Space Mountain

This past week K-bao visited Disneyland for the second time in her young life. In contrast to 2.5 years ago, when K-bao was deep into "Princess" stage, this time she wanted nothing to do with princesses. Instead, it was all about the roller coasters.

And of the Disneyland coasters, somewhere along the way our little one picked up the notion that Space Mountain was the biggest and baddest. That was enough for K-bao. Being the natural thrill seeker that she is, Space Mountain quickly became Objectives #1, #2 and #3 -- and also quickly became all K-Pop and K-Mum heard about in the days leading up to the visit. ("Can I go to Space Mountain? Like three times? Or six times? Please? Pretty please? I can't wait for Space Mountain!")

Here she is before entering the famed Space Mountain dome.

"You realize this is small potatoes for me, right?"

Getting ready to follow the line into the dark tunnel

About to blast off!

So, after all that drama, here is how Ride #1 turned out: 

"You tying your shoes down there, K-bao?"

Now, to be fair, K-bao may or may not have been hiding her face the entire ride -- this cameo shot was auto-snapped near the end of the ride and K-bao may simply have been working out some kinks in her neck. 

Either way, she quickly recovered and insisted on doing it again. And again. And again. By the end of the two days, K-bao had become a regular Space Mountaineer. The last two rides are captured below: 

"I eat you for breakfast Spacey"

After that, the other "big girl rides" with 42"+ minimum height requirements -- the likes of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Indiana Jones -- all became small fry, and were quickly conquered by our intrepid little adventurer.

Arms up

More thrills on roller coasters for little K-bao, this time at her beloved Happy Hollow.

As one can see, K-bao now has no fear on these rides, and in fact insists on riding alone. Her video below from this past weekend should be contrasted with her last recorded video on the Pacific Fruit Express at Happy Hollow, at age 4, when the first few seconds of the drop still had the capacity of inspiring a little bit of fear (unfortunately, as one can see below, sister C-bao wasn't quite as happy with the experience).

Tiger Trek

As we know, K-bao loves her thrills. Here she is at her beloved Oakland Zoo, riding the famous Tiger Trek rollercoaster, hollering and giggling with glee. And yes, K-Pop was also responsible for perhaps more than his fair share of hollering as well.

A moment in time:

Thrills

For a 4-year old, K-bao is a bit of a thrill seeker.

She's never seen a hill which she doesn't want to run down. And as K-Mum can attest, even before age 2 she loved going down steep slides, such as the ones at Yerba Buena near our home back then.

Recently she's fallen in love with roller coasters, and is finally tall enough to qualify for the ones at both Happy Hollow and Oakland Zoo.

Below are some action videos of recent rides at each. In the first one, which was the first time she's been on a roller coaster of any kind for a while, there are 5 seconds of abject terror (between 0:09 and 0:14) which she gets over a few seconds later, enough to throw up her hands in delight by 0:20.

Down, Down Baby

On the way to the bookstore with C-bao today, K-bao suddenly had her 4-year-old mind stuck on the Roller Coaster song taught to her by Xiao Ah-Yi (Aunty Christina) several years ago - to the point where she had to stop and give an impromptu performance.

Here is the rendition - a little lacking in accuracy but all there in heart.

By the way, you can see C-bao, who is enjoying the solo, giving her "The Wave" in appreciation at 0:13.

Happy Hollow

The K-fam stopped by Happy Hollow Park and Zoo in San Jose with the hopes of helping K-bao work off some of her remarkable energy ahead of a long day's drive. K-bao had a good time, to the point where the K-folks have a feeling that they will be padding the wallets of Disney and Six Flags shareholders for many years to come.

At the carousel, K-bao insisted on taking turns on both the elephant and the alligator (and with the help of a speedy K-Mum, managed to beat out other kids who were eyeing the same animals). Coming off the Pacific Fruit Express Roller Coaster - where K-Mum took a concededly aggressive interpretation of the minimum height requirement - K-bao was already shouting for more even as K-Mum emerged from the ride looking rather green in the face. And on the Redwood Point play structure, K-bao insisted on going down the long slide chute alone but then would mischievously stop in the middle until K-Pop went in after her.

We were well rewarded for our hard work though; K-bao napped for two hours in the car.






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Location:Pismo Beach,United States