Magic Kingdom

For Emily and I, the Magic Kingdom was just a (slightly poorer) clone of DisneyLand in California. But for Timothy, the Magic Kingdom was probably the highlight of the trip. There were far more 'safe' rides in this park than any other. There was also a large number of parades, shows, fireworks, and such. I'll try to describe some of the highlights:

Cars

We have been training Timothy to drive on the Wii. We even have a few steering wheel adapters for the Wii remote to make it more accessible. The local 'speedway' was an obvious ride choice.

The 'speedway' is very simple. Each car is an underpowered go-kart with oversized spring bumpers, and is constrained by a single metal rail underneath. The rail prevents you from leaving your assigned lane, but you can still steer left/right by about half-a-metre. Collisions with the car in front are discouraged, but I managed to give Emily a small 'tap' from behind almost every time. :)

If you weren't careful you would start bouncing left-right-left-right off the rail under the car. It was actually quite a challenge to drive without ever touching that rail. Timothy was actually very good at driving and his passengers always enjoyed a smooth ride. The same cannot be said for some other drivers in our group. :)

I've uploaded a number of photos of Timothy driving, along with all the other rides, so take a look. :)

Dum-Dum-Jiun

As a general rule, anything that spun around ("dum-dum-jiun" in Cantonese) was going to be an easy choice for Tim. We only had "Red Fish Blue Fish" at Universal Studios, but were spoiled for choice at Magic Kingdom with both the Dumbo ride and Aladdin's Flying Carpet. They are the same basic concept; you sit side-by-side and use joysticks to tilt, raise, or lower your carriage while the machine spins around. In the case of Aladdin's Flying Carpets, large camel statues would occasionally spit water at you. On a hot day it was just perfect.

Just a few metres away was the classic horse carousel, ensuring that Timothy never had to go too far to find another ride. At times he became known on-sight to the staff, simply because he was on these rides so often. A number of times we would ride as a whole group, but more often we would let Timothy ride on his own or with a partner. He even became quite good at mounting the horse, a rather difficult task even for me.

Now, the Orbiter ride is a special kind of dum-dum-jiun. It is placed 3 stories up in the air, spins a lot faster, and I believe goes much higher than similar rides. It's more than enough to trigger a fear of heights, if you have such a thing... Watching from the ground, Emily and I couldn't work out whether Timothy was happy or scared. Perhaps it was both. Whatever his initial impressions, Emily and Tim were more than happy to ride it again and again. :)

Tea Cups

What can I say? "You shall have no other ride before this one"? In general, our pattern was "go to ride A, go to tea cups, go to ride B, go to tea cups, ...". I've never seen Timothy so happy as he was on this one ride. And he rode it so many times...

If Emily and I ever needed to run off to a larger ride, we would leave Timothy and Stella at the tea cups because we knew he would not tire of it. During one of these times, a dog turned up while Timothy had been waiting for his turn. Now, Timothy has a mortal fear of dogs; as a rule, he will tense at the sight of a dog, and will run if it comes anywhere near him. Tea Cups is apparently an exception to this rule. Seemingly nothing will discourage Tim from this ride. And there was nothing he enjoyed more. Check out the video on the right for proof. :D

Parades

I think we managed to see every parade there was. My favourite parade, though we didn't get very close to it, would have to be the Block Party. While most of the parades are simply floats driving past, this one has a "party on wheels" atmosphere. The floats stop at regular intervals, do a show and dance, some audience interaction, and then continue on. If you really want to enjoy a parade, make sure you see this one. Mind you, if you like Eeyore like I do, you want to see the others too.

I've put a sample of parade photos up online. I even have a special album for the Karabar High School Marching Band (yes, from Queanbeyan Australia, no they weren't lost). If you'd like a link, send me an email. :)

Fireworks

We spent much of December 30th camped in the castle courtyard watching parades, but also to watch the nightly fireworks. As a bonus (planned by mastermind Emily well in advance) we also got to see the the rehearsal for the incredible New Years Eve fireworks show. As the technicians run the fireworks every night, they now have their shows down to a science. The worst bit for me was just trying to take a photo that would do it justice! I've put the good photos up as an album.

DisneyCloned

Unfortunately, the majority of Magic Kingdom is simply a clone of DisneyLand in California. Emily and I had already ridden most of the rides and, to be honest, the DisneyLand versions are better despite their age.

