Day 198 - Ikoma, Japan - 20th February, 2005

Church day. We help Jerry and Robin get all their gear together for the church service they are about to perform. These guys have been in Japan for 13 years as missionaries and have established a great church. Every week they put on a servive for anything up to 80 people. Mostly they are english speaking but they also have a group of Japanese and the service is simultaneously translated into Japanese. Robin provides a sunday lunch for about 40 people after the service each week, as many of the congregation have travelled far and it provides them with a welcome weekly fellowship.

Robin leads the worhsip and there is an organist and pianist and a couple of young girls on the violin. They are all Japanese. We sung familiar songs, old and new and the service followed the same pattern as those that we had experienced in Baptist churches in the US. The singing by the congregation was particularly noticeable as they sung their hearts out in worship and praise.

Lunch afterwards was particularly good with a choice of chicken or beef stew followed by all sorts of tasty homemade cakes. This was cooking on a Julie Board scale and we know what it takes to accomplish this. Robin and Jerry do this week after week with no break. If they go away for a week or so they prepare extra food to cover this period. Here are people being completely used by God. We were in awe.

The boys went to sunday school and met up with kids of their own age for the first time in weeks. Sammy particularly attached himself to a young Japanese boy called Toshi and we set it up for them to meet the next day.

In the evening we had some younger members of the church come around for more food. After diner we played Countdown which Julie and I had never played before but found to be great fun.

We took the hotel bicycles for a spin around Kyoto. The traffic always allowed you to go first and we never felt in any danger. 

Day 197 - Ikoma, Japan - 19th February, 2005

We could still taste last night's diner in our mouths this morning. Not too pleasant but the sleeping experience had been good and we were ready for another day.

We went to breakfast in our robes again. We were disappointed to see in front of us an almost exact replica of what we had had the night before. Rice, raw fish, tofu, seaweed (I think) and miso soup. We all ate the sticky rice (delicious) and there was also some omelette which Julian was able to eat.

After breakfast we took the hotel bicycles out for a short ride around Kyoto. The traffic was fairly light and it was good to see that the Japanese were always very polite even when one of the boys strayed too far into the middle of the road. At one point Sammy jumped off his bike in the middle of a cycle path to catch a look at a Great Blue Heron standing next to a river. Unfortunately he didn't look at who was coming down the path and he off loaded right in front of a Japanese lady on a bike. She was carrying an open umbrella in one hand and was unable to miss his bike. She hit it and landed up in a bush. But without ever looking in our direction, she simply re-mounted and carried on. Apparently the Japanese will avoid confrontation at all costs. Thank goodness.

We packed up and waited in the lobby for the arrival of our Japanese guide. Our host had linked us up with a Japanese friend who came and showed us around a local shrine and then took us to Kyoto station for the ride back to Ikoma.

The trip back was quite a challenge as we had to remember our lines and transfers but we actually managed without getting lost. The rail stations are about the only places that have any writing that we can read. In all other places there is no way or understanding anything. We couldn't even figure out which floor we were on when we exited a lift.

Jerry came to collect us at Ikoma and we settled back at home for the evening.

We spent the night in a traditional japanese inn,a ryokan. Here you have a room with tatami mats and rice paper partitions and you dress in the robes provided and take diner at 20 inch high tables. Apart from some of the food which we found not to our liking, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

Day 196 - Ikoma, Japan - 18th February, 2005

We all woke again at our host's house around 4:00 am. It was pretty interesting trying to keep the boys out of trouble when you are in someone else's house and you don't want to wake them up. I think we did it. At least there were no complaints.

We crept down to breakfast at 7:00 am to find that coffee had already been brewed. After breakfast we set off for Kyoto again but by train this time from Ikoma. I found a brilliant little shop on the station and had the best raison danish I have ever had.

