Following the compass of my heart! Tokyo trip report OCT 13-22, 2016. UPDATED 11/30 - COMPLETE

[jelloarms]

I know what trick in ToT you're talking about! Shiriki Utundu! I too was trying to figure out how he worked but I just don't know! I tried to keep my eye on him the whole time but I just don't get how it works! What is Andy's theory?

Dang, I can't believe someone turned your towel in! I would probably not have even thought to go to Guest Relations and just bought another one!

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 19: Both Parks Part 2

After we rode Monster's Inc, we decided to go on Autopia - well there it is called the Grand Circuit Raceway. Apparently this is closing in January of next year, so get your rides in while you can. For the most part, the track didn't have much going on visually, but it was a nice little diversion.

Andy looking mischievous here:

This ride has cars with the driver's wheel on both the right and left side of the cars. I was hoping for a vehicle with the drivers wheel and pedals on the right, since I'm used to driving on the left side of the car, but I just got the usual left hand side. During the drive itself, I tried to take a video. I have friends who seem to be posting videos on snapchat or instagram while they are driving. Scary! I don't know how they did it, because i would have killed at least 3 people had I been driving like that for real.

You can watch the video here. https://flic.kr/p/NAY2m8

We then took another ride on Haunted Mansion Holiday before heading toward the exit to hop to Disney Sea. We stopped by the penny arcade to look inside and play a game of soccer, kind of like foosball. Somehow Andy cheated and won.

We exited the park and hopped on the resort line to Disney Sea. Here's the view of the Disneyland Hotel from the monorail. I hope I can stay there one day

When we arrived to DisneySea, we headed to Journey to the Center of the Earth to see if there were any Fastpasses left. We passed by this fountain in the Fortress Explorations

There were for 7 pm or so, which was a bit later than we wanted, as we had fastpasses for Pooh around that time, but we took them anyway. We also decided to wait in the 70 minute standby as we wanted to ride it more than once that day.

Since Andy wanted to go on Sinbad, we headed that way after getting off of Journey. When we arrived, we saw that people were lined up to meet a character. Since I had seen Stitch there along with Angel (who I refuse to acknowledge as a real character - she is lame), we figured that is who was coming, so we waited about 30 minutes to take a picture with them.

Mermaid Lagoon was calling us and I was thinking we should go see a show, so we grabbed a Fastpass for King Triton's Concert. After we got our fastpasses, we tried out the Jumpin Jellyfish.

Pretty basic ride, and actually less thrilling than the DCA version.

The fastpasses weren't for another hour or so, so we went in search of a snack. I had searched for vegan food snacks, and we saw that Miguel's El Dorado Cantina had Guacamole and chips so we went there and got that.

This is a tiny portion. You get maybe 15 chips total and a tablespoon of guacamole! But at least the plate was cute. I wish we could have taken them.

We also got a flan, mainly for the cute souvenir donald cup to go along with our prize from earlier, who now appeared to have a cleft lip.

Well, we headed back to Mermaid Lagoon, and entered the theater during our entrance window for Fastpass.

Note that if you get there toward the end of your 20 minute entrance window. We arrived at 4:15 when our window closed at 4:20, and got seats at the back of the theater - which is a round theater around the main stage.

Well, the show started, and a huge Triton animatronic came out, and some mermaid singers on video screens appeared. I found the show pretty tacky from the get go, and I found the Triton creepy. Even the Triton the little mermaid ride here freaks me out a little. An old man should not be that muscly. Then ariel came on suspended from the rafters and sang "Part of your world" - or rather, lip synched it. As the song was ending, she was only above our section, so it was clear that she was stuck. The announcer came over the speaker to say please stay seated, the show will be restarted shortly. Poor actress had to do some flips, and brush her hair and smile/giggle at us the entire time. After about 15 minutes, they were able to move ariel back to her perch, at which time they told us "Sorry, the show will not go on." I think they weren't planning to continue the show at all, but told us that to keep us seated without seeing Ariel dangling helplessly as we left.

Fortunately, they gave us a fastpass for any ride in the parks except for Toy Story. I was pretty happy as I was not loving the show. Andy was impressed though and hopes to see it next time. We decided to use it for Journey to the center of the Earth, and give our fastpasses to a couple. I was happy we got to ride that again! and it worked out for us, as we got to hop over to Disneyland a little earlier.

