Pics from "Galaxy's Edge" Disneyland and LA LA Land
Hello all! I am back in Australia, just a little over a week. Still I am trying to get past the jet lag! No fun, but better with each passing day. On my last couple of days in the United States, I flew through LA and wanted to show you some of the pictures that I took there of that beautiful state.
This first shot (1, all texts refers to images in the "gallery" directly above) from my airplane window of the morning sun just over the clouds. Gorgeous!
In LA, I visited a friend of mine, Ivan Solis. I met him when he was 15! He was a member of a Catholic youth group. I was in my novitiate year with the friars and ministering at his church with the youth at the time. Now he's in his 30s! (about my age when I was there some 20 years ago!) We have kept in touch.
Upon landing, he took me to a famous sight: the Griffith Observatory. Maybe you’ve seen it in Rebel Without a Cause. I’m not sure if it’s been any other movies but it’s an icon of Los Angeles and of art deco. I love it and visit it whenever I can. Best of all is that it is open and free to the public!
From the observatory, you get beautiful views of the city. We decided to climb to the site (2). From this mountaintop, you can look out to see the famous Hollywood sign (3). This is the entrance to the museum (4).
You can walk all the way around the museum with porches/verandas that circle it and can see to downtown LA (5). Out in front there’s an obelisk with five or six famous scientists and astronomers (6). This image is just after sunset (7). Here the city gleams in the setting sun (8).
Inside there’s a beautiful dome with a mural painted across it (9). And this is the actual Griffith Observatory (10); they open it to the public and let you see images like this one of Saturn (11). It’s amazing that they have an observatory this close to so much light pollution!
Here is a Moonrock in the museum (12). And more shots of the entrance and city as night blanketed everything (13-14). An all around lovely day. I arrived Tuesday at 2 PM we were basically in traffic for a couple hours trying to get to this park and then another hour getting home. The next day, however, we headed off to Disneyland at about 6 am!
So we arrive at the park sharply at 7.30 AM so we'd be first to get in when it opened at 8. Here (1) I took a selfie with the banner of the new section of the park called "Galaxy's Edge." It’s a Star Wars-themed sectio, which of course means I was heading to paradise!
Disneyland is smaller than Disney World. Still, they did a great job incorporating the Star Wars theme with the existing other themes on the grounds. We're all running to be the first though the entrance into the Star Wars area which is entered via Adventureland (2). Once within, you certainly feel transported to a different world (I think it was called Bakku) (3). Here is a fortress of the First Order (the "bad guys," 4-6). They created a full-sized model of the Millennium Falcon that you can walk about (7). And, even more exciting for me, is running into Chewbacca (8)! Couldn’t have asked for a more exciting character to meet, except perhaps Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hammil! Visitors walk around the Millennium Falcon as they line up for the ride (9-12). After these close ups, you get to enter the recreation of the ship with passages made famous by the movies (13-16). This is the famous chessboard from the original movie; I’m sitting here with my friend Ivan (15). And here we stand outside the ride afterwards (16).
After the ride on the Milennium Falcon, there is really not much else to do other than walk about and soak in the atmosphere (while being tempted to spend your money on overpriced memorabilia! I loved the details placed throughout that remind you of the movies, like these power droids (1-2). This Hammerhead was kept behind a screen and moved about as if working (3). This 3-d mural comes from Episode 3 (4-5) while this is a new statue of some obscure Jedi (6).
Several of the shops had themes, like this creature shop with a "toad" from Tatooine in Return of the Jedi (7) and these mounted heads from animals of the various films and then some (8). Outside you could buy foods (hot dogs I think) from this poor droid made to man the rotisseries (9-11). Here is a droid themed gift shop (12) with a disassembled probe droid hanging outside its doors (13).
Farther away you discover a "hidden" Rebel Base (14-19), with full scale A-Wing (15), land speeder (18) and X-Wing (19). On the way out, though, as I was wearing a Death Star Tee Shirt, I had a chance for a selfie with a First Order Trooper patrolling the grounds (20)!
I really didn’t take too many other photos in the park as it was very similar to Disney World. However one thing that was different was the castle in the center . Disney World's castle is Cinderella's and apparently has a banquet room where you can eat. You can walk through the Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland (1). Climbing a set of stairs you go from one side of the main archway (that you walk through underneath to get into Fantasyland) over to the other side of the archway. Along the way you have images of the story of Sleeping Beauty has portrayed by the Disney animated feature (2-16). I really like the dioramas that were done in 3-D with special lighting to give even more depth.
Along the way there were actual large books made to look like the book that was used in the movie (4, 10). The famous scene where the villain Maleficent turns into a dragon actually happens before your eyes using some special effects wizardry (11-13). And then, at the end, the book is open to the page where Prince Philip dances with Aurora. And her dress changes from pink to blue (15-16) as it did in the final scene of the movie. It all felt magical.
Finally a parting shot of myself in front of the castle (17). Notice how they’ve already decorated for Christmas, with fake snow on its turrets and roofs. And this is from Splash Mountain (18). It was truly a wet ride!
After a full day at Disneyland, Ivan took me to the airport and I flew back home on the 10:30pm flight to Sydney. Just 15 1/2 hours of which I slept about 12 of them! I highly recommend that if you’re going to Australia that you take a stop in LA and visit Disneyland!