In Kyoto which has a massive rail station over several floors, we took a taxi to Nijo Castle. As with all taxis and most of the new cars here, a GPS system was installed on the dash. This one also had live TV and the driver gave the boys the remote control so they could select a suitable station. Just what you want really? I was surprised to see that a TV would be allowed where the driver could see in on the move. You are not allowed to use phones here whilst driving.

The taxi itself was immaculately presented. Even the door jambs were sparkling and I should know as I spent several years valeting cars for a living. All the trim inside was covered in lace which was then covered in a plastic protector. Very cute. The cars they use are a custom built Toyota Crown with automatically opening rear doors. The car pulls up beside you and the driver pops the door. It was a bit disconcerting when it first happened but quite useful when you get used to it.

Nijo Castle was built in the very early 1600s for a Shogun and his warriors. It has a double moat and walls about 40 foot thick at the base. Inside the compound are traditional Japanese buildings and also some beautifully painted panels.

After getting some lunch at a MacDonalds (didn't think I would ever be glad to see one of those) we went to the ryokan. Our host Jerry had booked us into a traditional Japanese inn for the night. This included a traditional diner and breakfast in the Japanese dining room and the experience of sleeping in a tatami room.

First of all we went to have a communal bath (sexes separated) in the hotel bath room. The tradition of bathing and the bath tub are experiences I had read about and was keen to try. Firstly you have to clean yourself thoroughly, using a bowl and running water in a cubicle in the bathroom. You sit on a little plastic stool and fill up bowls of water and wash these over yourself. You work up a really good lather with the soap and rinse off. This is usually done with others sharing the same bathroom but we didn't see anyone else during our visit. Our room had 5 cubicles and a wooden sunken bath capable of taking 4 or 5 people at once. Julie's room was similarly equipped.

So washed ourselves down with the bowls of water and special soaps provided. Then we attempted to get into the water. Now are by now quite experienced hot tubbers, having taken every opportunity at hotels, to use their facilities especially after we had been skiing. But the temperature of this tub was at least 10 deg hotter than anything we had ever tried before. I was only able to lower myself in over a period of about 5 minutes. Julian could only put his legs in up to the knees. Sammy got in slowly, got out, poured cold water over himself, got back in, got back out, poured more cold water over himself then sat on the ground for about 10 minutes complaining of feeling sick and giddy. Not surprising really.

After our baths we prepared ourselves for of Japanese diner. We dressed in the robes provided by the inn. 

We went for diner at 6 o'clock. The dining room comprised of about 8 rectangular tables that were no more than 20 inches off the ground. Cushions were provided for us to sit on the floor. Not being used to sitting like this, it would only take a minute or so before we felt uncomfortable so we did lots of squirming around during our meal.

The food was immaculately presented. Most of it was fish oriented and in all we probably had 12 or 13 dishes each. The problem was that most of them were quite difficult for the western pallet. I managed to try most things but we all really struggled. The boys thought they had made it when finally they brought some ice cream. However, it turned out to be green tea ice cream (a local delicacy) which was not nice, so after one spoonful it was left. It was actually quite embarrassing how much we left. But it wasn't possible to eat any more than we did.

After diner we went back to our room and it had been transformed into a bedroom with futons and duvets on the floor. We all slept soundly.

Japan Facts

Japan is the same size as California. But it contains a population of half of the whole US (125 million). On top of this only 75% of it's land in Japan is habitable.

Someone else can work out the population densities of habitable land.

Day 195 - Nara, Japan - 17th February, 2005

So we got through breakfast which was pretty much in the western style (at least the bits we had - there were lots of offerings that were Japanese too) and packed up again, got the shuttle bus back to the airport and headed for the railway station.

We found the Japan Rail ticket office. There seems to be one at every turn. Using our rail passes, we collected tickets to Kyoto on the bullet train. Japanese trains run on time. One of the pieces of literature we had on the railways said "Please be on the platform 10 minutes before the train leaves. Do not worry. The train will leave at the stated time". There is no question that it will be late.

