The castle!
Before I start, a little background on how this day came into being. A couple of weeks ago, Britt and I were invited by our host brother to a darts party. We were paired with random people for a darts tournament, and me and my partner miraculously won the whole thing! (Don't count on me for darts in the future, though) The first prize was a ticket to Disneyland (to be used before June 30th because of a promotion), and after much persuasion and persistence my partner
Now back to the beginning of our day, after sleeping in and leisurely getting up, we got to the park around 12pm. First of all, from Tokyo Station it only takes 13 minutes to get to Disneyland. (yay!) But the walk to get to the right train line took about the same amount of time we spent on the train. (boo!)
After getting off the train we got a little lost finding our way to the to the park, but once we saw the gates to the world of magic and joy we got really excited.
First ride of the day: Space Mountain! I think the inside area right before you get on the ride is much cooler than in LA. The space ship that hangs over the boarding area has a cool swirl light thing going on.
Going up the moving walkway.
Last chance to turn back!
Confession: When I was younger my dad tried to take me on Space Mountain for the first time. At home we have a Disneyland video that shows Disney characters going on all of the rides, and I remember for the Space Mountain part Pluto and Goofy (?) were all freaked out after. Since they couldn't film the actual ride, they instead had them ride through flashy animated lights which made Space Mountain look really bizarre and fast and scary. Needless to say I really did not want to go so I made up the excuse that I had to go to the bathroom while we were waiting in line. Although my dad claimed that even my grandma went on the ride, it was not enough to convince me. But I really really like Space Mountain now.
Fastpass wise we got a Space Mountain pass and when the start time for that came around we went to the Monsters Inc ride but all of those passes were already gone! (it was only 1:40!) So we ran over to Winnie the Pooh but those passes were for the end of the day (9:30pm - 9:50pm!). What the... I didn't realize how popular those rides were. (In comparison there were still Space Mountain passes for 4:00pm)
Around that time Anna and Jillian arrived so they picked up fastpasses for Space Mountain and then joined us by the Pooh ride area. While we were waiting we snacked on some honey popcorn - perfect for the Pooh theme.
Our first ride together was Peter Pan. While we were in line a parade came by so I was very entertained while waiting.
Mickey!
After Peter Pan we sat down to eat. I had a slice of seafood pizza (half Japanese, half American) which came in a cute box with a handle.
Shrimp, squid, octopus, and mushrooms!
As we finished up eating, another parade happened to pass by. We were in a surprisingly good spot to watch the super energetic rabbits hopping around the street.
The bunny ladies were crazzy
Moar bunnies!
Pooh bear and friends as... bunnies!
Lots of bunnies because, for some strange reason, Tokyo Disneyland has an Easter theme until the end of June. Not that I'm complaining about the commercialization of Easter.
Somewhere in between all of this, Anna and I went to the bathroom. But this was no ordinary bathroom trip. First of all, because it's Disneyland there was a line to get into the bathroom. Inside there was an actual rope that helped organize the line. And at the beginning of the line there was a staff lady that directed people to open stalls in very polite Japanese. Wow, what an experience.
Next up was the Haunted Mansion. In one part of the waiting line there were some "graves," but two little birds were burrowing in the dirt mounds.
Whoever is "buried" here won't be able to RIP much longer.
After an interesting mix of English and Japanese audio in the Haunted Mansion, we went on Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain. Of course I hate hate hate drops but I pushed through Splash Mountain and still had a good time.
The cheap way of preserving memories.
After the splash (my head got all wet..) we sat down on the side of the road to save seats for the Electric Light Parade. During this time I grabbed "dinner," which was a beautiful Smoked Turkey Leg!
Heh heh heh...
This
It starts!
These were the coolest things of the parade! Knights riding horses!
Choo choo!
Winnie the Pooh float!
Sadly no giant bald eagle with the American flag at the end but this Electric Light Parade owns the original in terms of length and amount of floats! There were so many, mostly ones that I had never seen before. (Monster's Inc, Toy Story, Lilo and Stitch, ect)
After the parade Disneyland started to close down. Unlike LA, people (and employees) have trains to catch back home so everything, shops and all, were going to close at 10pm flat. At this time we finally used our Space Mountain fast passes so that we could bypass the main line and make it out in time for the fireworks.
Here we go! Don't know how much the Japanese people in the back appreciated this..
For dessert we went to the Disney bakery for some yummy baked goods. The best thing ever: sweet potato pastry. The Mickey shaped walnut banana muffin was a snack for school. There were also Mike (Monster's inc) melon buns and other good looking pastries - I wanted them all but couldn't fit them in my stuffed stomach.
Open one in LA Disneyland please!
Finally, we had to choose between the Monster's Inc and Winnie the Pooh for our "last" ride. Pooh-san won over in the end (they both had 40 minute lines at 9pm!) so we headed over to Fantasyland.
Oh my goodness, the queue for this ride was gorgeous! Giant story book pages with excerpts from various Pooh bear stories. The ride itself was amazing! You get to ride in a hunny pot which acts like it has a mind of its own. Three hunny pots are "grouped" together and they each go on their own "path" in some of the rooms, so theoretically there are three different experiences to the ride. You get to see everything but the areas each pot closes in on to are different. The only thing I didn't enjoy (and is a general pet peeve) was that they had to put in a crack area with wacky elephants and neon colors. It happens in Pinocchio (the ride), it happens in The Lion King 2 (the movie), it happens in the 3rd season of Digimon, ect. Oh well, the ride was still mind blowing and awesome.
Favorite picture of the day:
I love eggs! And strange faces.
Haha, I love all of their faces.
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