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 19: Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea

We hopped back to Tokyo Disneyland on the resort line, and we decided to go on Pirates of the Carribean.

The ride is pretty much the same as Disneyland's version, except the women are all being chased by the men still in Tokyo's version. Another interesting thing is that the dog with the key is definitely close enough to the jail cell, that the prisoners could easily reach him.

After that, Andy and I decided to split up, as he wanted to go to Country Bear Jamboree. Since it's in Japanese and I had seen it in Tokyo before without understanding any of it, I decided to pass, and headed to Philharmagic again, I think. Once I did that, I did some shopping. Even the displays were cool.

These pixel merchandise was really cool, in an ugly cute sort of way.

I had really wanted to eat at China Voyager but couldn't because I was with Andy. We had already made dining reservations for the Center Street Coffeehouse but I wanted to see if I could sneak in a meal during our short time we toured separately. Unfortunately the line was HUGE. I was able to eat steamed pork bun from Boiler Room Bites

It was made up of three buns with each having their own flavor: spicy, miso, and salt/plain. The bun was really cute, but nothing special taste wise.

It was time for our dinner reservation and we met at the Coffeehouse. This and the Eastside Cafe are the two options in the park for a vegan/vegetarian menu. They are both sets and don't have a la carte options.

We both ordered the vegetarian set and it came with a tomato soup. Andy's soup had a little oil mickey.

And the entree was the tiniest roasted vegetable sandwich with a vegetable bowl/salad deal. It wasn't amazing, but it was satisfying enough.

After dinner, we headed towards Pooh's Hunny Hunt as we had fastpasses to use. We headed through Tomorrowland to be blocked by the parade route. The parade was currently taking place. While I'm not a huge fan of parades, I am impressed by their floats for the Electrical Parade.

Once the parade ended and passed, we went on one last ride on Pooh (or so we thought).

After that, it was about 8:30 pm and we were determined to get a ride on Toy Story Midway Mania, so we hotfooted it back to the monorail to ride it to Disney Sea one last time. We said hi to this sort of creepy mickey pumpkin conductor guy at Tokyo Disneyland station one last time as well.

We power walked to Toy Story Mania and arrived there shortly before 9 pm, and hooray - the standby line was still open. The posted wait was 110 minutes, and I was sweating from power walking, so that sweat rag came in handy. Andy went to get some frozen juice bars and sodas for me.

Now this ride is the same as it is in California, but the real reason we wanted to ride this was to see the queue! I don't know what Disney World's queue is like but DCA's is pretty boring. It's awesome to be the size of a toy in Andy's room. I love all the giant toys and oversized props!

By the time we got out of the ride, the park was closed and the area was empty, so we lined up so a cast member could take our photo in front of the entrance.

We headed out and said goodbye to Tokyo Disney Sea for one last time ::tear::

 

[disneyobsessed808]

I know what trick in ToT you're talking about! Shiriki Utundu! I too was trying to figure out how he worked but I just don't know! I tried to keep my eye on him the whole time but I just don't get how it works! What is Andy's theory?

It was something about mirrors and a trap door and a frame. I didn't quite understand what he was getting at.

 

[disneyobsessed808]

Bonus Post: Merchandise Roundup

Shopping was a main feature of this trip. I thought I had bought everything I would buy at this point, but of course we did some more shopping after this, but I gathered everything I bought into a few photographs.

I was able to get three shirts in my size. I was so excited since they hadn't had anything in my size on previous trips.

I also had really wanted a pooh all over print shirt ever since seeing people sporting them at Disneyland. I don't know if you can tell but Pooh is my favorite. They didn't quite have my size but I was able to squeeze and stretch into an LL/XL. I didn't care if they only had a medium, I was getting it. They also had really cute boxers.

When I got back to the US, I was so excited about my shirt that we went to Disneyland just to take a picture with Pooh while wearing this shirt and the headband.

They had a few different pixel 8-bit inspired designs featuring Donald, Mickey, and the aliens. I loved them. The hoodie especially was really bright, sort of tacky but still really cool, so I got one. I also got some pins and pens.

How cute are these omiyage? They came as a set of four containers per bag and were filled with animal-cookie like cookies. When I brought them to work, everyone wanted the hot pink Minnie. I did end up more omiyage merchandise later in the trip.

