Author: XSA

Hello I am writing from a fancy hotel at niagara falls past midnight!

it’s like mt. fuji: HoW mAnY pIcTuReS oF nIaGaRa FaLlS dO yOu NeEd

I would have balked at the price but my brother booked it without consulting me. I would definitely rather get a night of ryokan in Hakone over this. But, the view is nice, so maybe I can only say that after having seen it myself.

Anyway, let’s go back to the start of the day!

more breakfast slop. today we get these veggie egg things instead of just scrambled eggs

translation note: lait is french for milk

my brother cussed me out cause I told him these lights at night from our window weren’t from canada’s wonderland. now that the sun has risen… i lost

a peameal bacon sandwich from St. Lawrence Market. It’s a salty slice of pork with some additional breading. An interesting, salty taste but I don’t think I would need to have it again

oh noooooooooooo sportsball

A visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame! I started following the San Jose Sharks around the middle 2010s with my brother. Unfortunately, it has been mostly suffering, but our guy Joe Thornton was recently inducted. Also pictured are some decorative punch bowls, but I’ve seen those before.

umm…. we have japaneses steak at… Japan

A 5 oz steak at Kyoto Gyukatsudon! wait, you ate here… 5 months ago! idc dude. It’s yummy and it’d probably take me a very long time before I’d get sick of eating it. I wish we had one near my home instead of in Toronto. plz fix

(editor’s note: is switching between first person and whatever the fuck talking to myself is could be jarring to readers)

We were originally going to visit the local aquarium, but a Toronto BlueJays game was going on, so there was no chance of finding parking there! So we stopped by the mall instead and I picked up some Jinbei from the Muji there. Normally when you visit a Japanese hotel they’ll offer you these to wear as loungewear or within the hotel in place of you regular clothes, so now I can pretend to be a real 日本人 at home.

On the way to Niagara Falls we stopped by a Costco Wholesale. some things I noted:

Beef sold in the United States is listed by USDA grades, primarily prime for the highest cut and choice for the one below it. We don’t talk about anything below select. Here, we only get Canada AAA grade!

Rotisserie Chickens are $8.00 CAD, which, when translated back to USD, is about $5.00, which matches.

But the food court hot dog / POLISH SAUSAGE is only $1.50 CAD! which is $1.00 USD! bullshit man

Out of order chronologically, but the Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich is pretty good. It’s like a roast beef sandich, but more peppery due to the montreal teak seasoning used to season the meat. At $5.00 USD, it’s better than the pastrami sandwich shit we have for sure. I would sleep on the chicken strips and fries though.

MILK COMES IN BAGS!!!! I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THIS I WAS GRINNING WALKING OUT HELL YEAH

They’re trying to pitch Mountain Dew as American Dew in the United States so it was jarring to see Mountain Dew in present day. I guess American Dew wouldn’t fly in Canada.

I would totally give these Maple Whiskey Ribbers a try.

what the fuck man this is not fair

its cute

Sodas don’t come with straws here! Just a sip lid.

Also, the deli ordering system works differently. In the United States, you order your item from the self-serve kiosk, then bring your receipt to the food court clerk to prepare and serve you your items. Instead, here you get a number assigned to your purchase receipt and then they yell out your number to pick up your order. Perhaps this way is more efficient.

While driving in the rainstorm we saw this Canadian flag ripped. pour one out for Canada, it’s over.

Here’s how the room looks like when I walked in. one whole ass chair just pointing out to the falls. nice

My brother is trying to get a ride on this frankencoaster on top of a Burger King. But it’s closed tonight due to rain, so we’ll try again tomorrow morning.

A carbonara pizza from Boston Pizza. Better than Pizza Pizza in quality and crisp bottom of the pizza, but it does cost more so it might be comparing the wrong thing here.

