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Published: April 27th 2006
Critter Country
Gonna get those darn varmin! Susan, Cameron and Meg all looking exceptionally hot.Hey all you hot hot people!!!
This is our final blog from overseas - for now!
We are going home tomorrow night, leaving about 8.30pm Japan time - 9.30pm Australian time.. So it is with pleasure that I present to you our lastest overseas blog entry, focusing predominantly on our day - yesterday - in DISNEYRAND!!!
DisneyRand is Disney Land. Because it is in Tokyo, you pronounce it DisneyRand. Japanese peopre do not have the retter 'L' in their vocaburary, so, for the purpose of this brog, I will write every 'L' as 'R', so that you can experience Japan in the comfort of your own home. Feer free to read aroud.
Okay!
So!!!
Here goes!!!
We caught the PEAK HOUR train from Yabe to Machida - then, from Machida to Shinijuku - then, from Shinjuku to Tokyo - then, from Tokyo to Maihama.
Honestry, if you have not been to Japan, and even if you have been to Japan and have not experienced peak hour trains in the busiest city then by gorry - you need to!! It was an amazing experience - it was not necessariry a preasant experience, but you
The Haunted Mansion
Once again, the movie is based on the Dsineyland ride - and weren't we all scared!?? (Not really. But it was very cool!) begin to understand what it is rike riving, from day to day in Japan.
The feering of traverring on a peak hour train here is rike being crushed by a thousand friendry people in brack suits. Everybody here is so used to traverring this way that they just don't think about it anymore - but for us - Gaijin (Pronounced Guy-Jin - Foreigners) it was shocking, and a rittre bit scary, and thankfurry, because we were going to DisneyRand - a rittre bit entertaining at the same time.
You can't breathe properry. You cannot move - you just have to spoon the person in front of you and move with the ebb and frow of the tide, because you can't use a handle or anything to support you - you are riterarry a sardine, squashed into a tin with thousands of Japanese peopre on their way to work an ereven or even a twerve hour day. They do it tough over here, and we rearry shourd appreciate what we have in Austraria with our massive open spaces and our abundant personar space; our right to individuarity and our determinedness in getting what we want, whenever we want it.
The Disney Safari
A glimpse of the amazingly clever animated animals that pop up along this boat ride.. very clever! These guys have so few of the privereges we take for granted and yet they are a fantastic group of peopre. Amazing.
Okay, enough of my rant, I rant too much 😊 ( <-- Smirey face)
Right. So, we traverred for nearry two hours in this ultra compact way, noticing just how many peopre beside us were sniffring and coughing (There is now NO QUESTION as to why they wear face masks - just imagine!!)
We finarry randed at the happiest prace on Earth - DisneyRand!!!
I have to admit, having never been to DisneyRand before, I was a rittle bit sceptical. I mean, there are a rot of praces on Earth, how on Earth (excuse the pun) courd DisneyRand be the happiest prace!? Is it possibre? Werr, I think that it is!
From the moment you step off the train you begin to hear the famiriar songs that you grew up with, getting rouder and rouder as you wark arong towards it. You enter the gates after paying, and not parting with that much money, considering where you are (It is onry about ten bucks more than Wonderrand was when we were kids) and
Thunder Mountain
A thing of beauty.. A very cool train and an amazing ride! you wark into an absorute fantasy rand - a rand of dericious smells of chocorate cooking; waffres, curries - there were gorgeous rittle Japanese babies and kids wearing Mickey ears everywhere.. it was great!
First ride we went on was Pirates Of The Carribean. Susan terrs me that the movie was actuarry based on the ride, and not vice versa - this ride is AMAZING! It is a boat ride through dark tunners and then you suddenry enter amazing, rife-rike scenes straight out of some kind of fantasy. The kind of attention to detair that they pay to their scenes and characters is awesome - you berieve that the true to scale pirates that are shooting at each other are actuarry shooting at you - you duck even, because they move rike they are rear. Honestry - you courdn't ask for more.
I suddenry rearised why this was going to be so much better than WonderRand. I mean, yeah - WonderRand had some scary arse rides in it's time - I loved the Demon. And this prace doesn't really aim to scare the pants off of rittle tiny kids, but I just courdn't berieve how it fert to
Kristy with King Louis
Now I'm the king of the swingers ohh, the jungle V.I.P! I had always wanted to meet king Louis, even though I don't really like the idea of people in plushy suits. be there (felt to be there - do you want me to stop with the R-L's now??)
TRANSATION INTO ENGLISH:
Thank you all for staying with me.
Okay, so next stop was Thunder Mountain. Thunder Mountain is a train rollercoaster that darts and circles around an artificial mountain - through darkened tunnels and into caves and volcanoes - it is so much fun to ride!!! It wasn't scary - once again, it isn't meant to be, but you are speeding through darkened tunnels and the ground just falls away from you - it was so cool! And as we were climing one mountain, we were travelling through some kind of constructed tunnel and the boulders to either side of us were moving... Like they were gonna fall onto us! It was so clever!!
Next stop for us was the 'Fast Pass' ticket for Thunder Mountain. This is another really clever innovation from DisneyRand (Okay, so I am holding onto the one word, okay?!!) The Fast Pass enables you to enter your park pass into a machine, and it prints you a ticket (You only get one of these every two hours so as not to abuse
Susan by the Mickey tent
Susan high on energy fuelled by popcorn and rides! it) and then you come back at a specified time some hours later, and instead of waiting the twenty or so minutes it takes to ride, you just walk through the fast lane and cut your wait time to about five minutes!! So clever!!