Tsum tsums. Eeyore Piglet Pooh and Tigger actually come inside of the little Pooh pumpkin

I really like to collect nice Disney, Pooh, and any sort of interesting chopsticks, so I bought these guys. The Pooh ones were from Tokyo Disney. The catbus one was from Kiddyland, and the musubi/onigiri ones were from Loft.

My souvenir cups

All the other Pooh stuff: A set of bowls, a miniature playset model of the Poohs Hunny Hunt ride, some tupperware container type things. a Solar Bobble Head toy. I also found an easter Pooh glass set at Nakano broadway for $5.

And our plushes, including our prizes and Heffalump plush.

Turns out, I bought a lot of stuff on this trip

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 20: Yokohama, Cup Noodle Museum

Well, Disney had to come to an end at some point.

So on this day, Andy and I headed out to Yokohama. I had wanted to go to the Ramen Museum and the Cup Noodle museum; however, Andy said that we had to be back at the house at a certain time (I think so that we could get our luggage/boxes picked up) so I was able to only do the Cup Noodle Museum. Seeing a great trip report by wanderlust7 really is what made me want to go here. Andy and I parted ways, so I went to the Cup Noodle Museum alone.

The museum was a short walk from the train station. It was a beautiful day out so the walk was really nice.

The ferris wheel and small theme park area was right across the street from the museum.

I paid my entry fee and got my tickets to make my own cup noodle and museum admission. I took my picture with the giant cup noodle cup and the mascot. He's cute, but it is a little creepy to have the mascot be an animal that is in the actual food. It's like we are eating the mascot.

You select a time for the create your own cup noodle, and I wanted to do that first, so that's where I headed.

I grabbed my cup from the vending machine, and the staff directed me to one of the tables.

The tables had different colored markers for you to create your own cup. At first, I was feeling pretty proud of my creation, but as I looked around, my was kind of ugly. There was a group of school aged children and some of them had amazing cups! I was a bit embarrassed by mine.

Once you complete your cup, you can get in line to get the ingredients for your cup. First they put the noodles in the cup, and then you can select four toppings. I chose cheese, green onions, the fishcake with the mascot on them, and kim chee

Once they fill your cup, they put on the seal and wrap it in plastic. Voila, here's mine completed cup noodle.

Then you can put your cup in a little bag and puff it up so it has a layer of protection and you can attach a cord to carry it around. With my newly created cup noodle in hand, I went up the stairs (I think) to eat lunch. I was starving at this point, so I went to Noodles Bazaar. It is a little food court with noodle dishes from various countries, like pho or laksa.

The prices were reasonable, and they had a drink bar. Something I am always a fan of! The American in me is used to free refills.

First I tried the Beef Noodles from the China booth. This was the best by far!

I also tried what I assumed is the original cup noodle with cheese and pork - pretty much exactly what you would expect.

Finally I tried the cold ramen from the Korea booth. Not a fan of this at all - too cold and slimy for me.

So while I could have made it to the Ramen Museum, I was able to get full during my time here, so I just figured I'll go next time I'm in Japan. Finally, I made my way to the actual Museum portion of the Museum. It was interesting to say they least. There is a lot of talk about innovation and invention.

A wall of all the Cup Noodle products that are offered.

The genius himself, the inventor of cup noodle, Momofuku Ando.

A replica of his noodle shack.

Some interesting art

I have no idea what this was supposed to represent.

Now, I don't know how much of this is supposed to be tongue in cheek, but it does seem to present cup noodles and its inventor in a way that thinks much too highly of them. There are modern art type displays and pieces that seem to make it as if it's something incredibly profound. While I do appreciate cup noodle, I wouldn't rank it with the great inventions of 20th century. And putting Momofuku Ando alongside Einstein is a bit much.

After I finished the museum, I headed back on the train and back to the AirBNB. Later that night we went to Andy's friends house and they made us a delicious dinner: Chow Funn and Ma Po Tofu.

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 21 Part 1: Meiji Shrine, Dominique Ansel Bakery, Senso-ji

The next day I was up early, and wanted to go to the Dominique Ansel Bakery. Having heard so much about the cronut and trying various imitations, I was curious to try the original - at least the Tokyo version of the original. Andy couldn't eat anything there, so I decided to just head out on my own. Thank goodness for the pocket wifi and google maps.