I think I’m uhh two days now without my own mahjong log review so oops bad habits die hard I guess

hotel breakfast slop. it’s nicer than the one in detroit, but this is a much bigger hotel

tipping on complimentary breakfast? these were left on every table

It’s an American tradition to play the Star-Spangled Banner at park opening, but they didn’t play O Canada for this park opening. How unpatriotic! EDIT 5/24/26: After internal discussion we noted that we were already in the park due to season passholder priveleges in advance of official opening at 10:00, so this is most likely incorrect as we would not have been able to hear the anthem at the opening gate because we were already deep in the park.

no, the white sauce is unfortunately not cinnamon roll frosting

Kebab with most likely yogurt sauce on it. Very middle-eastern-ey flavored. I’m a fan. Portion is a little small though.

couldn’t even print out a flavor sign for AlpenFury

Alpenfury flavored mini donuts. I’m not sure what raspberry has to do with AlpenFury though, since AlpenFury’s colors are like orange and blue.

don’t show this guy my c*nny

i wish this was real and not a prop

strawberry fruitopia!!!

Opted to have Manchurian Wok twice. Their Lo Mein noodles is better than their fried rice. I seem to be weak to “Chinese” breaded and fried shit tossed with sauce as I’m a sucker for Panda Express’s Orange Chicken. Their Honey Garlic Chicken is quite sweet and moist and can compare against Panda Express’s Orange Chicken. I’m a fan!

caught this guy redhanded shoplifting some noodles

5/24/26: ride list tbd SOON TM im behind sorry

hotel breakfast slop. good morning

the “daki” looks fine here… thank you jury rigging

Hotel pillows aren’t firm enough for my fat ass so I’ve settled on using my ‘head’ pillow as the actual head pillow and stuffing in two normal pillows as my daki. It ends up being disjointed anyway but I”m holding the first pillow with my arms and crossing my legs around the second pillow. so close enough. let’s fucking goooooooooooooo

i don’t normally eat potato chips on my own, but, when in Rome…

First stop today was this snack storefront for Better Made.. You can buy bags of chips for only $2! I think with shrinkflation these days an equivalent bag of Doritos or Lays or something would cost you like $4-5, so it’s good to shop local. I would note that the desk counter is heavily plexiglassed and the ‘clear box’ is for passing the purchased goods through from the cashier side to the customer, showing how rough Detroit is if a damn snack shop needs to fully seal off their store. Haven’t tried the chips yet so we’ll find out later! I picked our sour cream and onion, sweet bbq, and sweet maui onion.

how the hell do you come up with this shit

On the way in to Detroit we saw a billboard for Koegel’s and was wondering what it was. They make lunch meats! If I had to pick one to make a sandwich with, I’d pick Macaroni & Cheese Loaf. Olive Loaf will come in second.

cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms // hawaiian (cheese, ham, pineapple)

Our first Detroit pizza of the day is from Loui’s! It’s a more traditional take on Detroit Pizza. My frame of comparison is Slice House‘s Detroit style pizza, which I love for having a fluffy and pillowy pizza dough. I think the thing I like most about this pizza is that the cheese just keeps flowing out. Like, I’ll take a bite out of it and the cheese will ooze down out into the space created from me chewing off a piece from it.

For today’s activity, we visited the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation. It houses artifacts relating to American History, aviation, and cars. I don’t really know anything about aviation and cars, but as an American, I really like American History!

people had to draw the lines for your ruled paper! crazy!

hey bro

yeah, except my mahjong placement rate. jack that shit all the way up on the left side

weiners

the only dymaxion house. a really cool ‘tech bro’ concept but not at all practical

old school cute little girl

don’t let them tell you what the resolution is on those

shoulda handed translated copies of those out at hiroshima and nagasaki

yes, smoking is bad for you. choose a better vice instead, like cute anime girls

maybe one day my room will be in a museum too!

damn… i can’t use this either… tfw not white

lincoln’s chair when he got killed. I guess that’s his blood. but why isn’t this at the ford’s theater instead? they have a lincoln exhibit of their own. now I’m imaging fights between these museum societies arguing over who gets what artifact when something significant happens

please re-enact this. god bless america

real used bed by george washington!!!

old diner used as a present day diner. the old prices are cheaper on a nominal basis, but those price swings between each item are actually way bigger!

wait.. i’ve seen these before…

one of 6 bugatti royales in the world. but it’s just a car.

jfk’s car. pour one out for JFortKennedy

a replica of the first plane. thank you mr wright for now i can buy cunny goods because of your hard work

patron created cat quilt thing. i like it and honestly it is more artful than a lot of ‘modern art’

Second Detroit PIzza from Michigan and Trumbell. I seem to have not taken a picture of the second pizza we got. what the fuck. This one focuses on having a more ‘dense’ dough, rather than the fluffy and soft dough I’m looking for in a Detroit pizza, so not a big fan of it. It’s fine as a ‘normal’ pizza.

welcome to Canada

Technically there are Timmy Horton’s in the U.S. now. But it just seems wrong to go to one in the U.S. For me, it will always only be a Canada-only exclusive. It’s basically a dunkin donuts serving primarily pastries and coffee. But it looks like they also some some normal foods per the menu.

onroute, a portmanteau of ontario and enroute. probably.

