M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E...
Quiz #1: I'll give you three pictorial guesses of where we spent today:
For those of you that live around Tokyo, Orlando, or Anaheim, the first picture should be easy to recognize. If you know how to read English, the second shot should clear up any misconceptions. But the third picture is the sinker...
Today we visited Mickey and all of his friends at Tokyo Disneyland. And let me just tell you, it was cold, but it was also the time of our lives.
The Disney tour was a one-day trip set up by the Navy's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) folks. We decided to try Disney through MWR for several reasons, including:
1) The bus ride there was guaranteed to be better than riding the trains or taking a car... so we thought,
2) The tour guide spoke English, though we were on our own once entering the theme park, and
3) We had the opportunity to meet some new people by riding with the group.
The bus to Disneyland was scheduled to leave Yokosuka at 6:30am. In our typical family routine, we woke up at about 4:45am to get ready, eat breakfast, and get over to base in time. After all that, we arrived at the bus at 6:29am, with the bus running and warming up. As we got on the bus, we noticed a family with a child about the age of Josh, so we wandered closer to them to check out how successfully they were getting their child car seat attached using the difficult bus seat belts. Turns out that we spent the bus ride talking with them and then spent the first half of our day in the park with them as well.
The bus ride was fairly eventful. About halfway to Tokyo, the son of our bus-mates noticed a peculiar odor looming like a dark cloud over our section of the bus. It was a smell that my brain couldn't place, but my nostrils were having trouble digesting the foul stench. I finally asked Nicki if she smelled mold, but she was one step ahead of me... she quickly said, "That smells like puke." Sure enough, a child a few seats back decided to share her semi-digested breakfast with us. The family tried cleaning it up by storing the blown chunks in a plastic grocery bag, but unfortunately they didn't have the foresight to put the bag into the bus's bathroom or even to tie the bag soundly. Long story short, for the last 45 minutes of our bus ride, we were stuck in Vomitville. And... as we were getting off of the bus, we noticed that the little spewer's parents had the audacity to leave the bag behind on the bus, apparently saving it for the ride home.
In better news, once we got to Tokyo Disneyland, everything was wonderful. We decided to join our bus-mates - Keith, Christy (I hope I spelled your name correctly), and their son, James, for the first half of our day. We started out in Toon Town, where Keith, James, Joshua and I rode a child-sized, but still surprisingly speedy, rollercoaster... but only after convincing the Disney crew that our kids were three years old, the minimum age for riding. Throughout the day, we also went on the Tea Cups ride, Pinnochio's ride, the Dumbo Experience, It's a Small World ride, the Who Framed Roger Rabit chase, and a few other Disney staples.
After eating lunch with our bus-mates, we decided to venture out on our own for a bit, but only after exchanging contact information with our new friends for future reference. We knew Josh was going to skip his nap, but we weren't sure the extent to which his no-nap-meltdown would happen, and didn't want to hold up the bus-mates because of a toddler eruption. We spent the next few hours basically walking around, shooting pictures (over 100), and enjoying the beautiful but chilly day.
Quiz #2: Where are the two longest lines at Disneyland typically located?
Answer: The second longest line is that which leads to "Pictures with Mickey" opportunities. The longest line in the entire park today was the one full of Japanese people who wanted to talk to Joshua. Everywhere we went, people tried to pinch his cheeks, shake his hands, or talk to him in Japanese. Quite a few were surprised to hear him say, "Ohayo gozaimasu" or "Konnichiwa" ("good morning" or "good afternoon", respectively) in return to their greetings.
Around 3:15pm, we had to make a critical decision. Our bus was scheduled to leave Disneyland around 9:00pm, but we knew that without a nap all day, Josh was bound to get cranky towards his bedtime (normally 'round 7:00pm) and after the sun set, we knew that it wasn't going to get any warmer. Problem was, we were within a couple hours of major Tokyo rush-hour and with 14 million people or so living in and around Tokyo, we didn't want to head back on our own during the 5:00 - 7:00pm time frame. So we decided to cut our day short around 3:45pm, and we started our journey to the train station nearest the theme park.
