jdhilger's photostream  

White Elephant Saloon
Fort Worth, Texas

Big hats, not just on the wall, but on the ceiling. And TONS of them. Go big.

Twitter: photojames
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Fort Worth, Texas

Big space, big sky, big sun. Everything feels like it goes on forever.

Twitter: photojames
Instagram: jdhilger

The Stockyards
Fort Worth, Texas

I've only had brief experiences in Texas. Slices of life, bits of truth. You hear that everything is bigger in Texas and assume it's just talk and bravado, but I actually found it true. The first and most immediate thing I noticed about Texas was a sort of grand openness that permeates every facet of the state. It's immediate and forward, it's big, it's vast: It's the Lone Star state.

These aren't bold photos of recognizable tourist spots. These are just slices of quick visits to grand, vast Texas.

Twitter: photojames
Instagram: jdhilger

Tokyo DisneySea
Tokyo, Japan

Mount Prometheus is a simulated volcano near the center of Tokyo DisneySea. At 189 ft tall, it matches Cinderella Castle in height. It is notable for being one of three Disney Park icons to simulate a natural vs. man-made structure (the others being the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom and Grizzly Peak at California Adventure). It also follows the trend of featuring a vehicle-based attraction within it, like all the non-castle park icons. Opening in September, 2001 Mount Prometheus is also Disney's most recent non-cloned park icon: Honk Kong's Sleeping Beauty Castle is more recent, but it is a clone of California's castle.

While visible from several areas of the park, the mountain is technically part of Mysterious Island, an adventurous, Jules-Verne based land. The attraction Journey to the Center of the earth takes place within and around the Mount Prometheus structure and the vehicles for this attraction can be seen hurling from the top in waterless Splash Mountain-type fashion. Every so often the Volcano will erupt for a few minutes, with a loud rumble and fire and steam effects. Mount Prometheus is the only park icon to inspire trepidation as much as beauty: that blend of emotions is a large part of what gives DisneySea as a whole it's unique character.

Twitter: photojames
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Tokyo Disneyland
Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo's Cinderella Castle is essentially a carbon copy of the exterior of the Magic Kingdom's Cinderella Castle, built for Tokyo Disneyland which opened in 1983. Same look, same height, and even the same color schemes until minor changes were made to Tokyo's in 2006. The most notable difference between Florida's version are the grounds itself. Tokyo Disneyland is really big and the hub area surrounding the castle is especially large in Tokyo. Tokyo's Castle lacks the central stage that is placed in front of Florida's castle. Disney would not clone a park icon in such a fashion again until 2005 when they opened Hong Kong Disneyland which was largely a clone of California's Disneyland.

The interior of Tokyo's castle, however, is wholly unique. In 1986 Tokyo's castle opened a walk-through attraction called the Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour. It heavily featured Disney villains in an almost haunted house style setting, including some based of less known animated features such as the Black Cauldron (Tokyo Disneyland opening as that feature was in production). That wacky and rather dark walkthrough was replaced in 2011 with Cinderella's Fairy Tale Hall, a more benign and princessy walkthrough showcasing art and artifacts related to the story of Cinderella.

Twitter: photojames
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