Day 13 – Disney Land Tokyo
So we had some spare time and decided we would head to DisneyLand, we specifically chose to go on a Monday as we thought it'd be less packed. A short train ride later and we had arrived at the land of happiness.
This way to Disney Land
Entrance to the resort
So what could be more fun than four grown guys going to DisneyLand together?
4 boys at disneyland, awesome
It was obvious we had to get some girls! But our Japanese sucks so all we could do was manage a photo with a couple of girls dressed in cute outfits.
Photo with some Jap girls
So, the thing I was most looking forward to, were the CHURROS! Before even getting some breakfast I immediately grabbed two once I had spotted the cart for the churros. I was in heaven, nothing beats the theme park churros.
Double churro!
So, remember when I said we went on a Monday so it would be less packed, we were incredibly wrong. For some reason, it was absolutely packed! Prams were everywhere and the lines were just insane! Must have been a day off for people or something.
A LOT of strollers
Since the Tokyo Disneyland is almost a replica of the one in the US, so it's essential that you visit the Space Mountain ride. The line was massive as expected, but we had some entertainment from this rather extravagant band.
Disney band
Moving on, Tang decided that it was ESSENTIAL to go on this ride, oh man I still don't know how we got stringed into going on this thing.
Small world
Can you imagine four grown dudes sitting in a boat going around and seeing little models of various things depicting the world?
Funky display inside
While the display inside were pretty good, needless to say, it was a pretty crappy ride. While moving our next ride, I grabbed a little something to eat, it was sorta like a Monaco Bar, but shaped like Mickey Mouse's head. Yummo.
Eating Mickey
We wanted to go to splash mountain, but the wait for that ride was a whopping 110 minutes! The alternative wasn't so great either, 80 minutes was a long time to spend waiting for a ride.
sigh.. so long
We finally hopped onboard the train for the ride, I was still snapping photos despite them telling me to put my camera away, quite like the look of this shot. I initially wanted to do a stop motion but the surroundings were too close for me to hold my camera out to get a nice view.
One of the more exciting rides
Once off the train, we had a walk around and found out that a parade was starting soon, but before heading out to watch it, souvenirs! I decided to grab this hat as it would also keep my head warm.
Ooooo, the claw
Walking around, we just enjoyed the sights as there's plenty of little statues and decorations around.
Cute
Food there is certainly interesting too, plenty of sweets to go around, including curry popcorn. The idea doesn't sit too well with me.
Interesting idea, but no thanks
We also went through the iconic Disney Castle, it's just a marvelous thing to look at and there's plenty of detail to keep your eyes excited.
The Disney castle
The parade itself was pretty cool, just heaps and heaps of floats of your various Disney characters. There was a very lively atmosphere with some very catchy Christmas tunes playing out loud in the background.
Donald duck
Snowman dudes
Fairies
Female green thingies
Buzz!
More Toy Story characters
Jack-in-the-box
Mickey and Minnie
Winnie the Pooh
Goofy skateboarding
Chip and Dale
Santa is here
After the parade, we quickly dashed away, primarily so I could get a picture of the castle as the sun set, decided to be a bit of a monkey and pose for a picture with these guys.
Ape'n around
The sunset provided some nice lighting and brought out some good colours for the castle, I found this picture quite amusing as it looks like there's a plane about to crash into it.
The castle by sunset
We dashed straight to another ride to avoid a long queue as the majority of the crowd were still being mesmerised by the parade. We got into a VR motion kinda based on Star Wars ship, not a bad ride, but the whole thing was in Japanese, making it impossible to understand, but R2D2 sure does sound funny. Next ride was a Movie with Michael Jackson in it, pretty cool to hear a song that was never released in the usual channels.
It was then time to leave, took a few quick shots of the place and then proceeded to find some souvenirs, there was a magic shop which we spent ages looking for and finally found it to buy some gifts.
View of the entrance at night
Walt and Mickey statue
After Disneyland we had to catch our overnight bus down to Osaka, dinner was to be a quick McDonald's meal as we didn't want to risk missing the bus as a trip via a Shinkansen would have been over three times the cost. The overnight bus also meant we could save on a nights accommodation as it arrives in Osaka early in the morning.