The dreamworld that you wish will come true

A couple weeks ago we got an invitation from our friends to celebrate their daughters birthday at a local amusement park north of Bangkok called 'Dreamworld.' It's a decent little park to spend a Saturday, especially if you can get the Thai price instead of the white-guy, sucker-price. One of its main attractions was a special climate-controlled room with a snow-making machine, where you can throw snowballs. We didn't make it to that one.

It also had many rides and attractions that seemed quite familiar. A Space Mountain ride, a Haunted Mansion, Snow White's house, Cinderella's house, a sword in the stone, a mountain that splashes you, campy over-priced merchandise. I felt like I'd seen it all before, in a kingdom full of magic...

Meg had a wonderful day (the world was made for her) running around the park with her little friend. She got to ride the crazy schoolbus, and the spider, and many other nauseating contraptions. She had lunch at one of her favorite places, a KFC right inside the park, And afterwards lemonade and ice cream. Why, oh why must the sun set on such a perfect day?



Thais love to get their pictures taken with Dreamworld's freakishly tall trio.















Jake's day was a little less rosy. He always gets the shaft because most of our friends have kids much younger than him. He barely made it through the hour taxi ride without hurling. He doesn't like ice cream except for peanut-butter chocolate, sold only at Swensen's. He was too tall to go into the massive playhouse-balloon room with Meg and the other kids; and too short to ride the go-karts with the adults. And we forced him through the Haunted Mansion even though he had a panic attack at a similar attraction in a similar theme park we went to once.

I think the highlight was when we decided to go on Space Mountain. We waited in a dark tunnel for about twenty minutes when outside it started to rain. Apparently, as soon as there's rainfall Space Mountain turns into the 'Electrocution Express' and so I wasn't too disappointed when they shut down the ride and we had to walk back through the entrance. When we got back outside the combination of rain and slight wind also knocked out the nearby power generators, and the entire park lost electricity for several minutes. That's when we decided to call it a day.

I wasn't all smiles und sunshine either. After Hua Hin I told Kaddi that was the end of entertainment expenses for a long time. We were buckling down, living frugally, unless someone came to visit. But, after a phone call from friends, I lost that argument in about ten seconds.

Fortunately, I was able to defray the day's expenses with the money I earned posing for pictures with Thai visitors.