These seem to be state sponsored rest stops along Ontario highways. They’re nice. My only complaint is…

99 cent bros…

You can’t sell cans of Arizona for that much! Even if you take it at USD, that’s $2.50 USD!!! It’s not allowed!!!

ok i goofed off a lot and i need to go to sleep bye

Since we ducked in to our hotel after park closing at 19:00 the night before, we hadn’t eaten anything after our last meal yesterday. S owe took a gander at the breakfast spot inthe hotel.

maybe i should have tried apple butter on toast

Some dish with tater tots and sausage, ham, and eggs covered in the sauce they use for country fried steak. I have no idea what the sauce is actually called though; I’d guess it’d be caled something like country sauce or country steak sauce or something. It’s probably a little bit too much for breakfast but the crunchy grilled meats and fried taters offers a good contrast against the creamy sauce and soft eggs.

thank you mr. walter knott

My brother was complaining that Cedar Fair overusing their Boysenberry goods in other parks diminishes the value of Knott’s Berry Farm, where the Boysenberry originates from. But if they have something special in their portfolio, I’d think they should take advantage of it. Boysenberry is a fun flavor though so I don’t mind them sticking it everywhere.

The park was rainy at opening, but settled down at around 11:00. The park ended up being less crowded today, presumably since one wouldn’t normally think about visiting an outdoor theme park if it’s cloudy and gloomy in the morning. So, perfect for us!

tfw I can smoke meat better than this. though maybe not at the quantity they do

Lunch is smoked barbecue sirloin, a hunk of cornbread, and baked beans. I liked the baked beans as it has a deep, bold flavor complemented by the beans, but the sirloin is sadly a dry husk and I needed to douse it in barbecue sauce to make it moist.

wildlife in its natural habitat

Some birds in the park. The goose below was hissing at me like it owns the place. I’ll have you know I’m a season pass holder, bitch! Then the little birds pecking at the cornbread was taken when I was eating lunch. I suppose a theme park is a good place to camp out since there’s water and food available freely. Just make sure you don’t build your nest under a noisy roller coaster.

like that one

moist meat plz

For the second meal I went back to ole’ faithful wood fired smoked steak. mMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmmMmMMmm

what a cute horse! my horse won though, that’s why I’m taking the picture in front of it afterwards

My brother wanted to ride Cedar Downs Racing Derby for fun. It’s like a carousel alternative, but instead you’re pretending to ride a racing horse and the 4 horses in each ‘row’ alternate moving forward and backwards on the yellow slots. It’s a cute and fun ride, and apparently there are only two of these kinds of rides as a “racing carousel” in the United States! A rare opportunity indeed.

welcome to delicious

Took a pit stop at Culver’s on the way to detroit. A good smashburger plae and I ordered a side of Wisconsin cheese curds. These probably aren’t fresh though, but I don’t know when I’ll be in Wisconsin! Though I suppose I never knew when I’d ever be in Michigan, either.

So now I’m in the hotel at 12:07 falling asleep but I need to stay awake for the dryer cycle to finish for our laundry. Good thing I played mahjong earlier today already. So now let’s recap the rides at Cedar Point:

#1: Steel Vengeance. This is the longest RMC hybrid coaster, though I think Iron Gwazi has taken most of the other stats since it debuted in 2017. While it has less intense elements than Iron Gwazi, the total number of elements and sheer amount of time spent flying out of your seat makes this take the cake. I actually prefer riding this in the cold (today) vs in the hot as taking the elements slower means you aren’t having your thigh bones slammed into the seat forcefully, which actually starts to hurt after a while. But I can look past the pain to ride my 2nd best coaster.

