Thursday, February 25, 2010

WaNNaDoooooooooooo?



Happy Thursday, Chickens!

As you know, last week Tribe Veasey migrated South to o my gawd it's flipping freezing sunny Florida. Our first stop was Ft. Lauderdale where we visited a little slice of Kid Heaven called Wannado City.


Wannado City is a child-sized metropolis inside a space that is the size of three football fields. It has every kind of business/shop you can imagine and kids (called kidizens) participate in different careers and other lifelike activities.

Wanna be a doctor? Wannado City's hospital has actual incubators ( the babies are realistic-looking dolls).


Its radio station has working broadcast equipment, and its dental clinic has a kid-sized dentist's chair that goes up and down. Other areas include an archeological dig site, a flight academy, a circus staffed with real Ringling Brothers performers, a cooking academy, a forensic science lab, and a courthouse. In all, the attraction offers children a choice of 100 professions.

As in the real world, kids have to earn their keep. They receive "Wongas," Wannado City's currency, in exchange for working. (note: Banana felt her stint at the Coca Cola Bottling Plant was wayyyyy underpaid). They can spend their dough at the city's fair, which includes a mini carousel and Ferris wheel, in the local beauty parlor or movie theater, or make jewelry at the local boutique. Or they can safely deposit their earnings in the local bank-removing what they need from kid sized ATMs stationed throughout town.

Some of the choices made by the spawn include working as a vet, where both Banana and CBoy successfully operated on a robotic dog who lay on a steel table, breathing shallowly, and removed a set of keys from it's stomach using some type of laproscopic equipment they had been briefly trained on.





They raced to a fire in a kid sized firetruck and put out the flames at the local fireworks factory using real hoses. They made candy bars at the Willy Wonka candy factory. They cut their first CD. They captured bank robbers and flew an airplane. Here, CBoy performs in a fashion show on the runway at the John Cassablanca modeling school.


While Banana ponders the evidence in the CSI crime lab.

(She pouts because I was outside on the street singing shlameel, schlamazzle, hasslebach incorporated.)

A highlight was when the kids got to perform surgery on a middle aged woman. Because apparently removing kidney stones is so easy...even a kid could do it!


And as fantastic as the whole day was.....I couldn't help thinking (and I know that this will age me Chickens, but that's why there is Wickipedia) about THIS MOVIE (which I saw as a wee child. Very wee.)

14 comments:

Jen said...

CBoy walking dancing down the runway is priceless.

Krëg said...

Man, that place makes my childhood playthings look archaic. And they have run-of-the-mill boring "jobs" too? Because accountant and form-press operator aren't often on the aspiration list of many children.

They didn't have that place when I lived in Florida as a kid. We just had to be content with playing at the beautiful beaches.

There's a sequel to Westworld and it's even worse than the original. If that's feasible.

Lin said...

Looks like the spawn had a great time! I never even knew there was place like this out there. Totally makes me wish I was a kid :(

Sheila said...

i am completely envious of your children. do they have a place like Wannado City for grownups who would like a new career path? cuz i will totally be there.

wv: immumo
Hi, Immumo. Who are you?

Something Happened Somewhere Turning said...

I must be getting old, because Yul Brynner has been gone a long, long time now.
I bet the kids had a blast.

CGDK said...

wow, that place sounds amazing! I'm google-ing it to save it for our (long time in the)future trip to the states.

Sheila said...

BTW-that robotic dog is sorta awesome/sorta creepy. I seriously thought CBoy was working on a real dog from that first picture.

OHN said...

It is simply unfair that they didn't have a town like that when I was a kid.

On top of that, I have a brother in Ft.L and he has NEVER mentioned it!!

Miss Thystle said...

that looks way more awesome than when I went to Florida and sweated through all my clothes in about ten minutes and a giant spider tried to kill me and then I tripped because I was wearing heels and I was maybe a little bit drunk and being chased by a probably homicidal spider and then Mel laughed at me and I was all FRIENDS OFF but she bought me more wine. Then I couldn't find the hotel key and now I find out it's been inside a possibly dead robot dog THIS WHOLE TIME.

What the hell, man. What. The. Hell.

kristin said...

This is in Ft Lauderdale?
How have I missed this all these years?

*Now my kids wold think it's dumb, but *I would LOVE it!

And I know they would have just a few short years ago.

You guys have ALL the fun!

Unknown said...

Wannado looks amazing. Your kids crack me up!

DrewsMommy said...

OMG! I laughed out loud at the West World comparison. DH didn't get it...

ZDub said...

Speaking of Wannado, Zoe is looking into a career in pottery.

Go to my place.

Metalicious said...

What is the world coming to when a 'fun' place to go is a place where kids have to 'work' to earn money?! You are terrible parents, clearly.

I love you. You know that. Right?