Friday, July 7, 2006

Update Post from Williamsburg, VA! ^o^
Hey everybody. Guess who. ;)
Yep, it’s AD898 here to give you a process update on my vacation! ^o^
I’m currently barrowing my Daddy-O’s laptop to visit my fellow Otakus and update you while here in Williamsburg.

First off, I’d like to ask everyone how they’ve been.
Did I miss anything big?

Anyway, here’s the play-by-play of my week so far since I left on Sunday.
(This may take a while, so unless your either really interested in how my vacation’s going or just really bored, you may wanna’ save this for later and just skip past my day-by-day explanations.
Though I really, really appreciate anyone who has the kindness & interest to read through this whole thing, I don’t mind if you at least save it for a moment when you have the time to read it.)

Sunday:
We left at about 9 or so in the morning. We didn’t arrive here in Williamsburg Virginia until about 5 or 6, but the car-ride over here took a lot shorter than I expected, which was quite nice. =) I didn’t even have to whip-out my Gameboy Advance to keep me occupied. I just slept and listened to Symphony X on my CD-player (I’m stuck with only the “Twilight In Olympus” and “The Odyssey” albums though. =( I didn’t have any writeables to put the others on. But that’s OK, because I love those albums! *is listening to “The Odyssey” as I’m typing this* ^_^ ).
Anyway, after we got settled in we spent the rest of the evening at Busch Gardens. I had to baby-sit my sister as my parents rode the coasters. I didn’t mind that though, because I hate roller-coasters. =( Does that make me a wuss? The experience if riding roller-coasters are the things I have nightmares about (the flying, the speed, the height, etc.), so thus they kind of scare the sh** out of me. =/ Anybody else here in the same boat as me?

Anyway, Busch Gardens is doing a fireworks special each night leading up to July 4th. We got to see the fireworks, and I can safely say it was the most spectacular fireworks show I’ve ever seen. =D Fireworks really are more impressive up close. I wish you guys could have seen it. It was really pretty.

Monday:
Monday we woke up and went to our hotel’s complimentary breakfast. ^_^ They had lovely Danishes, as well as these neat little self-serve waffle irons so guests could make their own waffles.
We then spent the day at Busch Gardens. I hadn’t slept well the night before, mostly due to the fact my sister had to bunk in the bed me & my mom were sharing (we only have 2 beds in a room of 5 people), meaning her feet woke me up about 8 times. @_@
I mostly ended up watching over my sister while my parents rode coasters, but after a while we did things more as a family, such as the White Water Rapids ride and the train that circumvents the park.
We also rode an awesome ride called “Escape from Pompeii”, which is a rafting ride that tours you through about a minute of the remains of Pompeii as it’s being destroyed by a volcanic eruption. They did awesome effects with the fire (it was EVERYWHERE!), including a part where it erupted from the water and crawled across the ceiling. O.O It was so cool! *pyromaniac*
We then went back to the hotel to relax, and went back to the park later that night to see the fireworks and ride some more rides.

Tuesday (July 4th):
Since the park was anticipated to be most crowded on the 4th, we decided to spend that day at Yorktown. Though not my favorite part, it was still pretty interesting, mainly because my dad hung back with me on the tour and talked with me. =) My dad’s a very funny man.
Plus, I had slept well the previous night, mostly due to the fact my little sister is now sleeping on the floor in a comfy sleeping-bag. ^_^
It was pretty hot that day, but we didn’t stay very long, so my mom did us the favor of not making us stay there ‘till it got boring and stale.