For example, Space Mountain at DisneyLand is an awesome, pitch black, indoor roller-coaster. At the Magic Kingdom, the whole room was faintly lit and the ride itself has been reduced to a painful mouse-trap design. At DisneyLand we rode Space Mountain at least three times, and I got a rush every time. At Magic Kingdom we rode it once, I was bored, and wanted to get back to tea cups. Other rides suffered similarly. While Magic Kingdom is great of itself, it is merely a reflection of DisneyLand.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was a huge surprise for us. So many people tell us "you could spend half-a-day maximum", and I'm quite sure some people could do it all in half-a-day. We spent the whole day and loved it.

Real Live Animals

Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney theme park, but only because it contains a large African-themed wildlife zone. Our first ride of the day was on an open 'safari' truck to see the animals. I happen to love seeing animals of all types, so this was a real treat for me. At one point a rhinoceraus was actually walking in front of our truck, halting the ride until it moved on. At other times we could clearly see elephants, giraffes, and all manner of horned beasts. As we arrived at the park relatively early in the morning, we were able to take the safari trip twice!

Much of Animal Kingdom is devoted to walking trails and animal exhibits. There are a number of aviaries, habitats for tigers and gorillas, climbing areas for monkeys, etc. There was a whole area devoted to bats, though I was the only one of our group who actually went to see them. A number of people commented on how disgusting the bats were, but I found them quite cute.

I've posted the best of the animal photos as an album on Picasa.

Mythical Creatures

Not everything in Animal Kingdom is related to real animals though. For example, Disney has created a very cool yeti-themed roller coaster. Expedition Everest is basically a train ride up and through the mountains, sabotaged by yetis. There is a lot of very fast backwards and forwards action and was a huge amount of fun. It actually ranks as one of the better roller coasters in the world, despite never going upside down!

I have also read rumours saying that more mythical-themed rides had been planned, but thanks to budget overruns they were cancelled. The Imagineers who had worked on those rides were laid off... and were then hired by Universal to build Dueling Dragons. :D

All Done

After our experience at Universal Studios we were very careful in selecting rides for Timothy. We were a bit surprised when he chose Primal Whirl - a miniature rollercoaster ride that spins as it goes - but he seemed very confident. On the first corner our car began spinning, Timothy was thrown against me, and he was quite happy. On the second corner I was thrown against him... and he wasn't too happy with that. I had to wrap my arm around him to try and avoid further impacts.

Once we reached the top of the first hill Timothy was already saying "all done"; a code phrase that means he is finished and wants to do something else. Of course, the ride wasn't "all done" with us yet. We bolstered him by clapping and whooping after every spin or drop, attempting to convince him this was 'fun'. I honestly think he enjoyed it, but when the ride ended he repeated again "all done, all done" and quickly got out. It was incredibly cute, but more importantly we had now identified an upper-bound on the rides Timothy would enjoy. :)

Universal Studios

Last year we flew to Australia for a nice relaxed summer Christmas with my famiy. This year we went to Universal Studios and Disney World with Emily's family. This was a fantastic treat for everyone involved. :)

Now, the Christmas/NYE holidays is the busiest period of the year for the Orlando theme parks. To avoid the crowds, we spent December 26 - 28 at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (two parks run by the same company). It was such a huge trip I will have to talk about Disney World in a later post:

First Times

Timothy likes to play Elebits at home on the Wii. We figured that he would enjoy the "Men In Black Alien Attack" ride. He seemed to have mixed feelings about the ride, probably because there was so much happening. Anyway, our first ride through resulted in this awesome photo. Notice who still has her wits about her and is shooting the monster in front of us... :) We now have this as a print and I need to get it properly framed.

We also rode The Simpsons ride, the Jurassic Park ride, a Jaws-themed river cruise, and plenty of others. Few of them were worth repeating, and unfortunately they started scaring Timothy. By the third day Timothy would refuse to get on a ride that he couldn't first see for himself.

We established some new rules: we would take Timothy on rides that (a) he could see for himself and (b) he would point at and say 'yes'. Using these rules meant we rode much 'safer' rides like the merry-go-round and the "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" ride in Seuss Land. We still did manage to get him on a small kids roller coaster twice, but at least he would trust us, and he knew that he had control over what rides he went on. This strategy would work wonderfully in Disney World, though with some amusing results.

Dueling Dragons

We had to spend some time on rides that Emily and I would enjoy, and that led us to Dueling Dragons. I have never been on a roller-coaster that I loved so much, both for the feeling of safety and the sheer exhilaration of the ride. You are always pushed backwards or downwards into your seat thanks to the sheer number of loops and corkscrews. It is so smooth that your head never touches the side of the headrest, and you almost never need the seat restraints.

