Mickey-san and Downstairs Dining

So today’s task: brave the foray into Tokyo Disneyland… on a weekend… and 79°F and no rain.  Subway? Yeah, got that.  I know the route but this will add a new element this time: Japan Railway line.  Should be no problem since Pasmo is accepted there as well.  I <3 Pasmo.  Day two and I'm already used to the left-hand flow of pedestrians and traffic.

It opens at 8:00am, I figure getting there 30 minutes before should be good for the crowd and getting a pass, etc.  I go to the hotel’s basement level 2 for the Tameike-sanno station which conveniently has a Seven Eleven.  However, since it is 6:45, it is not open.  A true 7-11 this is.  The combined subway/train trip was uneventful, no half kilometer hikes… yet.  Those will be reserved for Disneyland.

Getting to the park and walking to the entrance was a neat experience for me as most of you should know that Kari and I are Disney fans.  Very cool and many similar looking buildings and designs.  The crowd waiting to get in was very calm, very orderly, and very large.

I get my pass for ¥6,400 (about $61) and about 15 minutes after the park opens, I’m in!  Things here are very different.  But a lot of similarities exist everywhere.  My first stop was to eat breakfast.  I find a quiet little place where you pick up a small tray and a pair of tongs so you can grab what you want.  So many choices but I settle on a meat pie (what type of meat you ask? It was not divulged, but I will simply say it was “tasty” meat) and a maple pastry.  Holy crap.  Disney does food right.  Say all you want about the price, but in the last 15 years or so, they have really stepped up with quality.  Sure it can be pricy, but it’s not crappy food.  That maple pastry… mmm…

Next up: Space Mountain!  After getting very polite and mostly clear directions to the Fast Pass distribution machines that were basically right in front of me, I get a pass for 9:45-10:45.  Cool, it’s 8:45 now and beats waiting in the standby line that is already at 50 minutes a mere 45 minutes after the park has opened.  No worries, Star Tours is a 25 minute wait and it’s cool inside there (both because of the AC and the theme).

The inside of Star Tours is very different in the beginning and then starts to throw some of the same elements you’d be used to from the original in Anaheim.  C3P0, fluent in over 2 million forms of communication, seems to only want to converse in Japanese today.  Oh well.  I know basically what he’s saying anyways.  So, the ride itself is identical to the one in Anaheim except for the obvious language difference.  SPOILER ALERT::  I got the ride combination that starts with Vader (doesn’t have a deep voice here in Japan) wanting the spy, who I’m sitting right next to, escape to Hoth, almost get killed by Imperial walkers and then jump to the droid battle above Coruscant.  3P0 was still stuck on speaking Japanese so I don’t know if he said anything different from the one I’m used to.

Out of Star Tours and it does not exit into a gift shop.  Another difference there.  Looking at the time I have about 20 minutes.  I wander a bit but don’t want to get too far from Space Mountain.  It seems that flavored popcorn is the big thing here and they have 7 different flavors strewn about the park in various locations.  The “soy sauce and butter” cart is right near by and so are the about 60-80 people waiting in line.  Pass on that, besides, there’s a curry one on the other side of the park that I’d like to try.  Instead, I sit and chill for a bit and then go into the ride.  The standby wait at this point is 100 minutes.  Geez… This ride is set up almost exactly like Anaheim.  The space ship over the loading cars looks different and the cars do too, but everything else is very close to the original.  Still a lot of fun.

I head out of Tomorrowland and into Fantasyland.  There is a Winnie the Pooh ride, The Honey Hunt, and while the Pooh ride in Anaheim is a favorite I did not want to wait 110 minutes for it.  I want to see as much of the park as I can.  Next was It’s A Small World and it was 100 minutes as well.  Nope.  After that: The Haunted Mansion and it’s all decked up for Nightmare Before Christmas.  100 minute wait à Fast Pass thank you very much!  While I wait for my time, I wander through a very serene and picturesque Critter Country lamenting how we lost the one in Anaheim years ago.