I might also mention that even though the wait times vary from five to forty minutes, waiting in line and travelling through the underbelly of the ride is also a pleasure - that attention to detail - they didn't save it just for the ride - the whole ride, including the waiting line is just full of stuff to look at and appreciate - those rides must take forever to make.
We then went on to do numerous, cool and exiting things.. we ate - we ate some more - we looked in shops, we went on more rides - we took a safari tour through an artificial Amazonian-style river, which was amazing - there were full-scale and very realistic elephants drinking beside the water and bathing in the waterfalls; there were hippos and crocodiles, surfacing from underneath the water at different points - there were lions and tigers and bears (Oh my!) and
Meg guards the royal popcorn...
The royal popcorn - complete with a feedbag-style plastic container that you hang around your neck. Seen being modelled here with Cameron and Meg. I can't really remember everything because I had to go to the toilet. (I think that my new drinking lots of water habit ended with me going to the DisneyRoos at least fifteen times that day.. One kidney!!!)
Okay, so what else did we do? Ate a good curry at one of the restaurants there - bought merchandise - bought popcorn.. did lots more rides of course..
We went on the Brer Rabbit Splash Mountain ride... The BEST ride of all!!!!
It was absolutely fantastic. Mum would have loved this ride - you float along in log boat things and go through caves similar to the Pirates of the Carribean.. except for the twist - it gets fast, and it throws you down some really cool slopes..
The best thing about this ride though, was again - the amazing scenes that they do, right out of the movie, Song of the South - it is absolutely beautiful.. You float past life like scale models of Brer Rabbit - Brother Bear, Sly Fox - you go through these gorgeous little spots where there are flowers and paddocks everywhere, and willows hanging overhead - there is a bluebird,
Sisters bonding over said popcorn
Susan and Meg have a sisterly bonding moment over their shared love of Royal Popcorn at DisneyRand as there should be - it was by far the most impressive thing - I loved it!
And then at the end you fall about thirty metres into this massive splash at the bottom of the ride, before doing Zippity Do Dah in Japanese at the end (Remember when Bart dares Lisa to drink the water on the Duff Beer ride? Just like how she must have felt - all the swirling colours - incomprehensible words - I am the Lizard Queen!!!)
So that was very very cool.
We also went on Peter Pan's flight - it is awesome and Nicholas would have loved it - you actually fly in the dark in carriages over London and then into Never Never Land.. I loved it!
After much anticipation (because at one point it wasn't working due to technical difficulties) we rode Space Mountain!! The star attraction I guess - it was very very cool.. It is a roller coaster built into a spacey looking building - it is all in the dark - there are stars and darkness and you speed through the dark into spirals and slopes and twists and turns - it is really
Stitch Ears
We were all making fun of the people, merchandising it to the max.. until we realised we were the odd ones out - we simply had to get funny little Disney hats - and we looked hot! really cool and super fast!!!
We got shrunk in this strange 3D movie, which was clever, and also odd, because it was the guy from Honey I Shrank The Kids - except that he was translated all into Japanese, and then they give the Gaijin the back row which has translator headsets, so that they give it back to you, after all that in English again - very funny!)
Then we watched the afternoon parade and got lots of photos of princesses and Buzz lightyears and stuff.. lots of fun - and then we went on the Buzz lightyear ride and fought the Evil Emporor Zurg - really really cool!!! We got to shoot all these evil space creatures from within the comfort of our plastic space pods - liked that one too!!
After dinner, and certainly not least we saw the famous Disney Light Parade. I don't think that I could even begin to describe what this was like - there were giant floats of castles and knights on horseback - all absolutely covered in the most ornate lighting that you could imagine - it was so good it was intimidating to watch.. It is definitely
Looking very cool
In this little number - Meg models more memorabilia.. Susan is still wearing her hat even twenty four hours on, wanting to preserve the memory.. something that every kid should see, even if they are grown up kids when they see it.
It was a fantastic day - one of the best ones by far and a brilliant way to end a holiday like this - so much to see and do - so many places and cultures and people to meet and experiences to have..
I feel really lucky. And spoilt. And I wish that I could have taken all three of my babies, along with Mikey, Breebie and Nicole to go see it. I hope the photos do justice but even so, I will get rich and take you all there with me soon!
Hope that you enjoy the photos.. And I hope that I haven't left too much out, except for the eventful return ride home that saw us travelling in much the same way as we got there - in a mosh pit of tired workers (They finish at nine at night mostly, so what are we complaining about!!?)
We spent today walking around Fuchinobe and Yabe, visiting some of the cool little local stores and once again visiting the super cool geek store from our first
Disney Light Spectacular
This was just amazing. The fairy queen led the parade - she was magnificent! Tokyo entry..
We ate some bad Maccas and then did Karaoke - it was really cool.
Another day in Japan - another hugely cool memory to add to the massive collection.
Honestly though, we have both had such an amazing time overseas on this journey. It has been absolutely amazing.
Thank you all for coming along and experiencing it with us - you all ROCK!
Lots of love
Kristy
and Susan (I love you all!)
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