TOKYO DISNEY SEA! *________________________________________* ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Yes. On our third day, we went to Tokyo Disney Sea! I was sooo excited! It took about an hour to get from Ikebukuro to Disney. And we had to switch trains like 3 times. Ahaha. XD But, sooo worth it!
So, we got off the train and hopped into the monorail station. It's expensive to take the monorail! You have to pay for it like any other train line in Japan. And for the ride it was like 250yen! Ouch! To put it in perspective, it costs like 130yen to go from Ikebukuro to Harajuku. It's like a 10 minute distance for that as opposed to the 2 minute ride Disney had! So, Angel had to add money onto her Suica card and while we waited for her David and I took photos. :D
At this point we walked to the escalators. The monorail was like 3 flights upstairs, and we didn't wanna walk. Ahahaha. There was a really nice map of Tokyo Disney Resort on the wall halfway up, so I snapped a photo.
We didn't have to wait long for the monorail. It got there just as we did. And there was like no one on it. Sweet. They're adorable in Tokyo! The windows and hand-holder things are Mickey shaped!
We ended up being the last stop on the route. It goes from ticketing area, to Disney Land, to Hotels to Disney Sea. So, we got a nice view of the parks. The main park was all decked out for Halloween. We were tempted to switch to the main park because of this, but we stuck with Disney Sea.
Tokyo Disney Sea is celebrating it's 10 year anniversary this year. So, there was lots of "Be Magical!" stuff everywhere. So, we walked inside and made a beeline for the shop. You can't be in Disney without ears. Its the law. Angel bought a Minnie band with a pink leopard printed bow, I bought Minnie ears with a multi-coloured sequined bow and David got a Mickey band with a mini Fantasia hat. We looked awesome!
After buying our ears, we decided to walk about and look at the park. We headed towards the American Harbour area first. It looked kinda old timey. Reminded me of Main Street USA from Disney World in Florida. The main difference was the Tower of Terror was there. And the Japanese version of the ride looks gorgeous.
It looked nice, but still not brave enough to ride it. Ahahaha. Yay for being a wuss! Just past the Main Street was the Harbour. It had the SS Columbia docked there. Not a real ship, obviously, but it looked neat. It's a restaurant, apparently, but it was expensive, so we didn't go in. I took a photo from the bridge as we crossed from the Harbour area to the Cape Cod section. You can see the train crossing the green bridge and the Mediterranean hotel in the distance. Yep, thats right~ The hotel is IN the park. Its pretty nifty. So, the cape cod area was paaacked. There's a really cheap character dining place there. And it holds the official Duffy store, so it was insane. The only photo I got was of a Halloween display.
Duffy if the bear on the right. Shellie Mae, his girlfriend, is the one with the bow on the left. And then Pooh Bear and the vampire doll from Nightmare Before Christmas was there, too. But yeah. Duffy, and Shellie Mae to an extent, are SUPER popular! Everyone has one. EVERYONE. You're out of place if you go to Disney and you don't at least have a keychain with them. It's crazy!
So, after American area, we ended up in the Mexican area. The Indian Jones ride was there and we hopped over for fast passes. It was like 10am. And the earliest pass we got was for 2:45-3:45. Indy's popular, apparently. Angel and I both thought the Pyramid looked like the one in the game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, so I took a picture for her.
We kept walking and exploring and wound our way into the Mermaid Kingdom area. The design of the part was gorgeous! At this point, we decided to get on a ride. Our first ride of the day? The fish kiddie coaster. Ahahaha. There was like no one in line, so thats why. And there were plenty of people our age riding without kids, so we thought it was cool. The detail in this area was crazy! They even had tiles with Ariel and little fish in the walls!
We were all super amused by the no smoking sign. It was pretty cute. The ride was just a cute little coaster. When we got off we decided to head inside to Ariel's Playground.