Fortunately, the walk wasn't far, but we knew that the walk was the easy part. Our train trip took us on several different train lines, with transfers at some of the largest stations in the metropolitan area, including the central Tokyo Station and Yokohama Station. Sufficed to say, Nicki and I decided that if we all completed the train ride in one piece, then we could probably successfully travel just about anywhere we want in the future without much trouble. Fortunately for us, we caught an express train from Tokyo to Yokohama, then a limited express train the rest of the way from Yokohama. It still took us about two hours to get home, but we made it in one piece.
Since then, I've had a Guinness - the perfect beer for sipping while sitting with legs stretched out under the family kotatsu. I also soaked in the ofuro, or "Japanese style tub heated to skin-peeling temperatures", to regulate my body heat again. Now, I'm really sleepy so the remaining images of today's Disney excursion will have to wait. But I promise that soon, you'll be able to click on our "Gallery" link to the left and find over 100 pictures from today's adventure... we'll label it 12/14/2005 for easy access.
For those of you that live around Tokyo, Orlando, or Anaheim, the first picture should be easy to recognize. If you know how to read English, the second shot should clear up any misconceptions. But the third picture is the sinker...
Today we visited Mickey and all of his friends at Tokyo Disneyland. And let me just tell you, it was cold, but it was also the time of our lives.
The Disney tour was a one-day trip set up by the Navy's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) folks. We decided to try Disney through MWR for several reasons, including:
1) The bus ride there was guaranteed to be better than riding the trains or taking a car... so we thought,
2) The tour guide spoke English, though we were on our own once entering the theme park, and
3) We had the opportunity to meet some new people by riding with the group.
The bus to Disneyland was scheduled to leave Yokosuka at 6:30am. In our typical family routine, we woke up at about 4:45am to get ready, eat breakfast, and get over to base in time. After all that, we arrived at the bus at 6:29am, with the bus running and warming up. As we got on the bus, we noticed a family with a child about the age of Josh, so we wandered closer to them to check out how successfully they were getting their child car seat attached using the difficult bus seat belts. Turns out that we spent the bus ride talking with them and then spent the first half of our day in the park with them as well.
The bus ride was fairly eventful. About halfway to Tokyo, the son of our bus-mates noticed a peculiar odor looming like a dark cloud over our section of the bus. It was a smell that my brain couldn't place, but my nostrils were having trouble digesting the foul stench. I finally asked Nicki if she smelled mold, but she was one step ahead of me... she quickly said, "That smells like puke." Sure enough, a child a few seats back decided to share her semi-digested breakfast with us. The family tried cleaning it up by storing the blown chunks in a plastic grocery bag, but unfortunately they didn't have the foresight to put the bag into the bus's bathroom or even to tie the bag soundly. Long story short, for the last 45 minutes of our bus ride, we were stuck in Vomitville. And... as we were getting off of the bus, we noticed that the little spewer's parents had the audacity to leave the bag behind on the bus, apparently saving it for the ride home.
In better news, once we got to Tokyo Disneyland, everything was wonderful. We decided to join our bus-mates - Keith, Christy (I hope I spelled your name correctly), and their son, James, for the first half of our day. We started out in Toon Town, where Keith, James, Joshua and I rode a child-sized, but still surprisingly speedy, rollercoaster... but only after convincing the Disney crew that our kids were three years old, the minimum age for riding. Throughout the day, we also went on the Tea Cups ride, Pinnochio's ride, the Dumbo Experience, It's a Small World ride, the Who Framed Roger Rabit chase, and a few other Disney staples.
After eating lunch with our bus-mates, we decided to venture out on our own for a bit, but only after exchanging contact information with our new friends for future reference. We knew Josh was going to skip his nap, but we weren't sure the extent to which his no-nap-meltdown would happen, and didn't want to hold up the bus-mates because of a toddler eruption. We spent the next few hours basically walking around, shooting pictures (over 100), and enjoying the beautiful but chilly day.
Quiz #2: Where are the two longest lines at Disneyland typically located?
