Is he your Prince? - Disney World, Orlando, Florida, USA

The pix above was taken on our very first day in the US, we arrived at nearly midnight the night before at LA before taking the midnight flight from LA to MCO (airport) Orlando, hence night cannot be considered the first DAY, right? We touched down at the sunshiney state of Florida at 7am, left the airport at about 8.30am, and we were checked into our Disney World hotel by 9.15am (no rooms yet but we could check in earlier just to get our entry passes to the parks), and by 9.30am, we were off to our first destination, i.e. EPCOT, which is one of the four theme parks in Disney World, Orlando. More detail on epcot here: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/epcot/

I won't be blogging chronologically so pardon me 'jumping' to the next scene:

Cinderella saw us approaching her and her first question was to me: Is he your Prince?

I replied yes.

Then she turned to my husband and asked, "Do you mind if I hold your arm?" and turned to look at me.

I nodded my approval and we got the pix taken. Too bad this is our only shot with this Cinderella cos she is just so pretty!

Compared to the one who waited at the Princesses 'chamber', whom we met at Magic Kingdom (one of the four Disney parks at Disney World, Florida) a few days after our first Cinderella:

Me and Cinderella (the indoor one):

I randomly snapped a pix of a mother and her two girls who were ahead of us in line - and as mentioned in my previous post on Disney Princesses, the line was about an hour long.

I feel that the 'outdoor' Cinderella we first met was just so much prettier, no offence to the indoor one, it's just that when there are more than one model, one can't help but compare! Sorry, indoor Cinderella!

DIFFERENT VERSIONS
There are many versions of Cinderella's stories and dresses. I love her when she is in her normal garb/dress compared to when she is in her princess gown, partly because of her hairdo when she is in her princess gown. She looks way sweeter when she has her hair down and tied back with a hankerchief/cloth/bandana, whatever it is.

The version of the Cinderella story that I like best, is only one part - the part where her name was really Ella, but after her father died (not after marrying her stepmother after the death of his first wife, and gained two stepsisters), she was treated like a maid and always cleaned the chimney and in turn, she is covered in Cinder, and her stepmother and stepsisters mocked her and called her Cinder-Ella, with later became Cinderella.

What makes Cinderella different from the other Disney princesses is that she has a pumpkin carriage that her fairy godmother turned temporarily for her, which will turn back into a pumpkin at the stroke of 12 at midnight, and a glass slipper/shoes, to name a few. Which girl doesn't love shoes? *Sleeping Beauty/Princess Aurora has 3 fairy godmothers, so I guess the 1959 princess in pink is luckier? And she gets to sleep too, unlike Cinderella who had to clean and scrub and cook every day.

Like all Disney love stories, Cinderella left behind her glass slipper and the Prince right in the middle of a dance at a ball for the Prince to choose his bride, and unlike girls today, she didn't leave her phone number or address, she left behind a glass slipper. Now there is an anomaly in the theory of when the clock struck 12 times at midnight, everything will turn back to their original state - the carriage turned back into pumpkin, the horsemen and footmen and the horses turned back into her pet mice, her dress turned back into rags, but the glass slippers, supposedly one was left behind and separated from the other one on her feet, stayed on as glass slippers.

Okay, let's stop the cynical comment on Cinderella's story. It's just my opinion, a 30-something-Disney fan who could memorise all the Princess cartoons by heart, up to Mulan, after which, I just lost interest in Princess and the Frog, I guess, nothing personal, I was already too 'old' when the movie was released, and we just never gotten around to watch it. That's all. Yes, blame it on my age. :-)

I thought I could blog about Beauty and the Beast too with Cinderella but thinking back, I've got so much more to talk about Beauty (Belle) as there is special Beauty and the Beast Show at Disney Hollywood Studies (formerly Disney MGM Studios) - another of the four theme parks in Disney World that I think Beauty needs a single blogpost for herself.

Back to Cinderella, here are some pix of the parade (day time) that we saw, and a real life-sized pumpkin carriage, with a pretty prince and a jovial fairy godmother.

There are more pix of Cinderella and the other characters from Cinderella, especially for the night time Electrical Parade which was simply awesome! The Electrical Parade warrants a whole blog post on its own, but here's a teaser pix, not of Cinderella, but Disney's first couple - Mickey and Minnie!!!

Just realised I've blogged about Disney World in three blog posts and I haven't even uploaded a Mickey/Minnie pix, except for them on our T-shirts. lol And that will be another blog post on its own.

Geez, I think I will blog about Disney World for maybe the whole month or something. It is so huge it is about the size of the City of San Francisco in California, and we spent 12-16 waking hours a day for a whole week (full seven days) in Disney World alone, so you can just guess how overwhelming the experience was! 8am-12midnight almost every day at the parks in Disney World.