I wish my camera took better photos in the dark. So, sorry guys. No photos of the inside. It looked amazing, though! It looked like a coral tunnel on the inside. We headed towards the Little Mermaid show and got amazing seats right at the front. It's kinda like seeing the Lion King musical, but Little Mermaid. They use the same technique for acting out the Sebastian, Flounder and the fish. The girl playing Ariel was suspended from the ceiling by wires, so she could flip and wiggle about as if she was swimming. And she was adorable! The songs were in English, but the dialogue was in Japanese. She smiled and waved at us a few times. The Ursula scene was cooool! If you've seen Wicked, and you know what the Wizard's iron mask tihng looks like, it was kinda along the same lines. It was like a big Ursula head that dangled from the ceiling and moved. All mechanical-like. Still neat. And there were her tentacles hanging from the ceiling. And people operating her mechanical hands. (Which had bright red fingernails, I might add.) Flotsam and Jetsam kept hitting Angel's leg with their tails. Ahaha. Overall, good show! Glad we saw it! Angel wanted a picture with the big snail outside the theatre in the food court.
I took a few more outside photos before we headed into Mysterious Island.
So, Mysterious Island was kinda steampunk-y. I thought of Madison the entire time we were there. We got into line for a ride. We didn't even know what it was. Lol. I thought it was the Mount Prometheus ride. But, it turned out to be the 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride. Lol. Oops. It was fun. The line was huuuge, though! You got in and spiraled down this metal ramp until you got inside. And then you kinda snaked your way around inside. I think we were in line for like 30minutes. Ish. And the ride was maybe 2 minutes. Lol.
We decided at this point that we were starving and tried to find somewhere cheap for lunch. We ended up walking around the park trying to find a place and we ended up at a buffeteria. It was pretty good, too. The price was right and we got HUUUGE servings! OH! And at this point, I'd lika to tell a side story from our dining experience. So, we're standing in line and Angel and I are fawning over a lolita in line ahead of us who was wearing long sleeves and tights and she looked amazing, but she must've been over heating like crazy. And then, as I looked around to the end of the serving line, where you got a drink and paid, I saw it. The elusive tacky tourist. It was beautiful. He was a middle aged man wearing a cowboy hat, a fanny pack AND socks with sandals! True story! I have photographic evidence of this rare sight!
Yes. I saw that and nearly fell over from giggling. But, after snapping a photo, we got to the front of the food line and picked what we wanted. we could pick one soup or salad, one entree, bread or rice, a dessert and a drink. All for about 1,200yen per person. That's freaking cheap! I got the pork cutlet, corn chowder, bread, melon soda and the orange mousse Magical Hat dessert.
Sooooo yummy! And like I said, HUGE meal! I couldn't finish. We all got the same thing, except David and Angel got salads. So after eating, we were getting pretty close to the time for our fast passes, so we decided to walk a bit before heading to the ride. As it happened, we were just in time to catch the Legend of Mythica. Rather than having parades, they had water shows at Disney Sea. It was pretty impressive what we DID see.
I took a video, too.
Towards the end of what we saw, the Disney characters started to pop out of the boats.
Now, remember up there where I kept saying what we saw of the show? Well, at this point it started to POUR! So, about halfway through the show an announcement came on saying they would be cancelling the rest of the show! BOOOOOO! And of course, David and I had no umbrella. Angel did, though. So, David and I got drenched and looked like drowned rats for the rest of the day. But, we decided that rather than chill out till the rain stopped we may as well head to the Indiana Jones ride. Yes. Rather than wait the 20 minutes until the rain stopped, we walked across the park to the ride. I was not impressed with this idea.
The Indy ride was cool, though. Kinda like Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom. But more awesome, since it had Indy. Although, it was based off of Crystal Skull. And there was a disturbing lack of Cate Blanchett. And the Indy spoke Japanese. He sounded so young! But it was fun! The rain stopped by the time we came out and we decided to head over to the Mount Prometheus ride. It was a semi-roller coaster. It was a Journey to the Center of the Earth ride. We waited about an hour in line. True story. It was insane. But, the ride was fun. It started off easy enough. We rode through a crystal cathedral place and a giant mushroom forest. Then there was a lot of 'lightning' and the cart we were in sped right up and we climbed up. And then we were dropping down the mountain! It was crazy! Poor Angel. She nearly keeled over. Lol.
At this point it was nearing the end of the day, and we had to be back at the hotel for about 5 to meet Colin! So, we took a few last photos, David bought me a Shellie Mae wrist bag thing and we left.
