Yadda
yadda. We arrive at 1100 and man we are PRIMED. I brandish our tickets and we force
our way into the park.
Elena preens a little after showing her go carting skills. Equally competitive, Marina is smart and mean to her sister on the carousel, yet shows a neo-religious bent after
exiting the haunted house and bursting into adorable tears. Naomi cackles, causing
me to burst into tears myself. More coffee, hola! While navigating a rising tide
of families and young couples, we wander around in the warmish sun, hitting the
roller coaster, spider ride, racecars, and octopus tentacle gyrating g-force contraption. These attractions and rides
emit hisses, CHUNKA-CHUNKA sounds, fueling the frenzy of consumption, which is tamed
only by the incessant safety messages broadcast by bored teenagers who check
our tickets and decide our fate. The backbeat is sounds of jingling pocket change
and wallets creaking open to keep the party going.
I
buy cotton candy for the kids after lunch, keeping their sugar levels optimal. The
wife and I hoover espressos on the sly. Time going by fast. Elena and I board the
special “Looping Starship” ride, which, at the top of its parabola, stops for about
30 seconds upside down. Cosmonauts! Marina burns holes into us with envious eyes
as we exit the ship arrogant, insolent, and adrenalized!
I
make amends with “M” by allowing her to take command of the teacup ride. Spins, and
the lack of real food together with several hours of abusing caffeine, culminate in a bit
of not-unwelcome vertigo. This prompts a thought—I should double-down get a higher view of the place!
But we hit the Ferris wheel too early—first up at around 1600 because we were
concerned about long lines. Elena got annoyed with me because I shunted her
into the Ferris wheel capsule: hey old man
I can get into this thing ON MY OWN. So she acted all pissy throughout the
up-down arc, but we ignored it and snapped a few photos of the amusement park vista.
Just
before 1700 it was getting dark and our Family Unit relocated to where the Jewellumination
parade was going to kick off. I’ve captured a few images, both in my brain and
in a video. This day will henceforth be known as The Day That Elena Discovered
Taylor Swift.
The Parade became a sensory stew of thumping music, dancing snow queens adorned by colorful chem sticks, and bright LED
lights dangling from the tree boughs all igniting at precisely the same time. This reached
a rather pleasing crescendo of sounds and carnival smells: I saw Jefferson Airplane-style
psychedelic blobs; my temporal lobe lit up in ecstasy; I heard gasps of delight and
witnessed ear-to-ear smiles on the faces of nearly everyone around me.
After
the parade events concluded, we took the illumination Light Tour throughout the entire park area. There were
over 3,000,000 LED lights advertised and we saw 2,999,999 of them. My God the Japanese are thorough people—it was such an endless
visual delight. Obvious care was taken EVERYWHERE to ensure the godliness in
the gaudy.
The spectacle of seeing the bandit roller coast seemingly float in
the air, its bright colors whizzing around the darkened track way up in the black
sky. The LED Light Tour took us about an hour and oddly I had REO Speedwagon as my
internal soundtrack the whole time.
Evening turned to night, and Marina and Elena got a bit cranky as their natural stimulants waned,
shrinking Naomi’s cheerful vibe (but not destroying it). I chugged another coffee
(cheapo 7-11 brew, but not bad) in the car as we exited the park, satiated and now fully primed
for the holidays.
