Tokyo DisneySea
is awesome. Hiroshi and I got up early and headed out shortly after 8. The park opened at 9 so we thought that'd be lots of time. By the time we got there it was actually quarter after nine... and then we discovered we had to take the monorail to Disney Sea. Disney World is right at the station, but Disney Sea is a fair bit away. And you have to fork over 200 yen a person to take the monorail! Wow!

Anyway we finally got to the park around 9:30 and bought our tickets. Then we made the mad rush to the Indiana Jones ride, picking up fast tickets for the weather ride on the way. Fast tickets allow you to just walk right on the ride without waiting - you can only get one at a time though. Anyway, we go to the Indiana Jones ride and the line up was supposedly 80 minutes long. We're like, oh man, it is going to be a day of waiting. Actually the line wasn't too bad cuz there were interesting things to look at. And even better, the wait was really only 40 minutes long. The ride was only so-so... but it is Disney so that is expected.

Disney Sea only has 12 attractions (not including the kid part). That includes the steam boat ride, the electric railway and the gondolas. Most of the experience here is just walking around. The park is done beautifully - the scenery is wonderful. We saw so many birds! Hiroshi said some of them were quite rare to see too. In addition to the great ambiance there are also tons of shows to see. Granted they aren't Broadway, but something to entertain you while you sit down for a while... speaking of which there were places to sit down all over the park! The one thing any tourist will instantly notice about Tokyo is that there are no benches to sit on anywhere. So this was a nice treat. Especially because the weather was absolutely perfect!

Anyway, after the Indiana Jones ride we wandered back to do the weather ride... it is kinda like the Star Wars ride at Disney except Star Wars is much better. Maybe because we were sitting at the very back. Then we went to see a dance show which was pretty good and grabbed some lunch after. We had Mexican food. It was reasonably priced which was nice. Granted there are a ton of expensive options in the park too, but I was pleased. For the whole day we spent 8000 (about US$90) on food including 2 beers each. So lunch, dinner and snacks. For two people that's not bad in my book - especially at a theme park! We just missed the mariachi band at lunch but it was great to sit outside. Imagine - December 24 and sitting outside with just a sweatshirt and no jacket. It was lovely!

After lunch we wandered around some more and Hiroshi started to complain about sore feet. It was actually kinda funny. There was a show in the lake in the center of the park at 2:30, so I figured we should go find a ledge to sit on around 1:30. That meant we had to sit there for 45 minutes after we had found a place. No problem for me - I felt like I was sitting in a plaza in Italy :) Hiroshi the one-drink-wonder promptly fell asleep on my shoulder LOL He missed the whole show! Mickey and Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Chip and Dale on their own decorated boats, and skidoos made up to look like dolphins. Sucks to be him. ;)

Then we decided to get coffee to wake up (and some cake!) and grabbed a table outside a cafe. At this point we noticed all the women were looking rather peeved.... ALL of the men were falling asleep! All afternoon walking thru the park we saw men everywhere having a little nap on their gf's shoulder. Pretty funny.

In the afternoon we hit the rest of the rides except the Journey to the Center of the Earth one... the waiting time was over 3 hours!! We hit the gondolas right at sunset so it was nice and romantic :) Then we went into the Spanish galleon and kinda conked out at the table inside. It actually worked out pretty well because there was another show on the lake at 6:30 so we had a perfect view! The show was cool - it was Mickey doing the Fantasia thing directing fountains with lights and firecrackers to symphony music. And we were close enough to the Journey ride to run there (with everyone else) right after the show finished. The 'time to wait' sign was flipping thru numbers like crazy when we got there. It ended up being an hour and what a long hour it was!

We finally made it to the front of the line and we got the front of the car. The thing started and we were going by all these cutesy things and I'm like, we waited an hour for this??? Then suddenly we were whipping around in total darkness - way better than Space Mountain cuz in Space Mountain you can still see things cuz it isn't completely dark (not to mention it derailed last month but lets not go there). And then all of a sudden you burst out thru an opening at the top of the mountain in the center of the park and it looks like there is NOTHING there! It was GREAT! This was the best ride in the whole park. I definitely recommend doing it at night. In the day time, you'd be able to see where you exit the tunnel, but at night the darkness just continues until you are actually out of the tunnel and it is a big surprise. Definitely worth the wait.

After that we grabbed some pasta and another beer and missed the fireworks. Fought thru some people in the gift shops and didn't find anything we wanted. We did see some absolutely adorable little shoes that we got for Kai (friends Yasu and Eriko's son). Couldn't resist. They were soooo cute. Then made our way back home. By the time we got back it was after 11. The day though was perfect! Really nice to walk around, the right amount of romance without being cheesey, and not so busy as all my students warned me. Christmas Eve is "couple" day and Disney Sea is the Disney place for couples, and Japanese people love Disney. I was worried it was going to be really packed, especially since the weather was so good. It wasn't bad at all.

So I'm really happy that I finally got there! I've only been bugging Hiroshi to go for the past 2 years LOL