It was quite cute, but their 'American BLT' was the worst thing on the planet.

So, my birthday was like 2 weeks ago and I have a ton of photos from my birthday trip. We ended up going to Tokyo for my birthday. I wanted to go to Disney. Eeeee! And we ended up meeting up with Gayner, who's working in Chiba now. We also hit up a few other places, so lets get started!

So, we left a day early. We originally planned on leaving on the morning of the 16th. I worked an open shift on the 15th and David was off. So, we ended up leaving right after I was done work. Woo! We had originally planned on spending the night in a love hotel, but we chickened out. Ahahahaha. Love Hotel Hill is located in Shibuya, so we headed there. And when we saw the hill, we decided against it. It was just really... weird. Like a red light district, basically. Which, I guess that kinda is what it is... Yeah... But, anywho, I digress. We ended up staying at the Tokyu Inn. I don't recommend it. It was way too expensive for what we got. But, oh well. We just needed a place for the night. Live and learn. We ended up going out for McDonalds that evening for dinner. Which, trust me, is a luxury. The burgers here in staff kitchen suuuuuck. I would kill for one of mom's burgers right now! True story! And they had a very informative message board extolling the virtues of McDonalds and they're products. It was kinda funny. After dinner we ended up going out to karaoke for about 2 hours. It was fun! We both sang like crazy and it was a laugh.

The next morning we woke up a bit early and headed to Ueno. We booked the Mitsui Garden Hotel again for our trip. It's a really nice place! And for staying in Ueno, right next to the station, it's a pretty fair price. So, we went early, dropped out luggage and set out again. And where do you go when you have a free day in Ueno? The Ueno Zoo! We bought a quick breakfast of pastries from the station and then headed over. I had the best pastry thing ever. It was like a cheese bun, with LOOOOOTS of cheese on top and some ham in it. Yuuuuuuummmm~ We also bought a few panda cookies. They were cute and delicious!

The zoo was a lot of fun! I haven't really done the zoo thing in yeeears! And there were a lot of adorable animals there. Granted, it WAS raining, but it was still a good time. I won't post every animal I took a photo of, but I will post my favourites. There were some pretty buildings there, too!

So, to start off, let me introduce you to my favoruite animal. The red panda! Or firefox! Or lesser panda! Whatever you call it, it's freaking adorable! Soooooooo cuuuuute! And there was one at the zoo that was all fluffy and pudgy! I want one! Sooo cute! We ended up going past the red panda area twice, just because I wanted more photos. Ahahaha.

Next up, we have Pallas's Cat. It just looked like a big, fluffy grey cat. But, still adorable. It was housed in the nocturnal animals area, so no flash photos. hence why my photo sucks. Ahahaha. We also saw some adorable otters! They reminded me of papa. Also, we saw a hippo that shared a birthday with me!

We also went over to the polar bears area. There was a polar bear from Canada there! And it even posed for me when I went to take a photo. True story. It saw me and posed all nicely. Yep. We also saw some adorable seals that were just taking a snooze. There was one swimming about, but these guys were just lazing about all cute like. Yep.

And before I finish with the zoo photos, allow me to show my geek side. Behold, the Hufflepuff house badgers!

...Yeah. Not as menacing as I thought. But, they were cute. Ahahaha. After the zoo, we went and walked around Ueno Park. There was a pretty impressive temple in the vicinity, so we walked about. It was really nice. There was a memorial place for Hiroshima victims, as well. And there were crans people had folded hanging there. It was neat.

And then after the walk, we decided to get something to eat. We ended up eating at the First Kitchen restaurant again. I like their food and it's pretty cheap. So, we ate there and then went to check into our hotel. Our room was facing the station this time. We got settled and then I took a quick nap. I was pretty bushed from walking about all day. But, I only slept for a bit. We ended up going to Akihabara that evening. And, as ever, no photos since my camera can't take night shots. But, I got a photo of what dinner was. I got a croissantwich thing and poutine! ...Although, it was the worst poutine I've ever eaten. It was a little disheartening.

