M-I-C-K-E-Y....M-O-U-S-E

(We are freezing...but still having fun!)

When: January 21, 2008.
Where: TOKYO DISNEYLAND
Info: It was FREEEEEEZING!! And totally amazing!

(Why can't my daily commute include this train?! It'd be so much more fun!)

We got up early, put on our ears and caught the Mickey express. I was surprised how many people, especially kids were in line. I mean, didn't those kids have school to go to? Or did mom and dad pull them out of crazy, stressful Japanese school to run around Disneyland? We stood freezing for about 40 minutes until the park finally opened. Our first stop was Tomorrowland, where we Fastpass-ed Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. On our way over to Westernland we stopped to have pictures taken in front of Cinderella's castle.

(Don't these people work? Don't these kids go to school?)

Unfortunately, Big Thunder Mountain was closed for the day so we walked around and checked out Fantasyland. Here we found super short lines for Peter Pan's Flight (two people per flying sailboat = cool), Snow White's Adventures and Pinocchio's Daring Journey.

(Pinocchio's Daring Journey = the things nightmares are made of. Now I remember why I hate that movie)

(Snow White's Adventures was also terrifying - you drive through on a mine-cart and try to avoid the wicked witch...)

(Castle Carousel - I love carousels...)

My favourite ride in Fantasyland was Alice's Tea Party. I LOVE those spinning tea cups!



(Taryn - I tried to face my fear of this song face-on. We went on It's a Small World, a boat ride where you float through different scenes of scary puppet kids from all over the world singing the song in like 20 languages. Kind of terrifying. I don't think it worked.)

After Fantasyland we headed back into Tomorrowland where we went on Space Mountain. Now Elspeth told me it was a kind of ride in the dark. She failed to mention that it was like a traditional rollercoaster in the dark with stars whizzing by you. I was screaming and laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants. Hilarious. Instantly my favourite ride! I mean, any ride with multiple 'escape pods' along the entrance in case you change your mind...

Next we decided to see if I could still drive at the Grand Circuit Raceway. I think the track made it harder to stay in a straight line....but who knows...maybe I have forgotten how to drive...

(I think this is my favourite picture...EVER)

We ate lunch at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall, which is designed to look like your eating in the hedgemaze. It was fantastically insane. I mean, the place is advertised as a Buffeteria! That's right say it to yourself...buffeteria!

You grabbed a tray, got in line and then through a combination of taking what you wanted (buffet) and asking for your main dish (cafeteria) you got your food. Actual roast chicken? YES PLEASE. Something we'd both been dying for...

And you can't go to an Alice in Wonderland themed buffeteria without eating un-birthday cake! Delicious!

We wandered around for a bit and then bought some honey flavoured popcorn in cute Winnie the Pooh honey pot shaped containers (plastic popcorn containers with shoulder straps = very popular souvenirs) and decided to stake out places to see the parade. We unfolded our HelloKitty butt sheets (plastic sheets sold for festival/parade watching) and watched the 'sweep sweep guys' come around making sure the road was spotless.

(The 'sweep-sweep' guy. Elspeth dropped some popcorn on the ground and he came by to 'sweep-sweep' it up!)

The parade was great. Apparently, it was slightly scaled down due to part of a float falling off the week before and almost killing some spectators. The most hilarious part were the foreigners! I mean, I can't imagine dressing up like Alice or Cinderella every day and lip-synching to a Japanese song...

(Peter Pan was VERY happy and VERY short!)

After the parade we used our fast pass for 'Pooh's Honey Hunt'. It had been shut down due to a technical problem but was back up and running by the time we got there. In line, you walk between huge pages of the book. The ride was OK (you zoom around in huge honey pots while following Pooh) but I thought it was cool because it used the same trackless system as Aquatopia in DisneySea.

We stopped to laugh at the unfortunate foreigner who was forced to wear a gold lame jumpsuit and sing at the Theatre Orleans and then headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean. It was pretty well done (the pirates actually looked real) and the final scene had a Johnny Depp -wax figure-mannequin-robot-thing with a recording of Depp's voice. Now, if only they had a Orlando Bloom from the 3rd movie scene...

One of our last attractions was The Enchanted Tiki Room. This was a boring musical robot-bird /Tiki god song thing. I fell asleep again. We couldn't believe an entire tiki hut/theatre was built for it....what a waste.