Well, I arrived at the Meiji-jingu station around 8:45 am, and started walking toward the bakery, when it hit me! Oh they may not be open yet, let's check. Alas, it turned out that they didn't open until 10. D'oh.

So I decided to turn around and check out Meiji Shrine. I had been here on my first trip to Japan, and the part I enjoyed the most were checking out the gardens, unfortunately, some of the pathways were blocked off or had signs in front of them and I didn't want to risk going to an area that I was forbidden from, so I pretty much just looked at the shrine.

Sake barrels

This groundskeeper was slowly and methodically sweeping leaves from the walking paths, lining the leaves up the center toward the shrine.

Once it was around 9:50, I exited the area, and walked toward the bakery, getting there just after they opened at 10 am. It was sort of in a back street, off the main area of omote-sando, but fortunately they had some signs to point you in the right direction.

The shop itself was beautifully maintained, very clean and modern decor. There is actually the bakery downstairs and a cafe upstairs.

So many things on the menu sounded good, that I didn't even order anything from the case - which I sort of regret. I put in my order and took a seat.

Don't judge me but I ordered four things for just myself. The other people next to me shared a single cronut, so I was sort of embarrassed by my order. But I figured hey, I won't be back here for a long time if at all.

I ordered the "perfect egg sandwich," gougeres, a cronut, and a frozen smore. The egg sandwich was decent, but a bit TOO custardy and soft - I ate most of it later, and it actually tasted better later. The gougeres were cheese balls bread, and were too crispy.

The cronut was what I was looking forward to the most after trying so many imitators at various donut shops. It looked beautiful...just look at it.

And the verdict? Meh, it was just okay. I was pretty disappointed. It was filled with an apple pie type filling - not what I was expecting, and it was pretty cold. The texture was a bit doughy, which I didn't mind, but it is definitely overhyped and overrated. I have better croissant donuts.

The only winner for me was the frozen smore. It was a delicious frozen ice cream type thing in the middle surrounded by marshmallow that they torch in front of you.

After finishing my food, I decided that I wanted to go to Senso-ji, so I hopped on the train to Asakusa. I walked through the alleys to get to the Temple

For 100 yen, you could get your fortune - it is an honor system though so I put my coin into the box, and shook out a little stick that told me where to get my fortune. Another visitor helped me with finding the correct drawer.

Not a bad fortune at all.

Coming up. More Asakusa and the rest of the day.

 

[Alice777]

Loving your report. We live close by Disneyland and we went to WDW twice this year (our first and last time), and our next goal is to go to Tokyo Disneyland. My two adults sons (one is BIG fan of Disney - crazy about Green Alien and the other son is crazy about Japan) so your reports are great for us. Saving all your "special" things to do in Japan in my computer.

My older son asked me to start planning (hopefully we can do the trip in 2 years) and it's so scary to plan for somewhere I know nothing about.

Thank you.

 

[disneyobsessed808]

Loving your report. We live close by Disneyland and we went to WDW twice this year (our first and last time), and our next goal is to go to Tokyo Disneyland. My two adults sons (one is BIG fan of Disney - crazy about Green Alien and the other son is crazy about Japan) so your reports are great for us. Saving all your "special" things to do in Japan in my computer.

My older son asked me to start planning (hopefully we can do the trip in 2 years) and it's so scary to plan for somewhere I know nothing about.

Thanks for following along! I sort of lucked out having a friend who is fluent in Japanese and has experience traveling to Japan, but it is definitely worth the planning. Your sons will love it!

 

[MomoMama]

You sure got a lot of Disney merchandise! They are so cute, it's hard not to buy them, isn't it?

And you got the best fortune! I never try those Omikuji fortune, because I don't want it to tell me I got a bad fortune!

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 21: Part 2 Asakusa, Ginza, and Karaoke in Ikebukuro.

After visiting the temple, I walked around the shops that surround Senso-ji temple. I remembered during my first trip like 7 years ago there was a cool store that sold paper and paper fans, and was hoping to find that store, but I did not.

However, I did find quite a few interesting stores. My coworkers had asked me to get some souvenirs for them, so I was able to find some things for them.

There were quite a few shops selling snacks/food items including some that had cat shaped rice crackers.

One stand had some sort of fishing game - I didn't quite get the rules or the prizes.