It is named 'Dueling Dragons' because it is actually two interlocking rollercoasters representing a Fire Dragon and an Ice Dragon. The 'dragons' launch together and are timed so that there are several near-misses, including a simultaneous inverted loop which brings your feet within a metre of the other people. Watching vides of the ride, I think you'll agree that Dueling Dragons is far superior to the The Incredible Hulk coaster at the same theme park.

In total, we rode Dueling Dragons six times (three times on each dragon). Most of that occured in just one night (I insisted we come back after one of our Disney World days :). We arrived just when most people were leaving the park and so we could ride multiple times very quickly. The first four times we rode somewhere in the middle of the dragon and I would whoop the whole time. Emily suggested that, for the last two rides, we sit the front of each dragon. On those times I didn't make a single sound; my mouth just opened and that was all I could manage. Definitely worth it. :)

Blue Man Group

Timothy loves music, and Emily was keen to take us all to see the Blue Man Group show at their permanent home next to Universal Studios. The entrance to the theatre looked too much like a ride, and so it took us a good 20-30 minutes to 'coax' Timothy inside and take his seat. I don't know what to say about the show except it was amazing. There was unfortunately a lot less music than we expected, but there was plenty of colourful showmanship, audience participation, and glowing reams of toilet paper.

I am not joking about the toilet paper either. Near the end of the show they started alternating between black lights and strobe lights, and then covered the audience in huge reams of a soft paper. The audience had to just keep pulling the paper over their heads until it reached the front of the stage. For a few seconds, Timothy was scared of these piles of 'stuff' coming over him, but he very quickly got the idea and absolutely loved it. I've included some photos here that I've pulled from other sites.

That's all I can say about Universal Studios. At least, all I can say in one blog. I'll have to do a couple of posts about Disney World next. :)

Working With Timothy

Imagine you're walking through a swinging door and a stranger is following behind you. You would probably pause for a second and hold the door until the stranger can reach it. If that person has a stroller, you might even hold it until they pass through. If they are in a wheelchair, you would almost certainly hold the door. And you would expect a nod and a maybe a "thank you".

In most such situations, we know how to offer assistance, we know how to react, and we know what to expect in response. But if you were walking with someone like Timothy it's sometimes unclear what to do. Should you hold it until he walks through? Hold it open long enough for him to reach it? What do you do if he grabs your arm when walking through? If he stops halfway through the door, is it because he is waiting for you to move? Or because he just walks slowly?

One of the biggest impediments for new people (like myself) when interacting with a mentally disabled person is "the unknown". We just don't know the rules of interaction. We can't tell when they are bored or interested. We don't know if they are running in the mall because they are scared, or because they like Christmas lights, or because they desperately need the toilet. We don't know whether we should stop him/her from running, or just keep up until they stop. We don't know if talking will help or confuse them. Without any past experience to aid us, our mind conjures up unfounded ideas like "possibly violent". The truth is, a young child will do more in a few minutes than someone like Timothy would ever do in his life.

Timothy's long-term care hinges on his ability to function in a social setting. Fears of "the unknown" stop people from interacting with him, and this in turn reduces his chance of learning socially acceptable behaviours.

The following is a list of things I've noted from my time with Timothy. I think it is better to tell people of this list, and hope more people become willing interact with him:

Timothy does have problem solving skills. He just needs more time.

• If he has an object in each hand and needs to operate something (eg. light switch), he can slowly juggle until both objects are in one hand.
• If the door has a separate deadlock, he will try flipping the lock until he can open the door. He might even manage a spring-loaded deadlock, but we've never tried.
• He might look around for assistance, but if none is offered he will keep trying.

Timothy can understand what you want, as long as it is made clear.

• If you hold out a bag and say "Timothy, I need you to carry this for me." he will likely take the bag and hold it for you.
• If he sits in the middle of a bench and you say "Tim, I'd like to sit down. Please move all the way to the end." he will likely move over.
• Your body language doesn't need to be exaggerated, but should match what you are saying. If you say "Timothy, please sit on that bench over there." without gesturing at the bench or looking at Timothy, he probably won't understand what you want.

Timothy does enjoy human contact just like the rest of us.

