Tokyo trip
Sun 18.November - Thurs.29.November.2018
Disneyland day! We had our alarms going off 06.30 AM and right after breakfast we headed for Tokyo Station from where there was a bit of a walk to find the right platform to get to to Maihama Station. We just followed the "Disney looking crowd", so we didn't get lost. On the train ride to Maihama, looking out the window I could see in the distance an amusement park that looked abandoned. You can't compete with Disney, I guess? This was also the only time I got a glimpse of Tokyo Skytree in the distance. From Maihama station we got on the monorail which took us closer to the Disneyland entrance. The first view of the place right after we exited the monorail was a building site, not very flattering, but it can't be helped. Since we had bought our tickets earlier, we could pretty much just walk in without waiting. We got by the ticket booths just fine, but before we reached the actual entrance, we were stopped by a staff member who handed us something. I didn't look at it that closely at the time, but later, it was just a paper with an address to a survey they wished you'd fill in (online). I did fill the survey, a few days later after we got back home.
We started going counter-clockwise through the park. There was only one ride I absolutely wanted to go to and that was the Star Tours ride in Tomorrowland. For whatever reason the ride didn't seem to be popular, there was hardly any line and the waiting time was only 5-10 minutes. I loved it! It was my favorite ride in the whole park out of the ones we went to. Outside the ride was a small Star Wars shop, I looked through it and only one pin I wanted to buy, but decided to wait until later. Next to the shop was a life size R2-D2 and BB-8 replicas displayed behind glass.
We skipped Toontown pretty much, we did kind of just walk through it. I think most of the rides were aimed at younger kids. We quickly moved on to Fantasyland, where we found more rides with reasonable waiting times. We did pick out quite "lame" rides most of the time, because the lines were shorter. I would have liked to go to either Splash or Big Thunder Mountain, but the lines were always too damn long. When it peaked, I think the Big Thunder had over two hours waiting time. I think we got more out of the day by picking places with shorter lines, rather than to wait for hours to get in one ride. Still, it's a shame, because I really like roller coasters. Of course, there are those "Fastpass" things, but we didn't use one of those at all during the day.
So, in Fantasyland we went to the It's a Small World, Castle Carousel, Alice's Tea Party and the Haunted Mansion (the Nightmare Before Christmas themed). The teacups were the most fun, because at least they were going fast compared to the others. Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World were both pretty lame speed wise, but I liked them both visually. I liked all the colors and geometrical shapes that pretty much decorated everything inside Small World, and the Haunted Mansion nailed it with the TNBC look and feel.
chocolate churros, yummy!
We didn't stay long in Critter Country, we watched for a while people coming down the Splash mountain, but moved on to Westernland pretty soon. We went on the Mark Twain Riverboat, again, it was very slow, but the view of the park was great from the top level of the boat. When we got back on shore, we stopped by the Cowboy Cook-house and got some smoked turkey legs for lunch. It was extremely messy to eat, but good all the same. Food and snacks were the thing we spent the most money on in the park. The different popcorn flavours were a big thing, everywhere you looked, you could see someone carrying one of many various popcorn cases. I think there was 8 different flavours available. During the day we did try out both the caramel and barbecue flavoured popcorns. Can't complain, they were both pretty tasty!
We saw two parades during the day and both times we just happened to be there, we didn't even remember there was going to be parades. I liked the first parade we saw more than the second one, it didn't make as big of an impact and felt less grandiose. I really liked the parade music and songs, it was really upbeat. No wonder they even sold CDs of the parade music in one of the stores.
After the first parade, we moved on to Adventureland and went on the Western River Railroad, nothing too exciting, but again, you got a good look around at the park. From there we moved to the center of the map, where the castle is. I dunno, was it called Cinderella's castle? We just admired it from the outside. Next to the castle was a Snow White's wishing well, it was a small, quiet place. A short lasted peaceful respite, so to speak.
We saw bits of the second parade, not the whole thing. While most of the people were watching the parade, we took the opportunity to order some food and get a table from one of the dining places that happened to be close to the parade route. After that, we mostly just walked around aimlessly for a while (and tried the second flavour of popcorn too), and it was starting to get dark. We were walking passed the Pirates of Caribbean ride and saw that there was only 5 minutes waiting time. Unfortunately, I think there was something wrong with the ride. I don't think the boats are supposed to be back to back so close to each other and the animatronics were out of sync. There was no announcement if there was something wrong, so I'm only guessing. If it was functioning properly, then it was the most disappointing ride of the day! While we were not having fun on the Pirates boat ride, we missed the fireworks show, we only saw the sparkles from the last boom. There was going to be more fireworks few hours later, but we weren't really planning to wait around just to see them.