I eventually walked around until I found a Don Quijuote to buy a drink. Across the street there was a small shopping complex with some restaurants, and on the top floor I found a restaurant that offered a vegan macrobiotic menu. Andy finally met me after I had told him about it and we tried this place. It was called Hayama Natural Table Bojan. Andy had gotten a veggie cutlet type thing, and I got a creamy pasta dish.

Both of the dishes were actually really good. After lunch, we headed back to the apartment to start wait for yet another pickup this time for our boxes to be mailed back to the US. Andy had to do some debating with the mail people but they finally accepted his packages.

Later that night we went to Ginza.

This building was really cool

So many high end stores

We mainly came here to go to Uniqlo and to eat. The uniqlo was HUGE. It was about 10 stories tall, and they said over the speakers that it was the largest Uniqlo in the world. Supposedly Andy heard they had a section for Extended Sizes. Unfortunately, they had about 1 shelf of stuff, and they were all pretty much the ugliest -ish they had in the store. Nothing cute at all.

They also had a floor dedicated to just their graphic tees, where we found mickey.

"Magic for All," unless you are bigger than an XL, then you're screwed. So sad too because they had a lot of cute Disney shirts and other graphic shirts.

Andy was able to get some shirts for himself though. We then headed to Nataraj, which was right next door for dinner. This is another location from the one we visited on the first day of the trip.

We got this lentil crisp with vegetables, that was sort of like a little pizza. It was really good!

We got more curries. I actually preferred the Shibuya location to the curries we tried at the Ginza location.

With our stomachs full, we had decided to head toward Ikebukuro Station. We had wanted to do some karaoke during our entire trip. We were hoping to go with Andy's friends, but they kept flaking out, so we ended up just going the two of us. We looked up a ton of different options but decided to go to one that was near our AirBNB so we could walk home once the trains were done running.

Outside the station I saw a McDonald's so I knew I wanted to try their Choco Potato fries

It came with a cool little packet that allowed you to dress your fries in a neat little pattern. The brown was the chocolate flavor and the purple was sweet potato flavor.

These were actually pretty bad. You would think that the salty sweet combo would work but this did not. Getting that experiment out of the way, it was time for karaoke!

They gave you several options of machines to choose from, but we said we wanted the one with the best English song selection. So they assigned us a room and we started singing. TBH, the selection wasn't that great, but they did have most of my karaoke standbys. Andy knows a lot of Japanese songs so he sung quite a bit. Eventually, we changed rooms/machines because we weren't that happy with the selection. The second room we had was a little better.

The other nice thing about this place was that it had a drink bar, which had various sodas, teas, coffee, and even a corn soup. I love that they consider soup a drink! LOL

I have a video of me singing "Jolene" but can't upload it; you can use your imagination as to what I sound like.

We finished around 12:30 and the subways were closed at that time, so we walked back to our AirBNB.

October 22: Last Day in Japan!

 

[disneyobsessed808]

You sure got a lot of Disney merchandise! They are so cute, it's hard not to buy them, isn't it?

Oh my god, it is all so cute and awesome. I totally could have bought twice as much stuff, but resisted the urge as I could only take what would fit in my carry-on. Actually we couldn't even fit everything in our carry on and personal item, so I ended up just saying, well, lets just use the plushes as our pillows, and I carried a shopping bag onto the plane, so they just figured I just bought it at the airport. No one said anything, so I was able to take it all on the plane.

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 22: Final Day in Tokyo Part 1

It was our last day in Tokyo. ::tear::

We were pretty much packed up and ready to go so we really had all day to do stuff, since our flight left around midnight. Fortunately, Andy booked the AirBNB through the next day so we could return to the AirBNB all day if we had to. I had a few things I had in mind for the day that I wanted to get done.

So even though we had already bought a lot of souvenirs at Tokyo Disneyland, I had a feeling that there were just some things we missed and more to discover. I remember that Bon Voyage opened even before the park opened, so we decided that we would go back to the resort just to check out Bon Voyage and do some last minute shopping. We took the trains to Maihama station for one last time or so we thought.

It turns out there were quite a few things that I had to have at Bon Voyage that we missed inside the park. One thing I'll show you in the next part of the trip report!