We stayed up for up to 16 hours straight (woke up an hour earlier for breakfast etc. and at the end of the day, another hour to wind down/bathe etc) - even when we are at work, we don't stay up so many hours at a one-week stretch! Now this is 'working' for your 'fun'! A new way to look at things! The whole experience was really an eye-opening fun-filled honeymoon for hubby and I. Will surely visit again in the next 10 years, maybe more than once! ;)

My related blogspot link: http://suesanctuary.blogspot.com/2012/07/do-you-believe-in-green-dragon-disney.html

Where is the love? Humans do bicker and blame others, when can thefinger-pointing stop?

DISCLAIMER: This is a general post on the most general level, being my first attempt at using the Blogger app for iPhone I just downloaded from the App Store. I am not personally lashing out at anyone but if you do feel the 'sting', maybe there's some 'truth' in what I saw and I hope you will give my points some thoughts. This isn't meant to disparage anyone and are all my personal opinion.

Now that we have done the 'disclaimer', since there are just so many 'sensitive' readers out there, who think the world revolves around them instead of them being a small part of the cosmic system, here goes.

I think in this topic, there are generally three types of people.

1. The ones who have opinions, let others know of their opinions and they don't accept others' opinions 'graciously', the keyword here is graciously - these people I'll call 'Always Right' - usually these people resort to putting down others or launch personal attacks or drama in their feeble attempt at 'defense'.

2. The ones who have opinions but keep their opinions to themselves, and they may or may not agree with others' opinion, these people I'd like to call the 'Passive Ones' - usually these people will be sitting on the fence but when it comes to choosing sides, they will surprise you by joining in the name-calling, albeit anonymously.

3. The ones who have their opinions and let others know about them yet at the same time allows for room to discuss and accept others' opinion on a professional level with minimal hassle - I'll refer to them as the 'Open Professionals' - enough said.

These are just terms I coin to easily refer to them in this blogpost. I think the Open professionals are the most ideal but that's just my opinion, don't take my word for it.

If you cannot agree with what I say, so be it. This is my blog and a place for me to post my opinion. If everyone in the world is entitled to their opinion - If you cannot accept others' opinion, why do you wish to impose your opinion on others in the first place? Do you like it when I impose on you? No? Then why do you do it to others' then? Are you a more superior human being that others need to listen to you and you only? You know there is a thin line between imposing, forcing and 'bullying'? I am 'talking' to the first group, the 'Always Right'.

To the second group, why are you so 'cowardly' and do not even own up to your own opinion and resort to 'anonymous chicken' comments, especially in the cyber world. You think you are 'safe' and anonymous, but trust me, there isn't such thing as privacy online, nothing is completely private unless you resort to totally not go online, erase all your records, change your name and live in a remote area.

Why act surprised when your information is easily dug up via a simple google or Facebook search? Then you usually will play the victim and use the words/phrases like 'I usually maintain a low profile', I didn't mean it that way, 'I didn't write that out of malice, I was drunk/insane/account hijacked/forced by my dog/__fill in the blank__ to write that comment. The point is they wish to have nothing to do or own up to their comments. I think the Passive Ones are even worse than the first group in the sense of taking ownership of their own actions, especially online. Usually the first and second groups - Always Right and Passive Ones are interchangeable, they may share some things in comment, that I call a lethal combination.

EXAMPLE: On fb, set on a 'public' privacy setting, one innocent picture of several young girls in their 20s who pose for a camwhoring session. They are just girls having fun with the camera.

I shall use Mr as a generic term and do not mean to disparage men in general, same principle as saying 'He' instead of bothering about the gender. I am all for gender equality BUT some form of literary uniformity is required here.

Mr Always Right 1: see what I found on fb! (shares picture by saving it and uploading it hence claiming it
His own)

Mr Passive One 1: How sexy. *expletive* (he is not using his real name when commenting)

Mr Always Right 1: yeah, *insert judgement* They are asking for it.