The last place we hadn't been to yet was the World Bazaar area. It was mostly shops and some restaurants. I didn't find anything at the shops to buy, but their window displays were really nice. Actually, the whole park looked very beautiful with all the lights on, the bazaar area particularly, had a very impressive Christmas vibe.
For our last ride, we went to the Star Tours again, there was no line to speak of. This time it was a slightly different scenario in the "story" of the ride. Maybe I should have only gone on this ride over and over again for the whole day just to see all the variations. That would have been fun! After that, we still went and ordered some calzones from the Pan Galactic Pizza Port right across from the Star Tours. I wish I had ordered a drink, because the calzone was so damn hot that I burned my tongue. Probably spent the next fifteen minutes just waiting for it to cool off, so that it would be safe to take a bite. The last thing I did before we left the park was going to that small Star Wars shop to buy the SW pin I was looking at earlier. I'm still amazed that it was the only thing I bought from the whole park (food doesn't count!)
Back at Maihama station, we were walking past a café, and then I had to lay my eyes on the poster advertising them selling croissants filled with soft ice cream. It looked soo good! I had to get one! (I can't believe how much I ate the whole day...)
When we got back to Kanda Station, and were heading for our hotel, we suddenly heard the guys walking behind us speak Finnish! Didn't expect to hear that. Small world, huh?
DAY 9 Tuesday, 27. November
We went back to Nakano Broadway, where I roamed through the rest of of floor 3 and 2 that I didn't check out previously when we were here. I bought a lot of small figures from 4 different shops, most of the figures were DBZ, but a few non-Dragon ball slipped in too.
Here, in Nakano Broadway, you could easily notice the difference between cashiers. Pretty much everywhere else we'd been the clerks working the cash register had always been over friendly. But here, in some stores, you could definitely see that they couldn't care less. Not that they were unfriendly, they were professional, but it was such a stark contrast.
I happened to find a room filled with Gachapon machines. I can say that, this was the one of the few places where they had some Gachas I haven't seen anywhere else. There were these freaking adorable hedgehog figures, and I wanted a particular one, but I kept having bad luck (again). I kept spinning the damn thing until I finally got the one I wanted the most, by then I ran out of coins and didn't bother to change one of my bills for more.
Aside from having a different figure selection, this place also had a few machines labeled R-18. I'm just assuming because I didn't check, what you get from those capsules where photos/prints of girls "with their naughty parts showing". I think I also saw a machine that gave out panties.... This was the only place I saw Gachapons like these, so it was a bit odd to suddenly see stuff like that out of nowhere mixed in with regular Gachapons. While I was there, a group of friends, both guys and girls came in and one of the guys gave one of those machines a spin while his friends eagerly chatted beside him. None of my business, but that was a little unexpected. Anyway....
When we were finished at the mall, rather than getting back to the hotel right away, we did explore the area a little around the mall. Pretty much next to the mall entrance was a pet shop with puppies and kittens in the window display. It wasn't anything like the pet shops in Finland. This was more like a puppies with accessories shop and a few kittens sprinkled here and there. Having all those cute puppies on display like that seems like a prime way of getting people to buy one on impulse. It makes me sad to think about what may happen to some of the puppies. Even if I don't understand how this system works, I see a lot of potential ways things could go wrong for those poor animals. You can only hope they all go to good homes.
A little bit further from the mall, we walked past a pachinko parlour (those places are noisy as hell, you can't help but to notice them) and I happened to find on the ground a metal ball that I think is from one of those pachinko machines. Nothing really special about it, it's just a tiny steel ball, but still kinda fun to see one up close. I would never go to a pachinko parlour myself, the noise drives me crazy just from the outside. I can't understand how people sitting inside cope with it.
random photo from Nakano
Opposite side from the pachinko place was a supermarket, It was the biggest we've seen so far, three floors. The ground and basement level had all the foods while the third floor had clothes and other everyday stuff. The ground floor even had a bakery, fresh loaves of bread and they even made pizza! This was definitely the best food store we found besides the one in Okachimachi. Shame that we didn't find this place the first time we were here! The store's name was Life or 4 Life, I can't remember exactly. Aside from the usual stuff we bought at the food department I also found on clearance some Pokeballs that come with candy and a small random figure. I waited until we got back to the hotel before I opened them, I got Meowth and Eevee!
This was our last night in Kanda, tomorrow we would be transferring to an airport hotel.
to be continued....
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