A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 59 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
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.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
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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We go through life hearing of these bombs and their destruction... but, as I'm sure it is with "Ground Zero", you cannot come close to understanding how it was unless you've been there to see it, and even then, without having been there at the time, one just cannot comprehend something so... "vastly horrible". Right, or wrong, is not the question (not here, anyway), any reasoning human being would have to be sobered and humbled at this place... I am, and I'm just reading about it and viewing your pictures.
Tuesday 7 April – part four: what is that green dragon doing?!
The A Bomb Dome building is really the start of the Peace Memorial Park and there’s so much more to it than I ever imagined, so much so that we spent the next two hours exploring it. It was a beautiful day and you could just imagine it being a day like that when the bomb was dropped. The beauty about the whole place is that it doesn’t apportion any blame. It’s just very factual that it happened and their main focus is in trying to ensure that it never happens again. Far from being a sad place, we both felt that while it was sombre, there was also an amazing feeling of hope here and a real desire for something good to come out of a terrible action. As I say, it’s not what we expected at all.
At the end of the Peace Memorial Park is the peace clock and the peace bell, which we saw some elderly Japanese ringing. I don’t know if they were Hiroshima survivors or whether they wanted to come here, but it looked like a lot of them were here as part of a tour to grant them their final wishes. Sadly that tour was guided by (and this is serious, I’m not joking about this..) people dressed as Minnie Mouse, a green dragon and something we couldn’t fathom out at all. It was all very bizarre and the strangest moment must’ve been the dragon lurking behind some bushes, shaking his thing and surprising an old man. Whether he was trying to kill him with shock, I don’t know. As I say, the whole thing was very odd.
You see, I’m not making it up! :
We walked through the park, seeing numerous memorials. As Mark said, it’s a bit like Washington DC in that respect. Highlights, if you can call them that, included the children’s peace memorial. This refers to the story of a child who believed that if she could make 1,000 paper cranes, she would recover from her illness, but sadly she didn’t. Now it’s the sign of eternal hope and still paper cranes are sent from schools all over Japan to add to this memorial.
Next we saw the Atomic Memorial Mound:
Then there’s the flame of peace, which will only be extinguished when all nuclear weapons have been removed. Sadly I suspect that it will be burning for some time to come, despite people’s best efforts.
Nearby is the Cenotaph for the victims of the bomb that looks back up to the A Bomb Dome.
Near that, we found the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. I had no idea it was there, as it wasn’t mentioned in any of my guidebooks and it’s fairly new, as the leaflet they gave us told us that it only opened in 2002. Again, there’s no preaching here, just a desire to move on positively in the future. You wind down a spiral ramp to the Hall of Remembrance, which is a huge circular room, showing Hiroshima as it was just after the bomb and that’s very effective.
Next you go into an area with the names of some of those who died and their photos and that really brings home the human side of this tragedy. That comes home to you even more when you go upstairs with some truly moving and horrific accounts from survivors and families of those who died. It was almost impossible to hear these stories, they were so painful. Sadly, that’s where it ended, just as we were getting into it, but what they’ve got there is excellent.
The fountain at the exit
Next: “this is our fourth time on the Shinkansen...”
Wow Cheryl, I think I would have been in tears walking through there as it gave me chills as I was reading your post and viewing the pictures. Very bizarre about the person dressed as the green dragon.
I read this update with tears in my eyes as I imagined and tried to picture this all in my mind... especially the Childrens' Memorial... all the while, thinking of my Uncle Jimmy, who was killed in the fighting in the South Pacific.
Thank you so much, Cheryl, for giving us this in-depth view of this, so very important, memorial, that I will probably never get to visit in person.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Glad you still have room on the fridge for more magnets!
That is weird about the Minnie Mouse/dragon/??? tour guides - very strange!
Thank you for sharing all the photos about the memorials.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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