Part I - Beginning out: Just as planned, we begin the day around 7:30 a.m. at the breakfast/cafe place. The morning was very uneventful. Unfortunately, it also began with my throat being sore, so I was unsure if it was due to the dry air in the hotel or me getting sick. Shrugging it off and moving on with the day, I settle for eating just some miso soup for breakfast and pass most of my bread and actual meal off to Matt. It was another rainy and pretty chilly day, but we were off to Tokyo Disneyland anyway (hadn't stopped us yet), hoping that the crowds would be thin because of the bad weather and it being a Monday morning (non-holiday). It worked for Himeji, so it should work pretty well here.
Part II - Tokyo Disneyland: We arrive around 9 a.m., it is just me, Matt and Jason today as Donnie and Brandon split from the group to go see Cirque du Soleil before heading into the park. There was a short walk over a bridge on the way into the park, not far from the subway station at all, so that was nice. The bridge was lined with Disney characters down each side, they were about 2 feet tall and very detailed, they looked pretty cool. We notice the usual Disney fare like themed buses and trains, along with a few stores, even outside the park. Once we got to the entrance, everything seemed "normal", the lines were no longer then ones we face when going to Busch Garden back home. 5 or 6 people long, with a path 20-30 people wide, so after just a couple of minutes we fork over the money and get inside. I had never been to a Disney park, I know, a crime, right? So I had originally planned to come here as a two birds with one stone thing. I knew it wouldn't be as awesome as Disneyland in California or Disneyworld in Florida, but I still heard good things about Disneyland Japan. It is the only Disney park not operated by Disney corporation themselves, which was very interesting to me. The admission price was, of course, a little steep, but again "two birds with one stone".
Once through the gates, you're greeted with, what I expect from pictures, to be a normal Disney open field with flowers arranged as Mickey, shops and other cool things. Straight ahead you could see Cinderella's castle, the open marketplace was between you at the entrance and the rest of the park with the castle in the center at this point. Venturing into the open market, this is where things begin to look a little crowded, but after being in Japan for over a week, crowded was the normal and I had yet to notice just how bad it was going to be. Being guided by Jason, who lived in Florida and had been to Disneyworld at least a few times, we proceed to try and find rides and attractions to be entertained by. The first stop was Tomorrowland to try and ride Space Mountain, once inside the first themed portion of the park, we see the first wait line. Uh, was that a wait line for Buzz Lightyear Shooters? Because it looked kind of long... shrugging it off and pushing forward we make it to Space Mountain. Or at least to the end of the 230 minute long line for Space Mountain. Being educated on Disney and how things work in Florida, Jason expects that we can get a pass to return "later", which is like 2 hours max in the States, to wait in a line no longer the 20 minutes. However, once we see the sign for even getting the pass, the realization hits us that this is going to suck. The pass wait time was over an hour and the return time was 9 p.m.! It was not even 9:30 a.m. at this point and the park had only been open for an hour and a half! Absolutely insane lines to be waiting in, by this time we start to look around and realize the line to get popcorn from a vending stand must have been over an hour! We're surprised and a little puzzled on how all of these people can look so happy to be here. Mind you, I don't recall seeing even one American... maybe this is just "normal" here, but not for us! To make a long story short, we walk the entire park only to find much of the same thing. The only attraction we were able to attend was the Stitch Tiki Luau show, which had a wait time of around 20 minutes since they could cram a lot of people into the show. It was in Japanese, but luckily aimed at kids, so I could understand most of what was going on.
Somewhere in between walking around the park to see what we could find, I think it was around 10:30 a.m., we met back up with Brandon and Donnie for awhile. It turned out their show didn't start until noon, instead of in the morning as we had seen advertised beforehand. We get a little bit of shopping and picture taking done with them, I purchased an adorable Stitch/Angel plush pair that have the magnets inside to keep them together, they have disney ears on and everything and was happy about that. Splitting up again, we decide to head over to a restuarant inside the park with Jason to eat lunch, the lines for eating were long, but not crazy. I believe it took about 30 minutes in line before we ended up getting curry to eat, the hard part was finding a table since it was "seat yourself" once inside. A stupid policy if you ask me, but luckily it only took an additional 10 minutes of pacing before we were able to nab one. By this point I am slowly coming to the realization that I'm getting sick. My stomach starts hurting half-way through eating and my throat is steadingly getting worse. On top of the crappy day we've had pacing around Disneyland amass a huge crowd, I was not enjoying myself one bit and was really disappointed by the experience.
After eating, we hit up the penny arcade and try and wait around for Donnie and Brandon to get out of their show before heading back. I believe we ended up giving up around 2 p.m. when they still weren't finished and head off to Roppongi with Jason. Snapping a few pictures on the way out and picking up one last piece of merchandise, a Lilo and Stitch card holder for my PASMO subway card. Oh, how this turned out to be worth it. With next to no real shopping accomplished up to this point (which surprised me), we head off to Roppongi where the nearest Don Quixote was located.
