hoshiko takes over japan: 東京ディズニーランド！！！

So now it's time for some Tokyo Disneyland! I was super excited on this, but wearing thin in the wallet and getting tired of traveling by this point. It was the big one before I went to Kyoto and Osaka at the end of the month.

I went back to Nagoya because classes started back up (I'm the only American in my class of Britts! >< ) and then had to go back the following weekend I went right back to Tokyo. Oh man... But this time I had a friend come with me because she was joining me at Disneyland. Again, I met up with my friends from the previous visit and after a good night's rest, we headed off to Disneyland. In the morning, from my friend's apartment, I saw Mt. Fuji! It was so cool, but enough of that. (Haha)

We had to travel quite a ways before we got there and once we got off the train, we knew we were in the right area. EVERYTHING was Disney. Even this awesome vending machine was Disney! (Sorry, it's on my phone because I forgot my camera... The pictures on here are from my friend who went with me.)

After the train, we had to pay to get onto the Disney monorail (Disney's private train line) and pass by the actual Tokyo Disneyland. We were actually going to a separate Disney park, not the actual Disneyland (kind of like at the original Disneyland, there's now the California theme park across the way). This was called Disney Sea and it was more for couples and friends than family (which was kind of nice, let me tell you). When you walk into Disney Sea, there's a giant globe that spins on water and shows the countries. We took pictures and I said, "wait...let's see Japan first. I bet it's bigger than California." SURE ENOUGH IT WAS BIGGER THAN TEXAS! We all died of laughter going, "JAPAN'S NOT THAT BIG!" and took a picture of it.

That's when the characters popped up. I rushed to see Donald, but the Japanese who are usually so polite in public and make lines to get into lines suddenly turned into the rude people I see all the time at theme parks back home. I couldn't get in there and just gave up after 10 mins. of chasing him and constantly getting shoved aside. It was ridiculous and I was pissed. The line to see Mickey (there was an actual live) looked WAY too horrendous, so I gave up.

So we FINALLY headed inside the actual park and ended up in Italy. It was great! But surprisingly quiet as hell. You'd never know you were at a theme park... You could actually hear the music! I was impressed. Thep lace was gorgeous and was made to look like downtown Venice. Sadly, Italy held no rides, so we quickly moved away from the shops and all that wonderful pasta into New York in the 20s. They did an amazing job on how it felt. I really felt like we were back in the States in Disneyland. A lot of Japanese people watched us because we were skipping and dancing and that's just what you do at Disneyland. For once, I didn't mind because they weren't staring and thinking, "oh God, foreigners..." and instead it was like, "OH LOOK! FOREIGNERS! AREN'T THEY ADORABLE?! *camera*". (not joking about the camera)

We found the Tower of Terror and after an hour and a half wait (all Fastpasses were gone), we got into the ride. At first, I was amazed that there weren't that many people at the park, but I realized it was because they were all in the America section (gee, I wonder why...). The Tower of Terror back in the States is one of my favorite rides as it was the first ride to ever ACTUALLY scare me (rides don't scare me one bit), so I was excited to see how they changed this one. It was no longer a Twilight Zone, but was now a cute little demon thing that attacked this ubber rich white dude and cursed him. That irked me a bit...but what REALLY got me was the ride dropped us 3 stories. THAT'S IT?! JUST 3 STORIES?! The one in California drops you 7 stories. It wasn't even close to being scary. My friends loved it, but I was NOT impressed.

We left and started heading for the other rides. There was a huge Titanic-like cruise ship where a play was taking place. These hot Japanese called out to us in English saying, "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU?!" and we shouted back, "WE'RE GOOD! THANKS!" and realized, "shit, we should've gone back. There were enough guys for all of us to practice our Japanese on..." But the play was so hysterical, I cried. They were trying so hard to make Japanese men and women into American flappers and such from the 20s. Then Mickey showed up and his voice alone in Japanese just sent me over the edge in hysterics. My friends didn't understand why I was laughing so hard, but I dunno. I just find it so funny when I see Japanese trying to be American or visa versa (actually, it's funnier when Americans try to be Japanese... and really humiliating in certain situations). It was just one of those things.