We escaped the tiki hut and ran to One Man's Dream, a dance and song performance. This was cute and had fire. Need I say more.

After a little omiyage shopping, the sun had set and the Cinderellabration began. Archways were lit up all the way to the castle. We waited and waited...my feet were so cold....where the heck was Cinderella? Seriously...she was going to be late for her coronation (I know...how cheesy was this...). Finally all the characters showed up to celebrate her coronation (even Aladdin and Jasmine), did some dances and then she and Prince Phillip/Charming (was that his name?) rose into the air on a platform and fireworks were set off. Ooooo...aaaahhhhh...

(Elspeth actually heard girls saying that the prince was handsome...now either they have super amazing eyesight because he looked like an ant to me or they thought he was good looking just because he was a foreigner...)(that reminded me of when one of my adult students said she wanted to be a princess and that her childhood idol was princess Diana).

After Cinderella was crowned, we said our goodbyes and left Disneyland. We caught the Mickey train for the last time and then caught the train to Tokyo. Going back to everyday life was kind of hard...I mean, life is a bit dull when you can't wear Minnie ears.

According to my students...

• an ideal wife is, 'someone who loves housekeeping and whose cooking is excellent.'

• an ideal husband is, 'someone who listens to his wife and children and whose salary is high.'

And my students wonder why I don't have a Japanese boyfriend....Is there anyone out there who loves housekeeping??!! Good grief!

Christopher - Look what Elspeth and I found...

This was only Elspeth's 3rd or 4th attempt. Now she's REALLY good. I, on the other hand, tend to get distracted by the stuff happening at the bottom and miss beats...

We're off to an onsen for the weekend where I'm sure we'll relax, eat good food and play taiko.

The post you've all been waiting for...DISNEYSEA

When: January 20, 2008.
Where: TOKYO DISNEYSEA
Info: I'll admit, that when I came to Japan I told myself that I wouldn't waste my money going to Tokyo Disneyland. I mean, I really had no desire to go to see Mickey, go on rides, wait in long lines, eat overpriced food, etc.....But then all of my students raved about it. People told me they went there for their honeymoon it was so amazing. All of my kids students came back glowing from weekend trips with tiny souvenirs for me. Then, finally, Elspeth said she wanted to go. I mean, I dragged her to Kanazawa in the ice rain, so I gave in. Little did I know that it is one of the greatest places in Japan. This was a weekend I'll NEVER forget.

(This guy spent the train ride making a model. He even had his girlfriend helping him at one point. When he finished he seemed really proud of himself and carefully posed it on his tray table)

In order to make the most of our precious Disney time, we caught a late shinkansen to Tokyo Saturday night and stayed in a business hotel. That allowed us to get up EARLY Sunday morning and head to Tokyo DisneySea for a whole day of fun.

(Our hotel room was a 'business twin'. We found out that this means it was essentially two tiny rooms with a shared bathroom in the middle. It was great! We might have watched the same channel on our two TVs, with Elspeth yelling translations across the divide. Yeah, we're lazy. And proud of it)

We made it to Maihama Station about an hour before the parks opened. Here we jumped on the Disney train. We gazed out the Mickey-shaped windows while passing Disneyland, park employees waving to the train from parking lots, the $400/person/night Disney Resort hotels, and Cinderella's castle before arriving at the DisneySea station.

(Due to Valentine's Day in February it was 'The Season of the Heart')

The minute the gate opened people ran towards Tower of Terror. It's the newest attraction in the park and people try to FastPass it. Let me quickly explain the awesomeness of the Japanese Fast Pass. When you get your park pass, it allows you to Fast Pass popular rides. Special machines spit out a ticket with a time period printed on it. This is the time you can return to the ride and enter the Fast Pass entrance, which is usually a much shorter line. Once you get a Fast Pass, you have to wait a while before you can get another one (this prevents people from running from ride to ride and just Fast Passing them all). The system works pretty well.

We decided to stand in line for Tower of Terror since it was only a 20 minute wait. This turned out to be an AWESOME ride. Even waiting in line was interesting because the 'set' was so well decorated. The ride involves being taken up to the top of the tower (so that you can see the whole park out of a window) and then dropped. The process is repeated. I was laughing hysterically and screaming at the top of my lungs! It was so much scarier than I had expected.

Our next stop was to procure the all-important ears! It was a hard decision but I finally decided on a Minnie headband and Elspeth got some Tigger ears. Everything is better when you're wearing Disney ears!