You could order this cake for delivery apparently...I think it was something outrageous like 10000 yen or more? I don't remember exactly It was tiny

I did end up buying a bag of these mini ramens with mickey fishcakes

I also bought two omiyage packages, but just for myself. The little claw machine came with gross tasting candies and had a little alien hanging from the claw in the center. The other box with the Japanese inspired mickey print had mickey shaped rice crackers inside.

We decided to walk over to the hotel and check out the gift shop there. I thought it was pretty cool that there was such a large bicycle parking area outside the park.

The hotel is so beautiful, I wish we could stay here.

While the gift shop did have some unique items, there was nothing that really stood out as something I felt I needed. So at this point, we were starting to walk back to Maihama station when Andy says that sometimes they have afternoon only passes, we can check if they have any today. I was a little unsure because it was already looking like it was going to be extremely busy. However, when it turned out that they had Starlight Passes, after 3 pm, I decided what the heck, lets go again!.

Andy bought the tickets, and we hurried back to the train. Andy headed home to pack up our stuff. He assured me that he was a master packer and could easily fit in all our stuff into a backpack and my carryon luggage. I headed to Tokyo station, as I was looking for some unique kitkats, and I had read that there was a mall/department store that sold the biggest variety - First Avenue tokyo station.

I arrived at Tokyo Station and finding First Avenue wasn't hard at all. It is more like a mall than a single department store, but there are many individual stores/stands with different items on the basement of the station. It was finding the specific store that sold all the kitkats that was a challenge. I swear I walked the entire area twice walking by the ramen street area - with 8 different ramen stands, walking by other shops. After a solid 30 minutes of looking, I finally found the store I was looking for!

It was a good thing I had cash because they didn't take credit cards or at least American credit cards. I spent about $50 here in just kitkats, and I had previously bought $30 worth of kitkats at a Don Quijote, so I had spent $80+ on kitkats during this trip - I still have some of them.

So the flavors I got were: top row - luxury flavor? (with hazelnuts and thyme), pumpkin custard, apple, purple sweet potato; middle row - strawberry cheesecake, rum raisin, strawberry; bottom row - tea, sake (!), red bean sandwich, wasabi.

My favorite flavor is the rum raisin, though I think the best flavor I have ever had was a shoyu. The salty sweet flavor totally worked, but I have not seen those again. The worst flavor by far was the apple. Ugh. Way too artificial tasting. The sake flavor was actually super strong - you could definitely taste the alcohol. The wasabi is really subtle, very good.

Once I bought my kitkats, I headed back to our AirBNB to meet Andy. I thought Andy would have packed everything but he was not even close. Master of packing by butt! I on the other hand was able to get everything in my bag and then some. Good thing I had brought shirts and shorts and clothes I could leave behind in Japan.

Around 2 we hopped on the train with all our stuff. We took the train to Shin-kiba station and left our bags in a locker there, since we had to transfer here to get to Haneda later tonight. They have huge lockers there, so it was very convenient. It was then off to Maihama station to Tokyo Disneyland.

 

[MomoMama]

I was just there in Japan last week, and tried to get that Chocolate sauce fries at McDonald, but they no longer had them! I was pretty disappointed...but hearing they were not really that great...makes me feel a little better.
BTW, their current limited fries come with soy sauce flavored salt!

You seem very organized and not wasting any time!
And wow those are very interesting kitkats!!

 

[disneyobsessed808]

October 22: Part 2 Tokyo Disneyland. Now it's time to say goodbye!

We entered the park, and at that point there were no more fastpasses available for anything - at least according to the two apps we used (TDR Dashboard and TokyoDMap). We decided to first go onto Pirates of the Caribbean.

We then walked into Adventureland, and I decided that we should walk through Swiss Family Treehouse. This tree house seems a lot bigger than the Tarzan tree house, though I wouldn't say it was any better.

The treehouse had a great view of the park and the castle

Well, as I said in the previous post, there was one thing that I bought at Bon Voyage that I had somehow missed earlier. I already had and was wearing my cool Donald Duck t-shirt, but that morning we found this!

How cute is that keychain plush! It's Donald wearing the same shirt that I'm wearing and he's wearing a shirt with himself on it! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE! I could not get over the cuteness and had to buy it. I am embarrassed to say that I spent about 10 minutes trying to get this picture, making sure I got the castle in the background, making sure Donald was sitting up. The things you do for instagram! lol.