Mr Always Right 2: Oh, I see they are really asking for it, dressing up that way *insert expletive* hahaha

Mr Passive One 2: *insert some disparaging remarks and expletives*

Mr Always Right 3: *passes down more judgement in order to appear 'original' with his 'witty' comments on the 'topic' and in doing so, he put down the girls even more*

Mr Always Right 1: *tries to outdo everyone thus far and reminded everyone that it was him, the genius who first 'discovered' the girls and adds more disparaging remarks about the girls and suddenly it became a 'match' of who can come up with the most disparaging remarks about the girls*

Mr Passive One 3: *joins in the banter by giving his 'humble opinion' anonymously*

Mr Passive One 4: *overcame his 'shyness' and in a totally misguided sense of 'revenge' based on a personal rejection by a girl who turned him down back in high school YEARS AGO, lashed out on the girls and call them even worse names than those already mentioned before in the comments*

Mr Always Right 2: *came back online and saw that the other comments are saucier and more vicious than his previous comments, hence to boost his over inflated ego and in an attempt to 'win' the non-existent best commenter award of the thread, offered his two cents by adding in more expletives and self-righteous comments in his holier-than-thou comment*

Mr Passive One 5: *claps his virtual hands and joins in the name calling*

Mr Always Right 4: *saw that this topic is bumped a lot by the comments, hence he figured it is a 'place to be seen', hence he joined in the conversation with what he thinks is the 'best disparaging remark' and passed down judgement on the most superficial level*

Mr Always Right 5: *does not want to be left out from sharing his opinion on such a 'hot topic', and passed down his judgement by calling the girls in the picture even worse names, somehow he thought it will be clever to add in a dash of politics to the comment*

Mr Passive One 6: *obviously turned on and deliriously happy with the entire bantering and shared a personal anecdote of how these girls reminded him of the b*tch he used to date once - what we didn't know is that the date never happened beyond his imagination*

Mr Always Right 1: *not wanting to 'lose out' he topped the politics comment by Mr Always Right 5 and made a very racist and politically-fueled comment, linking the girls in the pix to 'those dirty politicians'

Mr Passive One 1: *returned online an saw how the topic has escalated to politics and joins in the excitement*

AND THE COMMENTS CONTINUED UNTIL MORE THAN 20 (or more) different people commented on it.

Somehow the 'sensational' platform which witnessed their extreme display of 'high' intellect resulted in the issue to go viral and the 'share' button on fb is put to good use.

Usually the girls in the pic don't even know what hit them. Ignorance is Bliss you say?

Totally random strangers and guys (including some fellow females) lashed out at them and judged them from head to toe, even an innocent smile is deemed improper and 'asking for it', etc. Many girls dress the same way they are dressed in the picture but somehow it is wrong just because they were target practice for over-inflated egos who love to share their 'brilliant' opinions.

I am getting all riled up here am I not? Okay, end of example 1.

DISCLAIMER OF THE EXAMPLE ABOVE: The above example is entirely fictional and created in the mind of the author and bears no resemblance to any living beings, humans or otherwise.

WHAT I FEEL SHOULD BE DONE:
The world needs more love. Love yourself, be comfortable in your own skin, solve your own insecurities and please don't lash out at strangers or even high profile personalities who do not even know your name. Everything starts from you, internally.

Those who judge are usually lacking something 'inside', hence they make up for it by passing on judgement about others and then feel 'good' about it, get a kick out of it and the vicious cycle continues.

It is true then when they say 'Big egos usually come together with self-esteem issues'. Enough said.

Some Chinese sayings/poem that my dad passed to me yesterday (Sunday), I don't read Chinese, never been to a Chinese school before, but what I can gather is - the title is "All if Good" - summary: Look at the Positive side of things, think positive, let positivity into your life:

Do you Believe in the Green Dragon? - Disney World, Orlando, Florida, USA

- Caption for the pix:

Yup, the entire Disney World is about the size of San Francisco city in California. Disney World is so huge that it is about twice the size of the island of Manhattan in New York.

Since I have more or less started to blog about our experience at Disney World, Orlando, Florida, (March 2012) at http://tinyurl.com/7h5rueq - here is a continuation of the narration, this time, I will talk about the Disney Princesses, there are so many of them, so I will start with the two earliest princesses in my own memory, so this is just a personal blogpost about these two Disney Princesses.

First of all, we have Snow White.

She is one of the earliest princesses in my memory, of her singing "A ah ah Ah ah" to the birds - you can see the clip here "A Smile and a Song":



I don't really like the intro to another song "One Day My Prince will Come" except maybe for that phrase itself. You can search on Youtube for the clip to see what I mean.

Up next is the Sleeping Beauty, she and Snow White, they are the earliest princesses in my memory. Amazing how animation was so advanced (thanks to Disney) even back when it wasn't even 1960 yet, huh?

As a little girl, I always remember that I cower in fear yet still watching repeatedly when Maleficent (the evil Queen) turned into a dragon (I think she's green) and Prince Charming fought his way through to rescue Sleeping Beauty, his beloved Princess Aurora.