Anyway, after that we went back to the hotel and relaxed again, and returned to Busch Gardens later that night to see the 4th of July finale of the fireworks.
We rode an awesome ride called “Corkscrew Hill” before the fireworks began. “Corkscrew Hill” is a part of the Ireland section of the park, and is a 3D Motion-simulator ride. For those who don’t know, my favorite kind of ride is the 3D, Special-effects simulation kind of ride, so I found it pretty enjoyable. =)
The basic story behind the ride is a Celtic themed adventure where your host shrinks the theater and everyone in it to the size of Coffee-grounds box. It starts with 2 Irish kids picking it up and trying to pawn-off the “box of little people” at the local pub. This eventually leads to you experiencing riding a Dark Pegasus, being flown and dropped by an unfriendly Griffin, and various other awesome things for the motion of the theater to simulate.
For those wondering, it was animated, and had lots of enjoyable humor to it. The 3D effects were also very impressive (at one point a witch who’s apparently planning to eat everyone in the theater “sticks” a fork into it trying to scrape us out. It was extremely impressive!), and was altogether very enjoyable!

We also went to a movie they were showing called “Pirates 4D”. It was also 3D, but lacked the motion-simulation, meaning it was basically a standard movie-theater. We went because my brother wanted to see it, mostly because it starred Eric Idol.

Anyway, we noticed that after the fireworks most people empty out of the park, meaning short wait-time for rides. =)
Thusly, my dad, mom, little sister and I were able to get in line early for a new ride here called “The Curse of DarKastle”.
Like “Corkscrew Hill”, DarKastle was another 3D ride, but this one wasn’t as much a motion-simulator since you actually rode in an individual car that traveled along a track.
Anyway, the premise of the ride was basically a haunted-house (there’s supposed to be a story behind it, but I didn’t get to hear it. =/ ). I was kind of nervous going in, because normally I hate haunted-houses due to the fact that they normally rely on cheap scares or nauseating gore. However, I really enjoyed DarKastle. The spooky vibe was similar to the kind of stuff I draw, without being too scary or gross. The stone-wolves at the entrance of the castle jump on the hood of your car, ghost-knights hurl spears and daggers at you, and the ghost-dude that’s the main bad guy presents his severed head on a platter (like a Hawaiian pig) when you enter the kitchen, cracking some joke about “getting ahead” or “being a head” or something like that. All these segments had very high-quality 3D animation, which makes tech-head Logan very happy. =D
At the finale of the ride, the bad-guy ghost turns into a wolf-thing and chases you out of his collapsing castle. This portion includes tumbling through the air in a free-fall from the highest tower. I mention this part because unlike most 3D rides that have a simulated “free-fall”, this one actually made me loose my sense of direction. I forgot I was on a ride sitting upright with a screen that was trying to make it look like we were falling, and actually felt we were really tumbling through the air. Such high-quality 3D animation leaves me quite impressed.

Anyway, after that I baby-sat my little sister as my parents rode an inverted-coaster called “Alpengeist” 3 or 4 times. We stayed until the park closed.

Wednesday:
Just as I had been waiting for, we finally went to the water park on Wednesday. “Water Country USA”. =)
Though it required a lot of waiting in line, I spent the whole morning riding slide after slide after slide while my parents looked after my little sister (I may be deathly afraid of coasters and haunted-houses, but Logan-kun fears no waterslide). I can tell you, Water Country USA has a lot of quality waterslides. ^_^

Anyway, we rode all morning and then went back to chill at the hotel.
After a while, my dad, sister and brother all wanted to go back to the water park a little more. Since they were calling for thunderstorms that afternoon, my mom and I wanted to stay home, so my dad, sister and brother went alone. Mom and I stayed here and enjoyed the quiet. ^_^
Later that day the storms hit as was predicted, but these were some severe storms. Rather than close the park, they had to evacuate it. O_o According to my dad and siblings there were people running like mad to their cars, driving over the rock parking-lot medians, nearly running over people as lighting struck all around the park. Glad they made it out OK. O.O I’m also glad I decided to stay here.

That night I started reading the first of my summer-reading books; “The Things They Carried” (which I mentioned a few posts ago).
Surprisingly enough, I’m liking it! O_o;
I think I have an interest in books about war (as I said before, TTTC is about Vietnam). I’ll have to post a few quotes from the book for you guys once I’m back home on Sunday.

