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Published: February 19th 2007
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DisneySea at night
Triton's Kingdom, or is it merdom? Either way DisneySea was awesome. The pleasant train and subway rides brought us right back to the same hotel that we'd stayed in with Tandy, but this time, only a tiny double room for me and Aaron. Despite the fact that we'd arrived on a friday night we decided to go to bed early due to the fact that Saturday would be a big day at Disneyland.
Tokyo Disneyland Resort is massive, they have their own train system going around the whole thing, just to get you from one park to the other. Two parks? Why, yes of course, the same as Disneyland is to California Adventure in LA, Tokyo has Disneyland and Disney Sea. We decided to go to Disney Sea first and thought wrongly that we could get a park-hopper ticket, we'd have to buy a whole day pass to both parks, oof. DisneySea turned out to be awesome. They have some of the same rides as Disneyland, like Indiana Jones (but here called Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, exact same ride but small changes in interior design) and the Tower of Terror (different premise involving a tiki god or something), but a whole bunch of different ones and of course all
Good Monkey
The famous monkeys on one of the temples in Nikko. new "lands", Mediterranean Harbour, American Waterfront, Mermaid Lagoon, Mystery Island, Arabian Coast, and Lost River Delta (Mexico and South America area, we actually got some good tacos there). Our favorite ride there was the Journey to the Center of the Earth which had a giant mushroom level and a big triceratops monster followed by a big splash mountain like drop but without the water. They also had a ton of great shows one called Mystic Rhythms which had water, fire, acrobats, singers, dancers, and live music all going on together. We stayed til the fireworks which didn't live up to the ones in LA, but were still fun, and romantic, to see from the deck of the big titanic like ship in the American Waterfront area.
The next day we took a nice day trip out to Nikko. Its about an hour and a half from Tokyo and way up in the forest. Nikko, built in the 8th Centry is a big collection of Temples and shrines built to show the wealth and power of the Tokugawa family, credited with unifying Japan. It was basically a bunch of super ornate buildings, most with gold leaf and adorned with tons
View from Tom Sawyers Is
Tokyo D-land has a big castle. of sculptures. The best part, though, was the setting, all nestled in these big ceder trees.
We caught our busses and trains with great efficiency, always something we love but rarely achieve, and were back in Tokyo with enough time to relax before meeting up with Patou for a Shabu-shabu dinner. Our trusty Lonely Planet came up short again in Japan, maybe the 4th time we couldn't find a restaurant it recommended. So we ended up walking around the somewhat seedy Shinjouku looking for another place to eat. We stumbled into one with a at the table Korean BBQ going on, but had to leave immediately when we found out the only thing they served was stomach, uterus, and intestines. Uterus sashimi, no thanks. Luckily we found a great shabu-shabu place anyways and got to sit in the full-on Japanese style room with a stream running beside it.
The next day we decided to go back to Disneyland proper, but first had to change hotels into the swanky Tokyo Westin. My cousins, Angella and Todd (the guy who married us) gave us two nights at the Westin as our wedding present, THANKS! The first thing I noticed when
The Fam!
Clockwise: Aaron, Todd, Dave, Koko, Cousins, Angella and Mark. we entered was the great smell, just like a spa, mmmmm. Our room was top-notch, huge flat screen, big tub. But instead of jumping right into the bath, we had to rush off to Disneyland. Disneyland was not quite like the LA version, probably more like the Florida one, big castle style and all, but it was still very much like home. FantasyLand, TomorrowLand, FrontierLand, etc. Big disappointment though, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and Its a Small World were all closed! Whats the point then? We still managed to have a fun day despite the closures and the cold. One big difference at Tokyo Disney was the popcorn, they had the most incredible choices of flavours: black pepper, curry, strawberry, cola, coconut, chocolate, salt, honey (across from the winnie the pooh ride of course) I think there might have been others, but I can't remember. We did most of the rides and it wasn't too crowded either so that was good in comparison with our venture on a saturday to DisneySea. No fireworks so we headed home early and had room service of course, and I got my bath.
The next morning we got up super early to head over to the famous Tokyo fish market. It was an amazing display of all types of seafood. They were cutting these massive frozen tuna fish with a ban saw! There were buckets of live eels and squids. Big red octopus and huge snails. It was a crazy sight.
Later that morning we'd planned to meet up with my cousins as well as my aunt and uncle. It was a big surprise orchestrated by me and Angella and Todd to surprise their parents Dave and Koko at the hotel lobby, and it worked, they were sure surprised. We did a bunch of sight seeing and shopping with them throughout the day and had a great dinner together capped off with a heavily shaken martini at our hotel's penthouse bar. It was a great day spent with family and so special to have been able to see them! If any of you are reading this, send me some photos!
The next day we had purposefully planned on doing nothing and enjoying the hotel to its fullest, but alas there were a few things we needed to do before we left Japan, and the 1st world... We browsed the electronics district looking for PSP games in english as well as for a cable that Aaron needed and maybe some other gadgets, but only found a slim selection of games. After being out for probably less than an hour I had to get back to the hotel, Aaron wanted to go to look for cds at Tower, so we actually separated and I went for another bath while he bought music. That night we had a drink with Patou and said our good byes to Japan, we left for Delhi the next morning.
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Uncle Dave and Aunt Koko
non-member comment
Yes, it was a great surprise!
We're glad you and Angella and Todd were able to arrange the surprise meeting at the Westin. We enjoyed the time we could spend together. And especially you and Aaron being able to meet Mark and Angella's Japanese cousins Masako and Yoko. (So Dave's brother's daughter could meet Koko's brother's daughters) We'll send you a couple of our favorite pictures from that day. Last Saturday (Feb 17th) we were all up at Grandma/Grandpa's in Shingle Springs and had a computer slideshow of all our photos from the trip.