The next day was DISNEY DAY! We ended up going to DisneyLand, because I like it better. Ahahaha. We met Gayner at the station and all went together. It was great seeing her! She even brought me a gift. Pokemon candy! Awww yeah! Awesome! We got into the park and made a beeline for the fast pass area at Big Thunder Mountain. Star Tours, Space Mountain and something else was closed, which suuucked. But, it was still a good day! Gayner had never been to any Disney before, so we got her on the Small World ride first. Kinda like a Disney initiation. She understood why we called it her initiation afterwards.

We ended up going to Toon Town after, since I never really spend much time there. Too many kids. But, we did the Roger Rabbit ride AND the Gadget Coaster. Yes, Gadget. As in RESCUE RANGER Gadget! My childhood returns! It was glorious! I also got breakfast in the form of a Mickey pizza.

We did a lot of rides throughout the day. I forgot to take pictures, actually. Ahahaha. I was having too good a time. And also, it may be because I got heat stroke. Yep. I gave myself heat stroke for my birthday. I'm so generous! ...Actually, it was awful. I had a migraine almost alll day. And, originally I thought it was from dehydration, so I think I chugged about 3 bottles of water or Aquarius (like Gatorade) in about an hour. As such, I had to use the bathroom every 20 minutes. Gah. It was awful. But, oh well. I still had a good day.

May I also add, Disney has some pretty spectacular parade floats for their Tokyo parks. I don't usually get to watch parades (read: David hates them), but we caught the tail end of their Daily parade. Can't remember the name, but it was cute!

So, after catching the end of the parade, we ended up going for dinner. I was starving and of course I wanted to eat at the Queen of Hearts restaurant again. The food was great! I got the rotisserie chicken and man, was it goooood! Not SwissChalet good, but still amazing. And they had a cake there! It was just perfect! We got it and David and Gayner sang happy birthday to me. Heehee. It was sweet! And I know the cake said Happy UNBirthday, but who cares! It was delicious!

Disney was celebrating Easter until the 30th of June, so we got to see the Easter parade, too. I've decided it's going to be one of my cosplay dreams to dress up in the Bunny Girl outfit. Too damn cute! The parade was adorable, too. We sat near where it started, so we saw almost everything.

On the subject of clothing, people wear a lot of interesting and cute things to Disney. Students tend to wear their school uniforms and others just dress up all cute. And then you get the dude in the school girl costume. Kinda weird.

After the parade, we all floated about for a bit. Gayner went home at about 7ish and we did a few more rides, then went home too. My head was really throbbing by this point and I just wanted to sleep. I slept like the dead, I might add. It was great. The next day we didn't really have plans. All we knew was that we needed to be back in Shirakawa by about 9pm, to catch our taxi. So, we headed to Ikebukuro for the afternoon. We went for lunch at the Milky Way Cafe. It was quite cute, but their 'American BLT' was the worst thing on the planet. I was expecting lots of bacon and mayo. Not so much. It was chopped up ham. Yick. At least my coffee thing was good. Kinda like an iced cappuccino from the Lodge. We got a seat by the window and it over looked a main crossing. It was fun to just sit and people watch.

So, after that disappointment, we just floated around for a little while. Walked about the shopping district, went to otome road, shopped a bit and then I decided that we should go to the Sunshine 60 building. They have a really neat observatory and I had never been up there. So, off we went. It had an amazing view! It was awesome! We could see the sky tree, I could see Shinjuku, there was an aquarium below us that had seals out and about and I could see them, too! It was awesome! We grabbed some really nice ice cream while we were up there as a snack and just looked for almost an hour. There were windows you could climb up onto and stare straight down! It made David kinda nervous, but I thought it was amazing! I'm quite sure Angel would've had a heart attack on the spot.

And then, just like that, it was time to go home. We caught the shinkansen back to Shirakawa and hopped our taxi home. It felt nice to be home, but I wish we lived closer to Tokyo! I love it there! And now, we have come to the end of this post, so I shall leave you with a photo of a billboard. It's traditional, after all.