove back home enjoying sunset over the ocean and thro Malibu, Santa Barbara - a small pretty beach town.
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