Once we left the little play, we didn't know where we had ended up until we saw an old colonial-style house and found ourselves back in colonial America! It was exciting, but really small. I honestly have no idea why it was there in the first place... But we ate lunch there and saw this great little play taking place where they re-enacted old black and white episodes of Disney episodes, mainly focusing on Donald. It was adorable, but you CAN NOT understand Donald in Japanese (Now I understand why they had subtitles for him in Kingdom Hearts...).

Once done we ventured into some area with mainly water attractions. There was this fun little hovercraft ride we went on and then we went on this other ride. I wasn't impressed by the theme park so far and didn't have high hopes for this hurricane ride. I didn't think anything was going to happen on it, despite it seeming like a Star Tours-esque ride. Once on, I laughed because they showed these American guys and I just KNEW we would get the goofy one who was going to cause the entire thing to go haywire. I was right, but I'm so glad I was wrong about nothing happening. This ride was AMAZING! I was so scared when the missile suddenly came through the roof and almost killed us all and we got sprayed by water (that was a surprise!).

Once done, we made our way into Mexico and tried to find churros, but couldn't. We found a rollercoaster and went on that. It was pretty fun, but so quiet. So we, being foreigners and totally getting away with it, were loud and screamed even though it wasn't scary. It made the other Japanese on the ride CRACK UP and even join us in screaming. It was great! We got off laughing out heads off and said in Japanese, "WE'RE HOME!" and the Japanese people were just in so much shock like, "THESE GUYS ARE GREAT!" We then found the churros, but they were....sesame flavored ones.... They were gross and I did not like them.

We walked through Arabia (Aladdin) and then ended up in China (Mysterious Island) and we passed Atlantica. It was cool. We found the back way into Italy and found Maple Syrup churros. Um...okay? Are we in Canada? We ate them....WOW THEY WERE GOOD! We had to get more. It was great. We headed back to China and went on the best ride of the night, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Granted...we had to wait FOREVER and our tempers were kind of getting to the high point.

Now...usually the Japanese are REALLY good with crowd control, but this was ridiculous. They let 50 people in the Fast Pass line go and about 10 in the regular line go. Even the Japanese were getting fed up. We were NOT happy and it was getting very cold and I didn't bring a jacket (we were right on the ocean too...). It was getting late... But then we went on the ride and it was GREAT! This ride made me gasp in surprise and a little shock. That's because I didn't know when we reached the top of this rise up into the air, we'd come outside and for the briefest second I thought there would be no track under us to catch us.

Then once done, I wanted to see the water performance called BravSEAmo (horrible pun), but half of my friends wanted to go back to Tower of Terror, so we split up. The performance was so GREAT! It was a love story between a water goddess and a fire god. It was sweet and it reminded me of when I went to Vegas and they had the water fountains (man, I loved those those) at the Bellagio. But by that point, the theme park had closed. Yeah, and we had gone on like four rides... >>

But then we headed home and rested up. Man, that was a crazy weekend. Now my trips are done until Kyoto and Osaka for which I leave for on Monday. I'll update when I can, but as soon as I leave Osaka, I'll be turning 22 and the following day I leave for the States. Here are pictures from my time!

MT FUJI! 富士山

The hand holding things on the monorail! :D

The globe thing. I wish I could show you how big Japan was.

That's how close I got to Donald.

The volcano where the fire god came out of. The building was the back part of Italy. That volcano area is the China part.

Look how pretty Italy is! (and those balloons were like 20 bucks!)

Broadway in the 20s

Look at the Tower of Terror glistening in the sun :D

The inside of the Tower of Terror. And there's that rich guy.

Those outfits those girls wear can ONLY be found in Tokyo Disneyland. There were SOOOOO MANY CUTE THINGS found ONLY in Tokyo Disneyland. It made me so sad we don't have back in the States.

That water/hover craft ride that was kind of fun. IN THE BACK IS THAT HURRICANE RIDE!

The rollercoaster that no one screamed on!

RANDOMLY in the Arabia section we found plaster on this wall of AMERICA! We freaked out and alerted Japanese about it and they didn't see why it was so amazing.