The VCR my parents got played these cartoons, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. over and over again, back when we did not have cable tv/paid subscription or even the Internet. I consider myself privileged, as my parents consider these 'edutainment' materials, hence I get to watch most of (read: ALL) the Disney cartoons back in the 1980s.

You can easily google up the wikipedia of the Disney Princesses, especially classics like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but for the uninitiated, if I have to describe them in a single paragraph/sentence each:

Snow White
She is born a Princess and her mother died young and the King remarried, giving her a beautiful young stepmother, who unfortunately got jealous of Snow White's beauty (Skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony) and the hatred for Snow White grew after the King died, which in turn drove Snow White into the woods, into the home of the Seven Dwarves and a poison apple, deep sleep and a handsome Prince who then married Snow White and they lived happily ever after.

Sleeping Beauty
She is born the only daughter of a King and Queen who longed for a child for so long, however, her birth was cursed by an Evil Witch who predicted that when she is 18, her finger will be pricked by a spindle (to weave thread/cloths) and die - hence all the spindles in the kingdom were destroyed and she was raised by three fairy godmothers (who are good witches) in the woods - however when she turned 18, she fell in love with the prince and somehow the curse came true but the fairy godmothers helped her to NOT Die but fall into a deep sleep and the Prince came and kiss her and she awoke, and they got married and lived happily ever after.

Here is a 10-min-clip on Aurora singing in the forest and the Prince Charming attracted to her singing.



What do they share in common? There are many, being created by Disney, but I'd like to narrow them down to three
1. Both are princesses,
2. Both got someone who 'hated' them, motivated by jealousy, and
3. Both are singers, their beautiful singing mesmerised their potential husbands, who happen to be princes.

So my passion in music, and singing was mostly motivated by these cartoons.

Like seriously! I love to sing "A ahh ahhh" without real lyrics to the tunes (back when my English vocabulary was very limited as a multi-lingual little girl) with dreamy eyes whenever I think of these two Princesses.

Anyway, talking about the evil villains in Disney, I was amused when I was at Disney World. Disney World is divided into FOUR different theme parks and TWO water parks - the Princesses could be found mostly at Magic Kingdom (of which HK Disneyland was heavily based on).

At Magic Kingdom, Hubby and I took photographs of the princesses and with them - we queued up early and even then it took nearly an hour just for us to reach the Princesses in their 'rooms'/chambers.

We were the only 'dinkies' around, and Asians to top it off, the rest of the line were non-Asians and/or with children, or were just barely children (teenagers) themselves. 'Dinkies' are married couple with dual-income with no children. We are 'grown-children' - we have found each other via Disney love story, you can put it that way!

Three paragraphs on and I still haven't talked about the evil villains... I am too long-winded!


DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE GREEN DRAGON?
The first princess that you reach in the line was Sleeping Beauty in her pink costume.

I went up to her first for a pix, while hubby snapped a few pix with our camera, and then he joined me and the princess for another pix, so we can maximise the photos taken for such a long wait.

We were wearing matching Minnie and Mickey shirts we bought from HK Disneyland two years before, and it is not difficult to see that we are a couple.

Princess Aurora was really chatty and chatted me up with her Disney-character-mode - the conversation went like this (paraphrased from memory):

Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) hereafter referred to as SB: Is he your prince?

Me: Yes.

SB: Wow, you are so lucky to have found your prince.

Me: --- *silent*(continued to smile to the camera and looking straight ahead, ignoring her by my side)

SB: Are you two married?

Me: Yes (continued to smile to the camera and looking straight ahead, ignoring her by my side)

SB: Wow, did he save you from the Green Dragon?Did he save you from the Queen's Dragon? (this was after thinking about the conversation that I finally get what she meant) - at that moment, I thought I heard 'DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE GREEN DRAGON'?!? I nearly rolled my eyes if not for the cameras pointing at me.

Me: --- *silent* (continued to smile to the camera and looking straight ahead, ignoring her by my side)

By then, she shut up and looked at the camera, I think she must be seething inside for this rude, stupid Asian woman who totally ignored her attempt at a conversation.

Then hubby joined us for a pix, and then we moved on to the next princess who were waiting just beside her 'chamber'.

Thinking back, I feel it is kinda funny and I do feel quite bad for ignoring that young lady who played Princess Aurora.

Here is the pix of me totally ignoring Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) - proof that I am no longer a kid who will believe these young ladies are really princesses - kinda take the 'magic' away, but hey, I am already past 30, you can't blame me!

You see how in the pix she was talking to me animatedly and I just looked straight on with a smile plastered on my face while totally ignoring her? Bad Bad Disney fan, i.e. me. *grins*

I will talk about Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast in the next blog post. They warrant another blog post. :)