A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 45 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
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We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Sorry about the rain...poor Mark but you both seem to be enjoying yourself and how could you not, those gardens were beautiful. Great picutres as always, the landscaping is just amazing. Love the rock garden, I am sure in a way it must be very tranquil....something peaceful and all.
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Yet another beautiful garden! It is amazaing how many such areas there are in these large cities. Love all your photos, but especially the ones of the raindrops on the flowers.
It's so good to read all your comments, especially as my memory of it from the time is a little tainted from the rain. Sure, it was a beautiful garden, but it doesn't stand out to me now - but reading all your comments, I'm seeing it in a new light now.
Saturday 4 April – part five: what is it with taxi drivers in Kyoto?!
As we left, I toyed with the idea of walking, but knowing it was probably quite a walk, instead we went to stand in line for the bus. We weren’t the only ones, as the line grew and grew behind us. We stood there for a few minutes, before I suggested that we just gave in and got a taxi over to our next destination, so we headed back towards the gardens and found one. It was quite a way down the road to our next stop, but fortunately the journey didn’t cost that much and it was probably the best decision. We might have been waiting for the bus for goodness knows how long.
Our next stop was Kinkaku-ji, which was known as the Golden Pavilion. It was built by the third Ashkaga shogun, Yoshinitsu, and this was his retirement villa. Sadly, it’s an exact replica of the original, which was destroyed by arson in 1950. Why on earth anyone would set fire to such a beautiful structure is totally beyond me, but at least we can still enjoy it today. It’s covered totally in gold leaf and, despite the rain, it glistened and sparkled as you approached it. It really did take your breath away when you first saw it. I couldn’t help but wonder what people thought of such opulence all those centuries ago. It certainly says “I’m all powerful”!
You can see how wet Mark had got!
There’s not much to see there, apart from the pavilion itself, but they did take you on a designed route, so you have no option but to see it all, with Mark getting wetter and wetter in the process. Poor guy.
We headed out and finally found the taxi stand some way away. This was like the journey from hell, not that the driver was silly or anything, he was probably the most hopelessly slow driver we’ve ever seen and never took advantage of any gap, meaning that we stopped at every red lights. He also seemed to take us a bizarre way and after finally getting him to understand which hotel we wanted, we set off. A moment later, his hand crept round and picked up his map. He did it so slowly and carefully, as if he thought that we wouldn’t notice it! Then he was constantly referring to it. It didn’t inspire any confidence and I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was when we finally made it to the hotel.
We didn’t have much time back there, if we were going to get to the geisha walk. We had enough time for Mark to get out of his wet coat and put on a dry one and that was about it. During that time, we talked about our initial impressions of Kyoto and it’s fair to say that they weren’t good. I know things don’t look as good in the rain and, don’t get me wrong, we had seen some amazing places, so there’s no way we could regret coming here. It’s just that we weren’t falling in love with the city. It didn’t help that everything seemed so far out. We felt as if the location of the hotel wasn’t that good and we kept saying “well, where’s the heart of the city?” All the shops?” Little did we know that we were to find that answer out very shortly.
It was back out to get a taxi, but here we ran into what we know as the San Francisco problem (from the famous day with Maureen and Kevan, where we couldn’t find a cab anywhere to get back to our hotel in that city). Mark managed to flag one taxi down, only for an elderly Japanese couple to grab it from us. Unbelievable. Then we saw lots available, but it seemed with no interest in pick ups at all.
Finally we got one just after 4.20 and I honestly thought that we could make our 4.30 start time, as it didn’t look that far away on the map. The start point was the Minami-za theatre and our driver had problems finding that. What is it with taxi drivers in Kyoto? We were getting very disillusioned by now with them.
Eventually, he got the message, then felt the need to tell us how he was going to get us there. I didn’t know the Japanese for “Just drive”, so couldn’t really say anything. Amazing all the useful phrases you think of when you’re actually in a country.
By the way, there won't be an update tomorrow morning, as I'm not around then - I'm working late tonight and early tomorrow, so I'm staying down there for the night. I'll try and have an update for you later in the day instead...
Cheryl, I loved your installment. The pictures are beautiful, and I have to agree with you, who in their right mind would set arson to a beautiful piece of Japanese History? I'm sorry to hear about the slow taxi drivers and that you and Mark weren't in love with Kyoto. I can't wait to read your next installment whenever you're up for posting it (no rush) and if you made it to the Gaisha Walk.
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Then we saw lots available, but it seemed with no interest in pick ups at all. 
I know'd I made a good choice! DVC - Saratoga Springs Resort
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