Answer: The second longest line is that which leads to "Pictures with Mickey" opportunities. The longest line in the entire park today was the one full of Japanese people who wanted to talk to Joshua. Everywhere we went, people tried to pinch his cheeks, shake his hands, or talk to him in Japanese. Quite a few were surprised to hear him say, "Ohayo gozaimasu" or "Konnichiwa" ("good morning" or "good afternoon", respectively) in return to their greetings.
Around 3:15pm, we had to make a critical decision. Our bus was scheduled to leave Disneyland around 9:00pm, but we knew that without a nap all day, Josh was bound to get cranky towards his bedtime (normally 'round 7:00pm) and after the sun set, we knew that it wasn't going to get any warmer. Problem was, we were within a couple hours of major Tokyo rush-hour and with 14 million people or so living in and around Tokyo, we didn't want to head back on our own during the 5:00 - 7:00pm time frame. So we decided to cut our day short around 3:45pm, and we started our journey to the train station nearest the theme park.
Fortunately, the walk wasn't far, but we knew that the walk was the easy part. Our train trip took us on several different train lines, with transfers at some of the largest stations in the metropolitan area, including the central Tokyo Station and Yokohama Station. Sufficed to say, Nicki and I decided that if we all completed the train ride in one piece, then we could probably successfully travel just about anywhere we want in the future without much trouble. Fortunately for us, we caught an express train from Tokyo to Yokohama, then a limited express train the rest of the way from Yokohama. It still took us about two hours to get home, but we made it in one piece.
Since then, I've had a Guinness - the perfect beer for sipping while sitting with legs stretched out under the family kotatsu. I also soaked in the ofuro, or "Japanese style tub heated to skin-peeling temperatures", to regulate my body heat again. Now, I'm really sleepy so the remaining images of today's Disney excursion will have to wait. But I promise that soon, you'll be able to click on our "Gallery" link to the left and find over 100 pictures from today's adventure... we'll label it 12/14/2005 for easy access.
posted by Unknown | 8:55 PM
8 Comments:
HI Mike, Nicki and Josh,
Can't wait to see the rest of the pictures of Tokyo Disneyland. The enterence to it looks similar to the one to Disneyland Paris. I am sure it was quite fun comparing the "old" (Anaheim) to the "new" (Tokyo). It sounds like you had a fun time.
Cassie
Is life great or what?
David
Just so you know mate:
Konnichiwa -> Hello
Konbanwa -> Good Afternoon
So which one is better, Tokyo or Anaheim Disneyland?
Anaheim Disney is way better....totally. Tokyo is smaller I think or atleast it seams that way. Nicki
I'd have to agree with Nicki that Anaheim has a better Disneyland. But only for two reasons:
1. Anaheim is the original, so it has an appeal that no other Disney park can match.
2. My favorite Disney ride is Pirates of the Caribbean, which we couldn't find at Tokyo Disneyland.
-Mike
Love your Blog! You have a warm writing style!
I've had the luck to see both DW-Orlando and DL-Anahiem. We went to DW as kids a lot--toted there all the way from Texas. It was humongus. There was no way to take it all in, hit all the rides.....It was awesome but overwhelming as a kid and a adult.
When we took our daughter Alvis out to DL, it was perfect. We spent a whole day and were able to cover just about every single ride and part of the park without feeling either exhaused or like we had to sacrifice something for something else. The Pirates ride seemed a little less polished that the newer one in DW, but magic was everywhere it didn't really seem to matter.
Does the Japan park have those "ride-pre-ticketing" things like they have put in in DL?
That's really nice that everyone was drawn to Joshua. I think the Japanese are much warmer individuals than (some) people over here in the States give them credit. We recently got a new sushi restaraunt here in town and we love sitting at the bar, us and our pre-teen daughter chatting up a storm with the sushi chefs!
--Claus
Sounds like you're family has the great life. I've not been fortunate enough to get to DW yet, but I'm sure I will some time in my life. Mike's mother says that even though DW is grand, DL is the original. As a child that's what her and all her friends would dream about. There is definitely something magical about DL. Sorry we took a little while to get back to you. For some reason, your comment was tallied at the bottom. Mike was the one who caught it! Nicki
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