We then walked over to Monster's Inc as we were really wanting to ride that again. The wait was about 2 hours, but we figured we might as well stick it out.

During our wait we decided to use the time to eat. Andy brought leftovers from Nataraj, and went to get some fries. He also was jealous of my Donald shirt and plush, so he went and bought himself the Daisy shirt and plush.

I was a little annoyed that he bought them, as I didn't want to be one of those couples/groups that match. ::eye roll:: Once Andy came back, I took the time to go eat some fun Disney food. Don't judge me, but I ended up getting two entrees at the Plaza Pavilion, having been deprived of most of the Disney food during my trip. I got a beef bowl with a mickey shaped egg (okay), a fried chicken mickey hand sandwich (absolutely delicious), and a mike wazowski bean pastry (cute but meh).

I also got a soda from these cute robot soda vending machines.

After finishing up, I returned to the line. We still had about an hour to go. Even when it seemed like we were close when we got inside, we were really so far! It seemed like for every 100 parties in the fastpass line that they let through, they let through two parties in the standby line.

Finally, we were able to get through the ride. It was dark outside at this point and probably around 6/6:30. We decided to head to Splash Mountain. Oh hai, castle!

We went into the single rider line again, and while there was a short wait where the cast member was not being very efficient, it actually worked out nicely. The loading cast member switched out to a male cast member, and he was really good at filling the seats. In fact, because there were no other parties of two, me and Andy ended up being able to sit together in our log. Yippee!

The parade was about to start so we knew this would be a good time to go on Pooh since the parade blocked any paths to get to Pooh. When we first got in line, the posted wait time was 40 minutes, but in reality, it was only a 15 minute wait. Since it went so fast, we got in line again, and went on for a second time. The wait was only 10 minutes! Score!

On the first trip around, we were placed in the third car, and in the second trip, we were placed in the second car. Having finally ridden all three, the second car was hands down, the best one. It just had the best views of the big room.

Goodbye, Pooh for now!

Our last attraction of the night before we had to leave for the airport was Mickey's Philharmagic. It was as enjoyable as the last few times.

We headed out to World Bazaar and looked through a few more shops, and found some more interesting merchandise. Jeans boxers or salami, anyone?

We left the park around 9 so we could get to the airport shortly before 10 pm. We got to Haneda, checked in our luggage. We had to be a little sneaky so they wouldn't try to weigh Andy's carry ons, since they were probably heavy, so we had to check in separately. As I said, I had an extra shopping bag and we both had our plushes, so I was worried they would stop us at the gate and make us check something, but they didn't. We got on our plane and headed back to LAX. Goodbye Japan.

Until next time!

As one final note about the vegetarian option on ANA - that was by far the worst meal I have had on any flight ever. It was some sort of veggie meatloaf, but it reminded me of what catfood probably tastes and feels like. Bleh.

 

[scrump]

Thanks for this great trip report!!!! So awesome to be able to get our fix before our trip next year!

 

[MomoMama]

Great shot of you and little Donald! Worth spending 10 min!

Thanks for the fun report!

 

[Alice777]

I'm going to miss your report. You mentioned you've been to Tokyo Disneyland before, did you do report from that trip?

I'm trying to backtrack and read everyone's trip reports.

Not only I'm interested in Disney stuff but also other cool things like "cup a noodle museum" (which I didn't know) and any anime stuff (my son loves anime).

Thank you again for your great report!

 

[disneyobsessed808]

I'm going to miss your report. You mentioned you've been to Tokyo Disneyland before, did you do report from that trip?

I'm trying to backtrack and read everyone's trip reports.

Not only I'm interested in Disney stuff but also other cool things like "cup a noodle museum" (which I didn't know) and any anime stuff (my son loves anime).

I did do a trip report on my previous trip but all the picture links no longer work - I messed up: http://www.disboards.com/threads/fr...n-and-tdr-trip-report-nov-10-24-2012.3011271/

There are so many fun unique things to do. The highlight of my previous trip, aside from Disney Resort, was watching a Sumo Tournament. Do that if you have a chance!

 

[wanderlust7]

I really enjoyed your report! You and Donald with matching shirts - too cute!

The Mickey egg - I'm still kicking myself that I totally forgot to get it when we were there. The kids would have gotten a kick out of it. Yet another reason to go back.