The bullet trains are of the Eurostar variety and are kept in immaculate order and cleanliness. There was never any dirt or rubbish anywhere. We boarded our train for the hours ride to Tokyo where we changed to the Kyoto train and had another 2 and half hour ride. We were able to ring our host and tell him which carriage we were going to be in and he met us at Kyoto station at the door of our train.

The first thing I noticed on the train were the seating arrangements of all the passengers. All seats are booked and the seat number is issued at the time of booking. The seats are arranged aircraft style in a 2-3 arrangement, all facing the direction of travel. (all the seats incidentally, I discovered when I pushed a big pedal underneath, swivel around by 180 deg so that they can be faced the other way for the return journey - quite a big job as there were 20 rows in our carriage and 16 carriages). We were booked into 2 rows of 2, one behind the other. But on this carriage and all the carriages and all the trains we ever traveled on, there were no passengers in the 3 seat side of the train. Everyone was seated on one side and no one (except me) strayed on to the other side. Bit strange.

When you look out the window you notice the closeness of the buildings to the track. Even the bullet train travels past houses with rooms that can be no further than 10 feet from our seat. The amazing thing is that the train seems to travel silently and as we discovered in Japan, almost everything is quiet. Then you notice the miles and miles of single 2 storey dwellings. Mostly they are 2 or 3 room sizes big, upstairs and down. Perhaps 600 square feet in total. They all have washing hanging out from the upstairs balcony as no one has a dryer. They are sometimes 4 feet from their next door neighbour but more often they are 12 to 18 inches apart with no garden but sometimes a little front patio and occasionally an off street parking area suitable for a midget car. You have to prove you have a car parking space here before you are allowed to register ownership of a car. No 2 houses are the same. There are no streets of uniform shape or style and no estates. Because of the danger posed by earthquakes, the utilities are mostly strung from poles in the streets. So all the streets are lined with rows and rows of cables strung from telegraph poles with transformers at every junction. The overall effect is that it looks all very temporary to our eyes, and quite untidy. It really looks very shanty town. Not what you would expect. It is very uniform with no houses particularly bigger than the next or decorated differently but that is what the Japanese are all about - not being different or setting themselves apart in any way. Be the same is the name of the game.

The guard enters each carriage with a bow and checks our tickets. Then he bows again before leaving. The lady with the refreshments trolley enters and exits in the same fashion and she travels up and down her 8 carriages (there is another lady for the back 8 carriages) 3 times per hour. We are being served at every point.

We are met by our host Jerry, who handily has a pick up truck. We were wondering how we might get all our baggage to our final destination. We drove from Kyoto back to his house which is in Ikoma about an hour away from Kyoto by road.

The drive was quite slow. Traffic never seems to go over 70 or 80 kph and every driver seems super polite. The roads are narrow and there are few highways or motorways of note. Was quite strange coming from LA where we often rode 16 lane carriage ways (almost always choked). From what we knew of Japan we were expecting the roads to be completely jammed but I would estimate that very many fewer Japanese had cars, in comparison to europe or the US, and the roads seemed mostly to be only suffering moderate traffic.

I found the statistics: the 10 principal cities in the US have 600 cars per 1,000 of population, the 11 principal cities of europe have 400 cars per 1,000 and Tokyo has 225. You only have to look at the residential streets of London to see the cars parked row upon row.

The annual car inspection (which starts after the car is 3 years old) can cost between £600 and £800 per year. That's why so many second hand Japanese cars are exported.

Day 195 - Narita to Nara - 17th February

Thanks to the time difference we all woke up around 3:30 am today. It's not just that you wake up and can't get back to sleep but we were all feeling ravenous and with all the will in the world you just can't seem to get over it. Room service was not available until 7:00 am so we ransacked all our bags and came up with some small individual packs of Frosties and Honey Smacks and a Twix bar.

We still had to pass the time with the boys becoming more agitated and vocal as time passed. I felt sure that there would be a complaint at any time as we knew the walls of the hotel were not all that sound absorbent. 7:00 am finally arrived and we were all dressed and ready to go down to the restaurant.

