Variety is the spice of life

Before leaving for Miami, we managed to sneak a visit to Universal studios - Island of Attractions. Unlike Disney, there was hardly any crowd, the day we went. Probably because it was on a weekday and rain was forecast ed for most of the afternoon. Disney nyabagathula we applied for fast passes, despite crowd being thin only to realise that the pass was not free, for starters and were as costly as the original ticket itself!!! Irunthaalum, we opted for it. One good thing was, we hardly had to wait for more than 5 minutes on any queue, which even without the fast pass was max. half hour. Amazing spiderman and Harry Potter were the two rides that were highly recommended for us and we started the tour with Spidey. It again was a 3D ride, which, even before you could realise and attach yourself to it, ended abruptly. Its just a 10 minute ride and you would need multiple trips to enjoy it more. Note: If you are going for fast pass in Universal, better opt for the multi visit per ride pass...

Not sure if it was because we went on christmas-new year time or in general the park is set like that, there was a festive atmosphere all throughout. Christian missionaries need not break sweat in their conversion efforts. They just need to get a season pass for those people they want to convert and the Disney's "Once upon a Christmas" parade and the electric dance parade will take care of the rest. By the time we left Disney, "Rudolph the red nose reindeer" ,"Feliz navidad" and "Once upon a christmas" songs were ringing non stop on mind. They were so catchy and the setup so colorful, christmas sounded so cheerful and colorful and happy in Disneyland. As mentioned in previous posts, a word on the management. AMAZING. They fit right into the description of clockwork precision. Whethere its lunch queue or rides queue or queues moving in and out of the park, the way the manage the entire setup is awe inspiring. Especially at the lunch counters...

I forgot to mention an interesting ride in EPCOT. Its the soaring in the sky ride. Again, a ride hell bent on making you disoriented :) But the more such rides you take, the mind acclimatises to those jerky twisty movements and i almost enjoyed it. Its like your normal ranga raatinam kind of setup where instead of rotating at ground level, they take you around 30 feet high and not just rotate, it moves forward backward sideways according to the changing scenery on the screen which is omnipresent. The screen is so huge, you feel as if you are really flying over the golden gate bridge and other landmarks of California.                                                          ...

Since we had already taken the pass, we directly went to the queue. A word on the queues - awesome. Considering the huge..really HUGE..number of people who visit these parks from world over, i guess Disney would've invested as much in studying about crowd management as much as they spend on maintaining and updating the park. More on it in coming sections. There were 2 queues. One for people carrying bags and one for those without, which incendetally was moving thrice as fast as the other queue. Why i mention this specifically here is that, if you dont carry any bags, you can actually save around half an hour. Considering that the park operates on a time schedule and the vastness to cover in a limited period, it really helps. But unless you are a bachelor carrying just a camera, its a highly impossible task to avoid any bags. It was predominantly  a ladies queue. There is a mono rail right at the entrance to take you to other parks. Since we were fresh from our NASA trip, ...

For those who grew up watching cartoons in the pre Cartoon network era, where like the news channels at that time, the toons were also limited to Mickey,Minnie,Pluto,Goofy, Tom n Jerry and it was a time when even the marvel comics superheroes were more decent in their appearance, with well combed hair and bulging biceps automatically implied physical strength. It was a time when all the cartoons and comics had a simple ending - happily ever after. It was a time when stories where mere stories and implied nothing more than triumph of good over evil. No one debated on why good was GOOD and bad was BAD and why not the other way round. The "why not" ers came in much late and before their advent, life was simple in its own unassuming way in toonland. Much before the march of the Japs into toon world, Disney had created a make believe setup, with their sugary syrupy symphonies and cute little characters. No one was ugly and even the beast was beautiful. Frogs turned into princes an...

2013 - the year that almost wasnt. Of all the 30 odd years that i've been through, 2 years stand out. One is the year 2000, millenium year. The next one being 2012 - the superstar year of the doomsday. It had been in news from more than 2 years prior and as the day approached it would have been the most searched year in google history. In many ways, 2012 was year of dares for me. I stretched myself beyond my wildest dreams and ventured into things i never ever will do it again in my life. Apdi enna saaathichitennu kekareengala. Ellam vazhakkam pola sappa matter thaan still for me it was like !!!! As i mentioned before, the year started with conquest of fear over water rides, extended into kitchen and cooking and culminated in the mother of all vacations i've ever had in my life. Infact, if i sum up the number of days i ever went on a vacation it might still be slightly lesser than this one trip!! Like "Thenali" kamal i am scared of everything. Especially the panja...