Tokyo Disney Land, a "city" of illusion

in the beginning of the february, i made a visit to Tokyo Disney Land. its been at least 4 years since i went there last time. when my friend from seoul all of a sudden told me she wanted to visit there, first i was not really into it, yet consequently i really enjoyed it lol

what i enjoyed the most was its "beautiful" "urban" scenery. id never paid that sort of attention to the built environment in TDL before yet as i just read a book about urbanism in Tokyo and TDL kind of amusement park, i couldnt help looking around its super artificial city kind of built environment. this book argued that new urban development projects in tokyo started implementing TDL kind of ways of development by hiring famous designers in the field of amusement park development to develop "real" cities. so i was wondering how this "city" of illusion could be in reality, while i was walking there...

cities are artificial products as they are (supposed to be) planed by human beings. yet i believe that those people who are in the artificial spaces and many other factors that are not in the initial plan in the beginning develop cities to become "real" cities. from this perspectives, of course i came to the conclusion that TDL cannot be "real" cities at all, as nothing can make any differences on its space (probably except those famous mouse and ducks and some others). its already totally complete without anybody. from this aspect, i really cant imagine how TDL kind of concept could be brought to reality. i should make a visit to that sort of newly developed areas in order to analyze illusion in reality. 

 

the Brooklyn Bridge

as many tourists in nyc do, i walked to cross the Brooklyn Bridge while i was visiting there. the brooklyn bridge was completed in 1883 after 14years of construction. it was once the longest bridge in the world until 1903. 

what surprised me first was that the pedestrian path was not sidewalk, but provided in between roads, over the roads. surely it was a great idea to provide pedestrians to enjoy the beautiful bridge without worrying about the busy traffic. there were even benches provided so that people can even enjoy staying there as well as walking there.

and what surprised me the most was its popularity. yeah i knew that this bridge was one of the highlights of nyc, yet during the freezing winter day, i didnt expect to see so many tourists walking there. 

currently ive been watching the series of FRIENDS at home and the scenery of Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge is continuously used in them. actually one of the reasons i wanted to visit this bridge was because of the series, as a big fan:P i hoped to see it at night as well but the tight schedule didnt allow me to do so.

it gave me a great inspiration what could be done on bridges and gave me a very new perspective on bridges. one interesting finding was that bridges could be ridiculously romantic urban public spaces. its a pity that it is crystal clear that this aspect will not matter to me for a while (as u can see what im doing now on the valentines day lol), yet objectively speaking, i was amazed to see an interesting way of using the bridge.