Thursday (yesterday):
Against what I thought was a good idea, we went to the water park again while it was all cloudy, drizzly and cold. -.- I was a bit bummed at first, but riding some great slides made me all better.
Plus, due to the weather that day, there was almost nobody at the park, meaning almost no waiting in line! ^o^ I didn’t wait more than 5 minutes for anything!
One big slide they have called “The Aquazoid” usually requires a 45 minute wait or longer. I rode it 7 or 8 times in a row without having to wait once. =^_^= How awesome is that?

We got back from the water park around 5 or so. We ordered Chinese, and I got a burger from Wendy’s (I hate Chinese food XP ).
Heh, while picking up the food at the restaurant, my dad and I saw an Asian businessman in suit and tie taking a nap on the waiting-couch. He had his head tilted back and his mouth open. XD he looked really silly. Poor guy must’ve been traveling and gotten really tired.

Friday (today):
Well, we got up, went to our hotel’s breakfast, and then went to Colonial Williamsburg. XP That was pretty boring I must say, and my father agrees.
*sigh*, my mom loves history, especially Colonial stuff, but the rest of us were bored stiff. My sister did nothing but complain the whole time. :p

We got back from there around 2 or 3 and had lunch. Around 4 my mom decided she wanted to go back, so she decided she, dad and my little brother would go back and I’d stay here at the hotel and baby-sit my little sister (they took my brother with them, because there’s no way they’d leave me here having to baby-sit both of the little demons O_o ).

So, I’m using the quiet to use my dad’s laptop again and finish typing this post, so here I am. ^_^
*whew*, a big thank-you to all those who took the time to read that whole thing.

****Start reading here if you skipped the above part****

Anyway, here are some summarizations of my trip so far that you all should know about:
-We’re packed into a single room, 2 to a bed (me with my mom, my brother with my dad, and my sister now on the floor), and the lack of privacy and quiet is starting to wear on everyone’s nerves (my parents are perfectly fine with me, but my brother and sister are another story. *rolls eyes*).

-My little brother, as usual, is doing everything to be as big an ass as he can. He’s just so friggen’ obnoxious!
*sigh*, but don’t worry, he’ll get his just desserts eventually, or just stop being obnoxious, so it’s a win-win situation. ^o^

-All through Sunday, Monday and July the 4th, The Sci-Fi Channel ran a marathon of “The Twilight Zone”; one of me and my dad’s favorite shows! ^_^ So in the earlier part of this week we got to watch a lot of The Twilight Zone when we were back at the hotel.
Is anybody else here a fan of The Twilight Zone?

-Despite being here nearly a week, we’re constantly getting lost here in Williamsburg. @_@ We’ve spent about one half of our total driving time just finding our way to our destination or finding our way back to the hotel.
Naturally, cracking jokes about us being in a Twilight Zone plot was common between me and my dad, ranging from gnomes constantly changing the road-signs every time we pass to being in the village of the Nowhere-people. XD

-Our hotel room seems to have a bug problem. DX Aside from the occasional wasp or twitch-bug, we seem to have a constant stream of ants coming from the main sink and bathroom.
But the owners sprayed for em’ while we were out the other day, and for the most part they seem to have stopped.

Allrigtie everybody, I really appreciate reading through that whole thing!
I’m gonna’ post this and try to visit some sites on this clunky old laptop.

Expect me back on Sunday night. I’ve only got one full day left up here at Williamsburg. I’ll be eager to see you guys. ^_^

On the positive side of things, Josh and I are going to have a slew of sleep-overs and manga-runs once I get back (we haven’t been able to do anything together for the first 4 weeks of summer! ToT ).
Plus, my buddy Jess is going to loan me the complete DVD box-set for a show I really like once I get back. ^o^
What show is that you ask? Well it’s one I haven’t told you guys I like yet. I think I’ll save telling you exactly which show it is until I’m back home. ^_^

Well, maybe just a hint…..

Um….. shopping-carts.
Yep, that’s right: Shopping-carts. The kind they have at your local grocery-store.

Let’s see if anyone can figure this on out by Sunday! ^_^

OK everybody, I’ll see you Sunday night! Pray for my safe return!

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