I wander out of there and into Westernland. Not Frontierland, Westernland.  Their Big Thunder Railroad looks really cool, but not the wait for it.  I head back and enter the Haunted Mansion.  The start of the tour in your Doom Buggy is all different and then slowly it starts getting into virtually exact replicas of the one in Anaheim.  Even the floating head in the séance room has the same recording, in English no less.  The Graveyard at the end is the same too, but where you get a hitchhiking ghost, that is different.

Back on my tour, I see the curry popcorn vendor and the four people waiting in the line.  Score!  That popcorn was pretty tasty.  Soon after resuming my walk, I hit Adventureland.  Hey look! The Jungle Cruise! Hey look! A three hour wait!  Hey skip! It’s the newest attraction, so I pass and head to The Enchanted Tiki Room.  Always a relaxing time there.  This one is laid out very similar to the original but it seems Stitch from Lilo & Stitch has taken over most of the show.  Entertaining even though I had roughly no idea what was going on.

I head into the center of the park to the castle and there is a big todo going on apparently.  I see that it is nearly straight up noon, so I head over to see what is going on.  After watching for a minute or two, it seems like there is a wedding going on in the front of the castle.  That is totally cool that you can do that.  That has to be expensive, but it looked beautiful.

Well it seems that I’ve come to the end of seeing all the stuffs that I wanted to and really don’t feel like waiting in the relative hot and the definite humidity for some of the other rides so I head to do a little souvenir shopping.

I have a certain style of magnet from Disneyland in Anaheim, same style different look from Disney World from April 2013, and a friend went to Disneyland Paris and I have the same style magnet from there too.  So I look everywhere in all the shops and while they have lots of cool things that I have never seen in the other two Disney resorts I’ve been to, they don’t have that one.  So disappointing.  The only thing I wanted from a trip to Japan besides going for free, getting paid per diem, traveling in business class, staying in a five-star hotel, eating incredible food everywhere, realizing a life-long dream of going to Japan, and experiencing a culture that has long fascinated me was to get that magnet.  I buy a different magnet and quickly get over it.

I mosey out of the park and back through the mass transit web to my hotel.  After many hours of walking and waiting and having a good time, I’m a little beat and decide to buy another citrus drink and a cheese mushi cake from Seven Eleven.  The cake claims it will bring happiness.  I’ll tell you, it was pretty damned tasty; I was happy.

Tonight I will head back to the street I went to on my first night.  While I am loving every ramen house I’ve been to so far, tonight will be different.  There are about two dozen restaurants on this street and cross streets.  One of these will be my first sushi restaurant in Japan.  I originally thought to wait until I spoke with people in the office about where they like to eat.  Screw that, day two and no fish eaten yet.  That has to change.   I am soooo glad I dived right in.  Although on my way to my dream sushi, I did happen across a Turkish restaurant (Marc, Lahmacun is tempting me...).  Oh so tempted.  No, must have sushi.

This will be a day long remembered.  For ¥1,809 I had probably the best sushi I can recall.  It was just a small little place, but it was an “every day Joh” kinda place.  You see, the dish I had was Joh Nigiri and a Tekka Tamaka and miso soup (with shrimp heads).  So so so so tasty.  I can’t wait to try other places!

 

On the way out, I cross the street for a better picture of the restaurant and see a large liquor store.  Time to see what kind of beer they have!  It has been chilling since I got in the room and I will be cracking it open soon.

I also found a Burger King around the corner.  Interesting menu, but I’ll eat at places I don’t normally have a chance to first, thankyouverymuch.

So work starts for me tomorrow at 9:00am.  I’m a little nervous as to what to expect and that my support is on the east coast and it will be 8:00pm the previous day, I’m not sure how it will all play out =).  Especially since when my day ends around 6:00pm it will be 5:00am for them.  I may not have too much in the way of sojourns to write about for tomorrow or the next couple of days.  I will update with what I can.  I’m curious if the office is open on September 23 as it is a national public holiday here in Japan.  I may get another fun day so who knows!