I can't wait to go back in December! Megumi said it's fantastic at Christmas! Woooooo~
So, we hopped the train and headed back to our hotel. Totally dell asleep on the train. I was sooo tired. When we got to the hotel, I changed out of my (still wet) clothes and we waited for Colin. Turns out he and his friend Theresa got there early and were sitting in the cafe across the street. We all met up and chatted for a while. Colin is awesome! He and Theresa had awesome senses of humour so we all got along great! We wanted to go to Tokyo Tower and get dinner, so after making plans to meet Zoe and Wendy for karaoke in about 2 hours, we set out. The train ride from Ikebukuro to the Tokyo Tower area took longer than expected and when we got there we only had about 15 minutes! SO, I tried to snap a few quick pictures in the dark, but again, crappy camera so this is the best I got.
Not very good, I know, but oh well. So, we walked inside and discovered that the second floor had like a bunch of places to grab a quick bite. But, we had no time! So, Theresa, David and I each got an ice cream cone from McDonalds and we set out again, back to Ikebukuro. By this point, we were all starving! And we ended up meeting Zoe and Wendy, but we didn't stay to karaoke it up. We just apologized and set out on a mission to find food. We had to find somewhere that accepted credit card, so we searched for a while. We kept going into questionable looking bars and buildings and backing out once we saw what they looked like inside. Ahahaha. We ended up at a Korean bbq place. You order what you want to cook and then you cook it at your table. Colin and Theresa ate it all the time, but they love it and it was new for us so we thought why not. Angel, Theresa and I each got an order of pork and asparagus and Colin got octopus and sweet potato. David just got a drink and decided to get a bento from Family Mart. Lol. So, obviously we had never eaten at a place like this before, so we didn't know what to do. Colin just said to put our meat on the grill and let it cook for a few minutes. And this is what happened.
Apparently, that should NOT have happened! Lol. We're just awesome like that. XD Oh well. Still tasted good, if not a little charred. We managed to not burn our asparagus, though. Good work team.
We walked back to the hotel at this point. We stopped to get snacks and a bento for David. I got an iced coffee latte thing and a pastry for the morning. Colin got a bottle of sake. And he drank almost the entire thing on the walk back. Lol.
It was only about 10:30-11ish, but David and I were just zombies. We all chilled for a while in the room and chatted together. Zoe came back a little while later and she was kinda drunk. Lol. She dressed in her new yukata and Colin posed for a picture.
But we had an awesome chat for about 45 minutes, then everyone decided they wanted to go out and karaoke it up. David and I couldn't afford it, so we just sent everyone off to drink and sing and we passed out. I guess Angel and Theresa came back first and Zoe and Colin went out and drank and whatnot until late. Lol.
The next day was sad. It was out last day and it was Zoe's last day. ;___; We all hugged and said goodbye and then David and I set out again to Shinjuku. We had looked up the address of the Square Enix store that morning before we left. And I was determined to go to that damned shop! It was about a 20 minute walk away from the station, but we found it!
I couldn't get a better picture because it was open and I didn't want the ladies to come out and scold me. But OH MAI GAWD. Geek paradise! It was amazing! And it had the Jenova!Sephiroth life sized statue in the floor of the showcase area upstairs. And the ladies were dressed like Turks! True story! Headsets and everything! There was a HUGE poster for Dissida12 in the one window. And they had a ton of blindboxes! So, after drooling over EVERYTHING and vowing to go back with lots of money, David bought me 2 Kingdom Hearts II blindboxes. The ones that had the Namine figure in it. He bought a few Dissidia boxes for himself and we walked outside, sat down and opened them. I got... Roxas and King Mickey. Sadface. I wanted Roxas, so it wasn't a TOTAL loss. But still. I wanted Namine. So, what did David so? He went back inside and bought me 2 more. He's soooo sweet! And I opened the next two and I got... King Mickey (AGAIN) and... NAMINE! YAY! I was so happy!
Photo taken at home, but you get the idea. YAYAYAYAY!
We walked back to the station at this point and met up with Colin, Angel and Theresa in Harajuku. They were just wandering about shopping. David and I were starving and we still had about 30 minutes before we were supposed to meet at the station, so we hopped to Wolfgang Puck Express for lunch. Cheap and good. I had spaghetti made with tuna as the meat. It was quite good. And fast! We got there, ate and left all within about 15 minutes!
So, we met Angel outside and said goodbye to Colin. He took a picture of us all, but he hasn't uploaded it yet, so no swiping it. Sorry. XD We hopped back on the train at this point and got to the Shinkansen station. The ride back home was pretty uneventful. Just slept the whole way. My feet were absolutely aching at this point in the program. I was sooo tired. It felt good to be home.
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