#2: Maverick. I moved this up from #3 as I think I enjoy the launches and the sudden jerky turns more now after having ridden more roller coasters since 2024. Even though the listed height is only 90 feet, the launch itself down the hill ensures you are traversing through all the elements at a very high speed, so don’t underestimate it!

#3: Millenium Force. I previously had this at #2 in the park, conceding the spot to Maverick, but after riding other giga coasters since then (mainly Fury 325 and Orion) there’s more we can do with the speed I expect from a giga. Of course, we need to take into context that the ride is now 26 years old, but it’s still a very fun ride taking the large banked curves at 90 mph!

#4: Top Thrill 2. The ride I missed in 2024, and oh boy did I miss out on a lot. I thought riding giga coasters at 90 mph was blistering fats already, but being shot on the third launch up the spike at 100+ mph (its listed at 120 mph but that’s probably under the most ideal circumstances) is even crazier. I was even able to get lucky enough to get a front seat at the end of the day and the wind is even crazier against your face! I just start laughing about half-way up because the whole damn thing is so crazy. For the first few rides I was holding on to the handlebars going wtf after the third launch but by the end of the day I was comfortably and happily hands free. I have to concede that riding this is kinda better than wh*cking it to c*nny (in most circumstances)

#5: Siren’s Curse. The tilt mechanic is a gimmick, but it’s a good gimmick! Being held vertically facing down is cool, especially if you’re in the front seat, and the rest of the ride is silky smooth through its corkscrews and inversions. Main drawback for me would be the metal detectors before it like Steel Vengeance, and given the relatively decreased intensity I don’t think it’s warranted.

#6: Raptor. It’s an old B&M invert at this point but it doesn’t suffer from B&M rattle that affects some of its more modern coasters. Relatively long for a coaster with strong elements and good a forceful ending helix.

#7: GateKeeper. It’s the only B&M Wing Coaster that I’ve ridden. The swinging/rotating around the track is fun, and flying through the two keyholes is exciting! Unfortunately this one was only running one train when we visited this time, so we couldn’t stomach waiting 40 minutes for another ride…

#8: Valravn. I think B&M dive coasters are a little boring since you just swing around after the initial drop, but the elements are pretty big and I really like entering the twist at a slowre speed.

#9: Gemini. A really old dueling wooden coaster. It has some decent air time hills and good drops, but what makes this fun to ride is the dueling element of the track. Since each car enters the curves at different speeds, it provides opportunities during the duel for each car to pass each other. Though I think the understanding is that the blue car wins more often than the blue one.

#10: Magnum XL-200. It was not operating for this visit, but all I remember was it’s an OK ride and a little rough towards the end with the bunny hills.

#11: Iron Dragon. A Vekoma suspended coaster, but unfortunately not as good as The Bat at Kings Island. It just kinda meanders for the first half before doing more aggressive turns in the 2nd half.

#12: Wild Mouse. Didn’t stop by it this time but it’s more for kids. The seats will give you good laterals, but without a separate fast pass lane it’s a pass for us.

#13: Blue Streak. The oldest roller coaster at Cedar Point from 1964. A historical relic at this point but it doesn’t offer too much at this point.

#14: Corkscrew. I’m not a big fan of Arrow corkscrews since you spend the whole ride trying to brace tightly to withstand the corkscrew itself, but this one has historical significane I believe for being the first one.

#15: Cedar Creek Mine Ride. The only thing going for this is the pond the ride takes place in. Ride is janky and rough. But at least it’s not actually unpleasant like…

#16: Rougarou. This B&M floorless conversion actually sucks because it hurts if you don’t aggressively ride defensively and suffers from extreme rattle.There is absolutely no fun to be had on this ride.

The only thing I missed out on this time was the Lake Erie Railroad ride, which takes you through the inner sections of the park not accessible on foot and populated by skeleton animatronics living life in the wild west! The first time I rode it in 2024 there was a group of really excited girls yelling Boneville! Boneville! Boneville! for a majority of the ride, which helped to get me excited for it too.