Once down there we were met by the manager, passed to a "table runner" and taken to our table. We were once again struck by the number of staff who were available to do anything that was required. Julie particularly likes the fact that once they are commissioned to do a task they run to complete it. Last night the lady who helped unload our bags from the bus, ran out of the hotel as the bus pulled up. You get the impression that they are desperate to help and do a good job. And they are.

The breakfast was buffet style with a mixture of Japanese dishes and western foods. I am afraid it was bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade and coffee for me. The boys did have bowls of rice which they ate with their chopsticks but that was our only concession to Japanese dishes.

Now I have to tell you about the toothpicks. One cannot help notice the attention to detail that the people of this country have in their work. The toothpicks on our table were held in a little egg cup type pot. They were all wrapped in little paper wrappers. In the pot were approximately 75 toothpicks. (I know this is the correct figure because they were subsequently counted.) In every other country in the world they would have simply put the toothpicks in the pot. This is not good enough in Japan. These 75 toothpicks were intricately arranged so that when viewed from above, the pattern created by the paper packets surrounding the toothpick, was that of a flower.

I counted the tables (there were 25 or more) and worked out that it was not possible that this could be done by hand and that they therefore must have a trick piece of kit that does it for you. I was so troubled by the prospect that I may be wrong about this that we checked with the restaurant manager on the way out. I commented to him that I was very impressed by the pattern created in the toothpick pots. "Thank you" he said "let me show you how we do it".

He tips all the picks out of a pot he has on his desk. He then lays them all on the counter and picks them up one at a time and puts them in his hand like he was holding a deck of cards. Each stick is turned upside down or around until the writing on them is all facing the same direction. He meticulously picks up 50 and has them all fanned out in his hand the right way round and then he draws the fan together and holds them encircled inside the ring created by his thumb and forefinger. Keeping the circle intact, he lowers them into the cup. Somehow the paper wrapper on the stick, when put into a cup like this, will keep the picks in a circle around the outside edge. Then one by one he picks up the other 25 in groups of 5 and puts them inside this circle with each group of 5 facing a different direction. When complete this gives us the effect of the petals of a budding flower.

This has taken the manager 5 minutes to complete and it looks wonderful. Now that is attention to detail. But it doesn't stop there. Each and every bag of sugar on the tables is put into it's dish facing the right way and perfectly lined up. You know those little bowls you get on restaurant (cafe) tables that have all the different sugars and salts and peppers in them? They are usually all mixed up and jammed in any old way. Not here. Perfectly sorted, precisely lined up. It is astounding. We just can't imagine this level of service and attention to detail. I keep asking myself how you can economically afford to keep it up but it is everywhere and applied to everything.

Another thing I noticed here was how beautifully the water falls out of all the taps. Water comes out of all the taps here completely silently. No hissing or splashing. The nozzle on the tap is so designed that there is no frothing or disturbing of the water as it flows. This gives you a broad column of water that comes out gently with none of the urgency that happens anywhere else. The underlying pressure in the water system has been so regulated that you get the perfect flow. And for the first time in ages we have rediscovered nice taps and washbasin accessories. In the US there is basically one design which is one tap which moves in all directions up, down, left, right and in and out which attempts to control the temperature and the flow all at once. It invariably doesn't and you end up getting sprayed by boiling hot (or freezing cold if they have decided to plumb it in differently) water coming out of the tap at 100 psi. In Japan you turn on the hot tap one turn, mix in a little cold water and you rejoice that the temperature will not alter and the pressure will not change during your washing operation.

Day 194 - Narita, Japan - 16th February, 2005

We flew across the Pacific in a Beoing 777. It only has 2 engines. Makes you think.

