Category: travel

Always exotic

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disney

Random observations from Disney

Random observations from Disney

Originally uploaded by mgharris

The Twilight Zone ride Tower of Terror is out of order for a bit.
I’m still very spacey from some cough medicine I took last night. How cool that you can buy such effective drugs over the counter in this country!
Also my appetite has failed to return post another attack of some kind of virus. (I hesitate to say H1N1 but it kinda probably was…) thank goodness, really, because food here is so yummy and tempting that a bird-like appetite is all that stands between me and massive weight gain. The cupcakes are frosted six-inches high! And apples smothered in thick layers of caramel.
What is a girl to do?
A High School Musical float has just appeared next to the Starring Rolls Café where we’re having breakfast.
I bought a Jack-O-Lantern shirt for tomorrow’s Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom.
Oh how I love Disney. And did I mention I’m feeling a bit jazzed? You’ll get no sense out of me today.
Hasta luego. X

MG Harris

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disney

Mission Space Green Team is for wimps

Mission Space Green Team is for wimps

Originally uploaded by mgharris

Thus spake Little Daughter after experiencing the most hardcore simulator ride I’ve ever come across, Epcot’s Mission Space.

Despite numerous warnings, before and just prior to the ride, we chose the more challenging Orange Team mission. We laughed when they told us it was not for the wussy. I’ve never been on a ride where they tried so hard to talk you out of it. If you have any doubt whatsoever about which mission to pick, the ‘mission trainer’ urged, pick Green Team. Or dip out completely and go do some mission training at a console.

Remember Tomorrowland’s old ride, Mission to Mars? Well, this is a new mission to Mars but that’s where the resemblance ends. Once you’re in the ‘training capsule’ you’re subjected to actual G forces, as well as the usual simulator stuff, sudden turns and drops.

Fully, fully awesome. We last visited Epcot during the millenium celebrations and it’s changed quite a bit. Yet still, the ‘wow’ factor isn’t quite what it was in my first visits in the 1980s.

The truth is that the gap between Epcot’s vision of the world and the actual world has narrowed. Little Daughter’s jaw didn’t drop as mine had on first seeing a silent monorail glide around the futuristic buildings. How could it? She’d seen sleek monorail shuttles at the airports of Singapore, Detroit and Orlando. Fountains emerge from flat ground to dance in front of Heathrow Terminal 5. She’s been on the insanely high London Eye and seen our capital’s swanky new skyline.

Epcot is still seriously cool but it’s no longer an experimental prototype.

Do kids today even know what EPCOT means?

But then I’m nostalgic enough to miss Horizon and the Carousel of Progress.

*sob* damn you Disney, what have you done to my childhood memories?

Best ride at Epcot for little kids: The Seas with Nemo and Friends

Most physically challenging ride at Epcot: Mission Space Orange Team
MG Harris

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ice shock Joshua Files mexico

A Joshua Files Mexico Trip: Part 1 – Veracruz state

If reading ‘The Joshua Files’ has made you curious about Mexico and its rich diversity of attractions; ancient ruins in the jungle, old colonial towns, turquoise beaches, then here’s the perfect trip for you, exclusively researched by me!

Josh Garcia’s Mexico

Photo on left shows the sleepy old town of Tlacotalpan on the River Papaloapan, in Veracruz state.

Trip 1 – Veracruz State: Port of Veracruz, Tlacotalpan, Catemaco

It was here that Cortes and the Spanish Conquistadors first arrived in 1519.As a native of central Mexico – the capital, Mexico City, I hadn’t visited Veracruz until 2001. During the summer of that year, urged by my late aunt Josefina, I took the family to see this unique part of the republic.

It was the state’s Caribbean heritage that my aunt thought would attract me. She was right. El Puerto de Veracruz (Port of Veracruz) has a strong hint of Cuba’s capital, Havana, although on a less grandiose scale. Tropical rhythms mingle in the main city square, dancers and singers rub shoulders with street vendors. It’s not unlike the Havana you’ll see in the opening section of the 1958 film of Graham Greene’s novel, “Our Man in Havana”.

“You must also visit the witches of Catemaco,” my aunt insisted. “And Tlacotalpan! It’s like going into the past.”

Mystic witches, watery towns that seem to be locked in a forgotten past, plus some of the most spectacular scenery you’ll see anywhere in the world – snow-capped volcanos, impossibly green terrain ripe with coffee, vanilla and banana plantations, the vertiginous surroundings of the Orizaba mountain range, spectacular ancient ruins: Veracruz is one of the most rewarding and unspoilt regions in the republic of Mexico.

 

 

 

 

Categories
travel

Wish I was here

Wish I was here

Originally uploaded by mgharris

I am blogging this lying in bed and typing on my BlackBerry, for the simple reason that I can’t face another minute at my computer which is anyway turned off.

The photo is of some frozen daiquiris at the bar at Bali’s Grand Hyatt Nusa Dua. I have been missing the bar every night since leaving. Many was the evening we enjoyed there with my sister and her family, watching the sun set over the Indian ocean.

Going on holiday to places like that is exquisitely painful in that it gives you a temporary but still ridiculous sense of entitlement to a lifestyle of luxury.

Then comes the inevitable readjustment when you get home…(not that I’m complaining, it’s a nice home…)

My Australian brother-in-law, who as a biotech entrepreneur is at least partly on track to serious wealth, would scoff at my lack of confidence that we’ll always be able to afford to meet in Bali. In fact, in his worldview he and my sister will one day end up living like that every day…

He’s a biotech entrepreneur! Only the optimistic ones survive. Cheerful at having rescued his company from a funding crisis due to the markets current apathy, Paul was in a great mood. And of course so was I. Joshua Files is doing well, and I have some lovely author events coming up.

Yet I can still make myself prematurely nostalgic for evenings in a hotel bar in Bali. Will I one day look back, perhaps as an aged and lonely widow whose children never call, and realise that those nights in Bali were our golden time, never to return?

Or will we still be there, my sisters and brother, their spouses and us, and will we still sip daiquiris until the end of our days?

Gosh, I hope so.
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Categories
travel

Ubud-ists

Ubud-ists
We’re in the Holy Spring temple in the monkey sanctuary in Ubud.
Don’t stare the macaque monkeys in the eyes! (or they can get aggressive) Don’t feed them bananas! (they will snatch them out of your hands and woe betide if you keep some food in your pockets, they’ll jump on you and grab for it).

Originally uploaded by mgharris

Ubud-ists are wonderful artisans. So many painters, stone carvers, makers of gorgeous things.

This delicious sojourn is almost over. *sigh*
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