Over the weekend I had one more required Japan experience... I went to Tokyo Disney! There are actually two separate Disney theme parks there, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. Because it is more unique we chose to go to Disney Sea. It was a very busy and exhausting but extremely fun day! We left home before 6 am and headed to the train station. We took the Shinkansen, which is the best way to travel in Japan if you can afford the steep prices... It took awhile to get to the theme park, but we were excited! Once there I was amazed by the detailed planning [and incredible amounts of money!] put into the place!! I also noticed the same phenomenon that I've always heard about but never quite believed... It is at least as popular for dates as it is for children! Well date or no date it certainly made for an entertaining day! In one amusment park it was possible to stroll through beautiful stereotyped recreations of a number of different world regions/ imaginary worlds... a Mediterranean town, a Central/ S. American jungle village, Middle-Eastern streets/ marketplace, an old style US seaboard/ NYC street area, a volcano and of course Ariel's own Mermaid Lagoon... We managed to ride almost every ride [definitely the most popular ones], and we saw two very interesting shows. The food was great too... I had some quite tasty fajitas and delicious coconut popcorn! Who can forget meeting Jiminy Cricket, Pinochio, Goofy, Chip and Dale [Dale played with my bouncy curly hair], Scrooge, a VERY convincing princess Jasmine and less identical but just as smiley Aladdin, funny monkey [he could sign autographs "Abu" too!], a rather disconcerting Jafar, and a couple of different [region-appropriately dressed] Mickey and Minnie!? Unfortunately because of extreme wind and a small earthquake we were unable to take a boat ride or gondola ride. At the end of the day we tried to eat at a nearby shopping center before catching the train back to Tokyo and then home, but to our chagrin all of the nice/ appealing restaurants had waits of about 1 hour because of wedding parties! I guess that shows that Tokyo Disney is a popular place for weddings as well!! So I ended up having ramen in the food court... haha! Overall it was a great experience and I would go again. I am glad that I went and enjoyed Disneyland Japan style! :)
If you would like to know more or are ready to plan your next vacation, check out the website: http://www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp/tds/index_e.html