I remember seeing a TV documentary about the development of this plane about 6 or 7 years ago. They showed, with film clips, what happens when one engine fails at the most critical point; take off. Virtually nothing. They also showed how much damage the fuselage would sustain if one of the engines blew in flight. Virtually none. The pressurised cabin remained intact. They also show how much pressure it would take to blew up the cabin. Tons. The plane was years and years in development. It was one of those programmes that stays in your mind for years.

The plane was very comfortable with an unusual 2 -5 -2 seating arrangement. We had 2 rows of 2 in a section on our own.

The first thing you notice when you arrive in Japan are the number of people employed to just be around. There was a line of smartly dressed airport attendants showing us the way to the baggage claim or the passport control or the Health Desk which we were asked to report to if we had a temperature or diarrhoea. I was wondering where we should go if we had constipation.

If you hesitate for one moment in your journey to your airport destination (which with 2 crabbit children you do quite often), some one would immediately be there asking you where you want to go.

The money changing was quite an experience. You line up at the kiosk and you are approached by a money changing official who kind of pre-qualifies you for the task. He presents you with a form and has you fill in all sorts of details like what are the denominations of the notes you want to change and what hotel are you staying in. When he checks this all, counts your money and accepts you as a potential customer, you are invited to re-join the line but now you have your bit of paper and the questionable money in a little tray. I presumed that you were not allowed to pass the money to the lady behind the glass unless it was on this little tray.

I was finally offered the opportunity to present my tray to the lady. She carefully checked the form, acknowledged the pre-qualification man for having had me fill it in properly and counted the money again. After lots of initialling of the form it was rubber stamped in 3 places and passed back to a man sitting behind her who scruntinised it once more. Then she passed the notes to him and he counted the money for the third time. All the time the first lady smiled and seem involved in all sorts of activities associated with changing the money but none of which I could understand or involved the collection and counting out of any Japanese currency.

After some moments she presented me with a calculator which showed a figure of about 12 digits in length. She looked at me and smiled and all of her activity ceased whilst she was obviously waiting for me to acknowledge the sum, or agree that it was a suitable sum of yen to be given in exchange for my dollars. I looked at the figure and with my British sense of humour always wanting to get out, I was tempted to say to her in my best Japanese, that I thought the number a little low and could she please speak to her boss to get a better rate. I thought better of it and having given up trying to work out what the 12 digit figure actually meant (I don't actually think I have seen a figure that big before) I nodded in my practicesed Japanese fahion, bowing from the hip, indicating that the caculation met with my approval. She then counted out about 8 notes and a little shrapnel and placed it on the little tray for it's journey back under the glass.

The process had taken about 15 minutes and involved 3 members of staff. I was wondering, if after paying the salaries of all these people, there would be any profit left for them out of my $120 dollars. I was tempted to leave them a tip, as I have never been so served before. In all there were 4 "money changers" in the kiosk and one "pre-qualifyer" working the outside area. There was only 1 line of potential (they needed to be pre-qualified first) customers with about 6 people in it. In anywhere else in the world one person could have handled the job in half the time. But then again it wouldn't have been such fun and four more people were employed and not on the streets.

Arriving at the hotel was another example of the same level of attention and service. 2 people were employed taking our bags off the bus. 8 attendants were in the foyer ensuring that we did not stray off the path that was the shortest way to the front desk. One man was positioned at the entrance to the line up ropes at reception, to ensure you went down the right hole. Another was employed to ensure that we moved up as close as possible to the person in front. As our bags were brought in a bag attendant (another person, not any of the people I have already described) was attaching labels to our bags and another person was checking with the desk which room we were booked into so he could mark the tags on our bags with the correct room number. It's just as well that there is no tipping here. Wow. Who pays all their salaries? Do they get paid?

Being British is quite awkward. We are sometimes prone to wanting to have a bit of space. We (at least I do) like a little latitude. I would quite like to have walked over to the other side of the foyer to admire the mural on the wall for instance. I could see that this would not be an acceptable thing to do as I was meant to be checking in.