Part III - Roppongi: After the subway ride and everything, we're now somewhere around 3:30 p.m., I don't remember exactly since I was feeling a bit out of it by this time. The main goal was to get to Don Quixote, which we were told was like a huge department store, think Wal-Mart in the States. All we needed was some warm clothing for Nikko the next day, which to our knowledge it had just snowed again there over the weekend. We needed winter hats and gloves, along with any type of warm sweater or long sleeved shirt to fit under our coats. However, we end up having yet another confusing map for this place. Once we turn around in the subway station and figure out which one of the 10+ exits we should be taking, outside the station, the mapped prove not one bit more useful. Tired and frustrated, I end up attempting to ask a nice lady standing outside a drug store which was to go and we're finally pointed in the correct direction (opposite of what the map seemed to have). It was actually a little bit of a walk, I'd say five blocks or so. We quickly become aware that Roppongi is indeed more modern and foreigner friendly then we read about before coming to Tokyo. There are a lot of English restuarants here such as Outback Steakhouse and even a T.G.I. Fridays, I was surprised. Still separated from Donnie and Brandon, the three of us walk into the Don Quixote, which seemed to be set up like a Japanese style department store from the outside, much the likes of the Bic Camera we went into while in Kyoto, but a lot more cramped with various merchandise.
There were 6 floors of shopping above head along with the ground floor and basement, which seemed to have only food. There were a lot of different things inside, from designer luggage to alarm clocks, anime and adult merchandise. A little bit of everything, but nothing particularly interesting. More importantly, it was nothing like a Wal-Mart in selection and the prices were overall pretty high. Matt was able to find a hat though, for a reasonable ¥1,000 or so, which made it worthwhile. We exit with nothing more then that hat purchased. Even more irritated by this time, I just wanted to eat dinner somewhere (I had pretty much skipped lunch) and rest. We orignally talked about getting a Japanese style pizza, since we had heard they put some crazy things on them, so I attempted to find some place to eat such a thing while Jason and Matt waited for Donnie and Brandon at the subway exit.
Stumbling across an Italian place I figured we weren't going to do any better on short notice. They had an English/picture menu and at least some sort of pizza, so it would just have to be good enough. Once Donnie and Brandon arrived it was nearing 5 p.m. and all everyone wanted to do was eat and head back to Odaiba. The "Italian" proved interesting, I think I had some sort of shrimp pasta dish, still having a sore throat and not feeling much like anything I didn't eat a lot of it. The pizza they had was rather disappointing looking, I think Jason ordered one, but it was nothing memorable. The most entertaining part was Brandon ordering the steak. It was pretty funny as they trusted Jason with a pizza cutter for his pizza, but didn't trust Brandon with a knife for his steak. Gotta make do with what you have, right?
Part IV - Aqua City/Shopping: Still without warm clothes for Nikko the following day, we make one more effort to find some. On the way back to the hotel, in Odaiba, there was a large outlet mall called Aqua City... surely they'll have something. I had ulterior motives too, as the previous night we walked through here to get to Joypolis and I saw some merchandise at the Disney Store I wanted, but didn't want to buy before going to Disneyland. Completely disappointed in the day and not really spending much money on merchandise thus far, we headed to the mall. Matt decided to go back to the hotel to pack for the coming day and to get some extra r&r while the rest of us attempted to buy some clothing, at the very least.
Odaiba looked very cool at night, we had an even better view then the previous evening. With the cold air and sickness upon me though, we rushed into the mall. Unfortunately after much walking around and looking I ended up with no clothing, only some Disney merchandise (that was on sale really cheap) and a purse-sized umbrella. Disappointed with the entire day and feeling like crap, we all head back to the hotel rather early (around 8 p.m.) to call it a night. Heating up some more miso soup in the room via the coffee/tea pot, I swallow that down in hopes of it helping my throat and crash for the night after taking some of Donnie's special cold medicine that was bought in Kyoto (it had codeine in it)... I don't really remember anything after that.Prices:
- ¥1,800 - Breakfast (for two).
- ¥5,800 - Disneyland tickets (each).
- ¥5,000 - Misc. Disney merchandise in the park.
- ¥2,000 - Curry lunch, in the park.
- ¥1,000 - Hat from Don Quixote.
- ¥2,000 - "Italian" dinner (for two).
- ¥2,300 - Disney merchandise from Outlet store (got a lot too).
- No sleep + cold rainy weather = sick. I was testing myself!
- Tokyo Disneyland's lines suck. They aren't reasonable in the least, don't go.
- Don Quixote is not like a Wal-Mart, they mainly have a bunch of misc. high priced items.
- Roppongi is nothing like I thought it would be from reading articles online and I would like to try and go back there again on our next visit (this was our only trip there).
- Japanese Pizza is not that easy to find.
- Disney outlet stores are as awesome in Japan as they are in the States.
- It is not easy to find warm clothes to buy in Japan in April.
- Codeine does in fact knock me out.
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