常時英心:言葉の森から 1.0

約10年間,はてなダイアリーで英語表現の落穂拾いを行ってきました。現在はAmeba Blogに2.0を開設し,継続中です。こちらはしばらくアーカイブとして維持します。

マグルは「外」!魔法使いは「内」!

斧です!就職活動がたけなわで,ご無沙汰続きですが,ひとつニュースを!あのHarry Potter Theme Parkがいよいよ開園です。Potterを読んでいないとわけのわからない表現が満載のプレビュー記事です。なお,末尾に公式サイトをアップしておきます。これが面白い。就活の合間に遊んでいます。
卒業旅行にいっちょフロリダまでと考えている今日この頃です。先生,もう少し企業巡りをさせてください。すみません。(斧)
Muggles away: new Harry Potter theme park opens in Florida
First came the books, then the blockbuster films. Now Harry Potter fans can visit the theme park. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – almost six years in the making and estimated to have cost around $200m – opened to the public today in Universal's Islands of Adventure complex in Orlando, Florida.
I was there earlier this week to get a sneak preview, along with members of the cast of teh first six films: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) and author JK Rowling.
At the entrance to The Wizarding World - a 20-acre area within the Islands of Adventure theme park, rather than its own separate park – visitors are welcomed through a stone arch into Hogsmeade village by a steam-blowing Hogswarts Express train. Before them stretches a scene straight out of the movies: crooked-chimneyed Olde English shops crowd along a winding street, their snow-capped roofs glistening in the Florida sunshine.
There on the right is Zonko's joke shop selling Sneakoscopes and extendable ears; next door is Honeydukes sweet emporium for Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. For fans, the attention to detail from the series will make this feel as close as possible to the "real thing". You won't find a single can of Coca-Cola or a burger – there is only food authentic to Harry's world, such as Cornish Pasties and Scotch Eggs. You can even taste pumpkin juice and Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks – think butterscotch cream soda.
But the real attraction at WWHP – the one that will appeal to wannabe wizards and blissfully unaware Muggles alike – is the much-hyped Forbidden Journey ride, hidden in the towering granite spires of Hogwarts Castle, which looks like it has been hacked from granite and left to moulder for 500 years in the Scottish damp.
Once you've made it through the twisting castle corridors to the Room of Requirements, a moving image of Hermione casts a spell on you, and then you're whisked into the darkness on a thrilling CGI ride through scenes from a Harry Potter movie.
Passengers sit on a "magical bench" which, for four minutes, drops, spins and twists in time with the on-screen action. Whomping Willow branches crash out of the dark, then you're flying over the forbidden forest, playing Quidditch with Harry and Ron, and coming face-to-face with hollow-eyed Dementors. Terrifying serpents lurch at you from the mist. Spiders – big ones – spit water at you. And when it's over, the Hogwarts' characters cheer and wave you, like a returning Quidditch champion, back to the Great Hall. You almost feel as if you've wrestled a couple of dragons, in midair, on a broomstick.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jun/18/harry-potter-theme-park
cf. http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/