I could see from the lady's face that she thought we were odd. "At what time will you be checking out sir?" was her question. We are British, we don't want to be tied down. We don't want to commit. We don't want someone else questioning us. We had not even thought about checking out. We hadn't checked in yet. We had never experienced this level of time zone change. We might wake up at 6:00 am and want to check out at 7:00 am. Then again, we might CNN it for a while and check out around 9:00 am. We have never had someone ask us that question before. The only reply we could make was "What time do we need to check out by?". This of course was not an answer. There was a box on the registration card that asked for a check out time. The box needed to be filled. Surely if a human being was standing in front of me checking in to my hotel they would already know the time they were leaving. I could feel her having this thought. Of course (I am making this next bit up) a Japanese person would never check into an hotel without knowing exactly what time he was leaving the next day. We told her to put down 10:00am so we could put her out of her misery of having an unfilled box.

So being British is awkward. We are hopelessly undisciplined (this was already obvious from being in North America), we are completely unruly with 2 children all over the place and badly dressed (we look like we have just emerged from a month in an RV and the Japanese are all so smartly dressed even if they were being alternative). We do not however, smoke.

I think we are going to have fun.

The Japanese Ryokan hotel where we are going to stay for a night sent us an e-mail asking if we would like boiled or raw fish for our dinner. OK, will rice be alright?

Day 193 - Los Angeles to Japan - 15th February, 2005

Having been up half the night packing again, we go up at the crack of dawn (I actually got up too early) and prepared to move the RV across Los Angeles to it's home base. We had been up late talking to our friends in Japan who were advising us of the arrangements we needed to make. We had decided to buy 7 day rail pass tickets which are about $250 each and are the cheapest way of getting aound in Japan. But they need to be purchased outside of the country. We found someone in LA, very near the spot where we needed to drop off the RV. We called them and had them prepare the tickets for collection this morning.

Our flight was at 12:30, so by getting up at the crack of dawn you would have thought that we would have had enough time. We had breakfast and set off for the local charity shop to drop off our bag of surplus bits and pieces. We decided to pass on some of the ski clothes and other items the boys had grown out of and some books. We also had run out of space.

We got to the shop around 7:30am and dropped off the bag. Then we set off to travel to the other side of LA to collect the train tickects and drop off the RV. We go to the office of the ticket agent at 8:45am and collected the tickets. We were in good time. The traffic in our direction had been surprisingly light. We then filled up the RV with gas as it had to be returned filled to the top.

We had asked our friends in Japan if there was anthing they would like us to bring from the US as they are Americans. We then went shopping and bought cake mixes, jellos and various other bits and pieces. We got to the RV drop off point at 9:45 knowing that the ride to LAX airport was about 30 minutes. Still in good time. The RV people checked over the RV, worked out the excess mileage (we had done nearly 4,000 miles) and gave me the refund of the deposit. He asked us when we were due to fly. We said 12:30. Oh dear, he said, did you not know that you have to check in 3 hours before flying. I was working this all out. Half an hour to get to the aiport ..... we were already an hour and a half late!

The attendant immediately called for a taxi, ensuring that the company send a mini-van to accommodate all our luggage. Half an hour later he arrived to pick us up. Now we were 2 hours late and still half an hour away from the airport. The taxi driver got the message completely. He changed into a magic driver and got us there in 10 minutes. There were many drivers on the highway who were amazed to see this flying taxi sail past them.

Needless to say we got there and we able to check in quickly and then were taken to the front of the security lines to get us through in time.

The flight was fine except that it went on for ever. We left at 12:30 pm local time and were in the air for 11 hours and arrived at 5:00 pm The boys had just fallen asleep on the plane so were exceptionally gumpy when worken. By the time we got inside the terminal, Sammy was crying. Narita airport is huge and it took the aircraft about 15 minutes of trundling to get to the drop off point. Then we had to get in a bus to travel to the terminal. We got to the hotel at about 2:00am Los Angeles time phew.