Today we are at Cedar Point! Staying at the on property Hotel Breakers allows you to enter one hour early into the park. We chose to wait for Top Thrill 2… except it didn’t start running until after we left for a different ride because we gave up on it coming back up in time…

unfortunately, the “crown jewel” hotel is actually not all that luxurious

We were scheduled for thunderstorms at some point in the day, but rides were being taken down for wind constantly through-out the day. A bit unfortuante so our ride count for the day was quite… poor. Also, it’s a god damn Tuesday. Shouldn’t kids be in school right now? bugger off…

admittedly a lot sadder than what we accomplished at Kings Island

farmhouse chicken and grill. steak and cornbread casserole, then grilled chicken and potatoes

We ended up eating at the same place for lunch and ‘dinner’ given where we were at the park. The steak was moist and rare and the scent of the wood smoke used to cook it is the first thing you sniff when entering the building, so I opted for that first. Second time around we got the chicken drumsticks. You can see there’s a lot of herbs on it, which gives it a very refreshing flavor.

Siren’s Curse and Top Thrill 2 are the two new rides for us, since we were last here in 2024. I don’t think they crack the top 3 of Steel Vengeance / Maverick / Millennium Force, but the speed of shooting up the Top Thrill 2 Spike at 100+ mph is quite exhiliaring and I cant help but be laughing and giggling on the way down. Dropping down on Siren’s Curse’s tilt portion definitely has B&M Dive Coasters beat for dropping straight down, but the rest of it is just a ‘good’ regular coaster. A bit of a gimmick honestly, but still fun to ride.

is there a cute anime girl deep down in its soul?

They have a farm animal section where you can pet some animals like goats and pigs and cows and camels. It’s for kids though, and since time is of the essence we walked past it briskly.

There was a cool MIllennium Force station diorama in one of the stores. Here’s the picture I took of the train exiting from the 4th row. Very accurate!

storm warning approximately 3 minutes after this picture was taken

Towards park closing we were trying to spam Top Thrill 2, but they closed it off due to inclement weather. We were like “awwwwwwwwwwwwwww” but accepted that the day was otherwise productive and began walking home. Then gusts of 20-30 mph started rolling in with strong rains pouring down, so it was a defeat we had no choice but to take.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Now just chilling in the hotel. We’ll pack up our bags tonight and tackle day 2 of the park tomorrow and hopefully have better luck with crowds and the weather!

harold and kumar were here i think

For breakfast we visited White Castle! We don’t have any in California and I never bothered to try the frozen sliders they sell. The bread is nice and fluffy and the different fillings complement the bread well. I could see myself being a regular if we had them on the west coast.

Some sights from the top of Kings Island’s Eiffel tower. It makes the huge roller coasters look tiny!

For lunch we went back to Skyline Chili. My brother opted to get the 3-way again with the spaghetti, but I opted to diversify my portfolio with the two coney dogs. It’s about what I’d expect from a chili cheese dog. The large amount of cheese means that the top of the shredded cheese won’t actually melt since the dog itself isn’t hot enough to melt all of it, but I think it’s fine.

We were supposed to visit the Columus Zoo for the purpose of riding their two roller coasters, but they only operate the amusement attractions on the weekends. Since today is a Monday… Oops! You might also ask, why does a zoo have a roller coaster? Well, while you’re asking, maybe you can also ask Tobu Zoo, too…!

a random assortment of animals

The zoo also has a “Dinosaur Island Boat Ride” of dinosaur animatronics. Unfortunately, no, the dinosaurs aren’t alive. But it’s nice to see them just passively idling, instead of trying to chew your ride vehicle a la Universal Studio’s Jurassic Park.

a random assortment of dinosaurs

gas stations in Ohio have walk in refrigerators for beer. I’ve never seen this before.

For dinner we stopped by a place that is world famous for their Bologna Sandwich. It only costs $5.70 so it’s pretty cheap. It looks like someone just slapped the shit together and put it in a microwave, but it’s quite nice! Bologna is nice and juicy andd really makes what looks like lunch meat and bread something suitable to serve in a restaurant. I’m a fan, but admittedly, it’s pretty out of the way!

Checked in to our room at Hotel Breakers for a nice day at Cedar Point tomorrow. We came in 2022 with the intention to ride Top Thrill 2… but it would be shut down for the remainder of the season due to numerous issues they were having. We will ride it this time for sure!