• I once saw an Aunt walk up behind Timothy, cover his eyes from behind, and say something. Timothy immediately had a big smile on his face and turned around to see who it was.
• If you touch Timothy's nose or tap him on the forehead, he will likely not be very happy. Then again, would you? :)
• Timothy will give and receive kisses on the cheek from people he knows and likes. At DisneyWorld he was very happy to give Stella and Emily kisses. He had a shy and awkward smile when it was my turn for a kiss though. :)
• Timothy likes to play games with others. He will imitate you if you take the time to show him. At DisneyWorld we went swimming and he quickly wanted to get out of the pool. However, if we started diving to collect rocks from the bottom of the pool, he would join in and have a great time.

Timothy likes certain music, certain textures, and anything that spins or lights up.

• Timothy likes a broad range of musical styles. "Silent Night" is a favourite, but didgeridoo music is popular too. He can become very agitated by music videos so we try to avoid those.
• Timothy might reach out to touch interesting textures, particularly on clothes. Funnily, he might even say "mine" as he is touching the print on your shirt. This is because everyone responds with "Timothy! That is mine! Don't touch!". :)
• Timothy will often look for fans in the area. I believe he knows the word "fan" in two languages! They capture his attention, even if they're not spinning. He also likes flashing Christmas lights.

Most importantly, Timothy needs to spend time with other people. The more experience he has of social situations, the better his life will be. Simply having people approach him, talk with him, and interact with him is incredibly valuable.

And this list I've created and can never include the things we don't know. New experiences can always lead to great things for Timothy. For example, when we went camping we found that Timothy really enjoyed walking up on rocks. Perhaps it is the simple challenge of it? When we went to DisneyWorld I brought my old digital camera for him to use. He has started pointing the camera at things he likes, but I'm not sure whether he understands that he can keep the photos he takes.

I want to take him to play billiards or bowling sometime. I don't think he's ever seen it before. He won't play very well. Should that matter at all? Timothy derives pleasure from simply doing things, especially when there are other people doing it too. That is something very special, and worth experiencing.

First Time Snow Boarding

Emily and I just came back from our first day of snow boarding. Every single muscle in my body is aching, but I got away with no bruises. Emily has the inverse situation - no muscle aches but got bruises on her knees and butt.

We booked ourselves in for snowboarding lessons at the start of the day. Without those lessons, we would have come back very unhappy and with many more injuries. It is ridiculously easy to stack it (Aussie slang, see below) when riding a snowboard, but the lessons ensure you get down the slopes safely.

Mind you, there were plenty of falls in the lessons and later on during the day. They were just significantly less painful than they could have been. :) During the lessons I discovered that, when falling on to your butt, you should immediately roll on to your back like you are a ball. This reduces butt-impact significantly, and is far better than sticking your hands out behind you. I managed to come away from the day with my wrists and knees intact - quite an achievement considering the horror stories I'd been hearing. :P

The weather on Grouse Mountain was absolutely beautiful and surreal. We've had permanent fog in the downtown area for 4 days, so it's been cold and sunless for a while. Grouse Mountain was sunny and 17c! Some people were skiing or boarding in just pants and shirt. I was rubbing snow on my face and hands to cool down. The odd weather is called a "temperature inversion", and the fog in downtown will remain until it goes away.

The views from the slope are something very special. Many times I'd be partway down the slope, stop my board and just sit down to look at it. Visibility was unlimited and I think we could see at least 2 states south into the USA. At the base of the mountain was "cloud city" - enormous stretches of fog with just a few highrises and hills poking out of it. At nighttime we were still on slopes and you could see large patches of lights from the city glowing through the fog. I wish I had a camera with me, but I doubt a photo could do it justice. It was like sitting on the edge of the earth and looking down into the stars and space. Absolutely incredible.

Getting to Grouse Mountain is pretty easy; 30 minutes on the local bus network, and 30 minutes to wait for the tram ride to the mountain top. We have season passes for the tram ride, and get discounts for bringing guests. We'll be looking to buy our own snowboards and get up to the slopes again soon. :)

P.S. To "stack" is Aussie slang for crashing and/or falling off something accidentally or falling down. Usually when operating a vehicle. You can even see the old stackhat helmets at the PowerHouse Museum website.

Vancouver is Dark City

I've just gotten out of bed, had a shower, its 7.30am, and it's dark. Really dark. It's like "there will be no dawn for men" dark.

In the winter, Vancouver is a combination of snow, rain, thick horizon-spanning clouds, late sunrise and early sunset. To make it worse, we just came back from DisneyWorld in Florida where it was 20+ and sunny every day. I'm half-tempted to print some vacation photos and post them over my windows... ;)