We made it to Japan, the land of lots of people. This is a classic sign that was attached to the side of our bath in the hotel. We obviously have permission to throw intelligent people! (see last line) (click on image to enlarge) 

Day 192 - Disneyland, Los Angeles - 14th February, 2005

I can't really find the word to describe the disappointment that today was for me. It went something like this:

Tell the boys for 5 years that I would promise to take them to the original and best Disneyland there is; California.

Tell the boys for the last year that the highlight of our trip would be our Disneyland visit.

Tell the boys that the best ever roller coaster ride was Space Mountain.

Get to the park at 11:00am and line up for 30 minutes to buy a ticket.

Find out that Space Mountain is being refurbished and won't be open until May.

Get ticket and line up for 10 minutes to go through the turnstiles.

Go to Jungle Cruise tour. Line up 30 minutes to go on tired ride of 2 minutes that hasn't changed since I was in Disneyland 30 years ago. You can see better animated animals in the Rainforest Cafe.

Go the Pirates of the Caribbean tour. Line up 20 minutes for a reasonable (to me anyway - boys not really impressed) ride of 3 minutes.

Go the the Indiana Jones ride and line up for 20 minutes. Then told ride is broken and told to go away. This ride is regarded as the next best one after Space Mountain (when they are both working).

Find a food joint (either pizza or burgers - what a surprise) that does not have half an hour wait and pay $22 dollars for 3 slices of pizza and 2 drinks. Better Pizza can be had anywhere.

Lined up 5 minutes to go on a Star Trek simulator ride. This was actually pretty good.

Line up 25 minutes at the Bob Sled ride. Realise that no bob sleds are going around after 20 minutes but decide to hang on to see if they can fix it. They finally do and get to go on a ride of 1.5 minutes at about 12 mph. Boys really not impressed by now.

Line up another 25 minutes to go on Big Thunder roller coaster ride of 1 minute duration. Ride about as good as our journey to the airport in Las Vegas in our RV.

Go back to the Indiana Jones rides and the wait time is listed as 70 minutes.

Decide the whole thing has been a giant waste of time and $149 (for 3 of us - Julie sensibly declined to come) and we leave at 5:00pm.

Just miss the free shuttle bus that would take us back to the RV park so we have to pay for a taxi.

Don't do it folks. It's a scam. I worked out that it must be in the region of $350 per hour to ride second rate roller coasters.

The park was so packed (yes even in the off season) that you couldn't see the ground under your feet. It was just a heaving mass of not very pleasant people, trying to find a ride they could persuade their child it would be worth waiting for. I couldn't persuade mine.

At least 50% of the park is just shops and concessions. So once they have fleeced you of your $149 dollars, they attempt to try to steal more money from you by selling you a pile of cheap junk and rubbish food at 2 times normal prices.

30 years ago (Ay those WERE the days!) when I first went there I was amazed and stunned. I was 18 or 19 and had never seen anything like it. Today it just does not work. The boys both would have prefered to stay in the RV park playing on their bicycles and on the computer and watching a little TV. I spent an enormous amount of effort attempting to "keep them going" as we waited and waited in those horrible lines. You know they design them to wiggle all over the park. You think the line is pretty short. Then you get to where you think the end is and turn the corner to find it goes on anther half a mile. Drives you insane.

Nope not impressed. I came home and fired off an e-mail to the Disney organisation which really must be contravening the trades descriptions laws by using the strapline: "Where all your childhood dreams come true". Nightmares more like. I heard several of the employees use the line "This is the happiest day of your life". Retch.

Shame really. Spoiled an otherwise perfect trip. Anyway the boys were pretty good. They took it in their stride and were pretty happy when they got back on their bikes. They did not really have anything like the expectations that I had although they thought it might at least be as good as Universal Studios.

If I had done my research properly I would have ended up taking them to Knotts Berry Farm or Six Flags. Proper themes parks, real roller coasters. Oh well next time.