(Elspeth in front of the DisneySea volcano, which occasionally spews smoke)

In the American Waterfront section you can walk through turn of the century New York, check out the S.S. Columbia or take a stroll in Cape Cod. People were frantically buying a new souvenir teddybear here. You could buy 'Cape Cod'-ish clothing for it and other Americana souvenirs. Elspeth and I ran/walked through it on our way to Port Discovery.


This section was cool - it was futuristic, and things were whizzing and spinning. The line for Aquatopia was super short so we hopped into a watercraft. This ride wasn't that fast but it was cool for one special reason - the watercraft were trackless.

(Where the track ends...)

Disney has this crazy system that allows the ride to use sensors and follow blue lines on the ground. This means the ride can spin 360 degrees, back up quickly, and do sharp turns. Very cool.


Some video of the ride for your enjoyment. I apologize for my stupid voice/comments. I was giddy and wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Cut me some slack.




In the Lost River Delta section I was super excited to go on the Indiana Jones Adventure ride but unfortunately it was closed for 'improvements'. I guess that's what you get when you come in the winter/cheap season. So the only bit of Indy I got to see was his plane....little C3PO.

(The entrance to Raging Spirits - a rollercoaster with a 360 degree loop and lots of fog)

(A turbulent ride indeed)

After being flipped upside down in an Aztec ruin, we decided to zip over to the Arabian Coast. We didn't spend much time there, only stopping for a quick ride on the Caravan Carousel. It's a two level carousel but since there weren't that many people in the park that day, the second level was closed.


Next was a quick dip into Mermaid Lagoon. This is an area mainly for little kids so we only ate a quick lunch here (at Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen!) and people watched.

(Here's what I'm thinking happened - She bought the Minnie ears and then afterwards saw the Marie cat ears and wanted them. So her boyfriend bought them for her and deciding not to waste the Minnie ears, he put them on. That, or he just liked them and bought them for himself)

Mysterious Island - The entrance to The Journey to the Center of the Earth (you shoot out of the volcano!) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Coca-Cola, I'm disappointed in your sponsored ride...boring)

(I have no idea why we were puzzled. Isn't our shadow-ear photo cute?)

An interesting thing about Tokyo DisneySea/Land - there aren't a lot of traditional snack stands and there is no cotton candy in sight (boo). But at every corner there are little shacks selling a different flavour of popcorn (Yeah!)(Some we saw - salted, chocolate, caramel, honey, curry(!), coconut). We just had time to grab some coconut popcorn before finding a place to see The Legend of Mythica, a performance near the main entrance in Mediterranean Harbor (aka mini-Venice).

This was AMAZING. I mean, anything that involves jet skis, water jets, fireworks, music, floats, cirque du soleil inspired dancers, kites, fire, giant eggs, phoenix, dragons, unicorns, etc. must be good. And watching Mickey rave-dance at the top of a frighteningly high platform was cool.




The kites were my favourite. Each jet ski had two people on it and one was seated backwards to control the 5 kites. Using these handle things they were able to make the kites do synchronized loops and swirls. All of the jet skis whizzed around the harbor with the kites doing a choreographed dance!



Because Disney says romance...not. Well, at least not to me. The place is very popular with Japanese brides and grooms. For them, it's perfect. Get married in fake Venice and then spend the weekend going around the park in Minnie and Mickey ears. Hey wait...that is starting to sound good...The couple above were very attractive and happy as bells rang and they walked from the Italian chapel. Although I wondered what the bride had to do to convince her future hubby to wear that satiny cream tux.

After The Legend of Mythica, we went on Tower of Terror again and then most of the rides were starting to close so we caught the last performance of Mystic Rhythms. This was a weird modern dance-people dressed in spandex animal costumes thing...And since I was finally warm inside the theatre, I might have fallen asleep for most of it...oops. I woke up when it was over and we decided to grab dinner at the Mexican restaurant near Indiana Jones. It was pretty good and not too expensive. Rumor has it the tortillas are homemade....


After dinner we wandered around a bit, avoided the omiyage stores where everyone was buying last minute souvenirs and then decided to call it a night. We caught the mickey train and after a little detour found our business hotel. We were exhausted after a day of Disney and I was asleep by 10:30pm. I mean, we had to get our sleep - the next day was Tokyo DISNEYLAND!!

Here's a quick look at The Legend of Mythica...