Monday, 28 May 2012

Tokyo Day 3

Tokyo Day 3

We woke up to sunny weather, meaning that our plan to visit DisneySea was well on track. We took the Disneyland bus from Shinjuku for the convenience and totally regretted the choice.

There was only one bus every half hour interval and it moves off once it is full. Those who did not manage to get on the bus had to wait another half an hour for the next bus. We learnt only on the day a lot of other people (specifically families) were also taking the bus even though it was a weekday. We had to miss two buses before we can get on a bus, which means that we waited one hour before our journey to DisneySea started. That's a lot of time lost.

We ended up reaching the theme park at 11am plus, and Dear, who was in charge of our war plan in Disney was thrown off tracks with such a late timing. And we ended up missing on quite a bit.

So to cut the long story short, take the subway to Disney. It's the best way there despite having to squeeze with the morning crowds and making train transfers.


It was Easter Celebrations at Disney because it is now spring and the park was decorated with lots of beautiful flowers. 


After a bad start to the morning, we are finally in!




I love how the balloons look against the blue sky.


There are lesser mascots in DisneySea than in Disneyland and there is no queue to take photos with them. Just go up and do it. Isn't this a hot mama?


I was trying to take a photo of what he was signing and somebody's hand came into frame. Dear always like to 'ka jiao'. 

Since we reached the theme park much later than planned, all  the popular rides had long queues of more than two hours and fast passes were either finished or can only be uttilised at night. Now I know why, and appreciate the fact that the themepark opens till 10pm. There's simply too little time to do everything!

We were dazzled by the crowds as well. It was a weekday but even a snack stall would have snaking queues of several hundred metres which guarantees a 15 minute wait. What was going on?! I have read and heard on the crowds in the themepark but experiencing it for myself is still mind-blogging.

So should we queue for a ride, or should we buy some food for lunch? We wander up and down the lanes for some time, deciding on our course of action. There are long long queues everywhere! Thankfully, the queue at the restrooms are still manageable. 

We decided to pop into some random shows that was starting, to finally use our time in the park, and get food thereafter.

Our strategy was to split up to buy from two stalls and meet up. 


I went for the sausage roll. The taste was average but one good thing is that it is big enough to fill the stomach.


Dear went for the spicy chicken cutlet. I was done first and finished my sausage bun before Dear came to meet me at our designated meeting place. Pardon the eaten chicken because greedy me started eating it before remembering to take a photo.


It was like perhaps 10 degree C that day. I don't know how Princess Jasmine can stand in the cold like that, but she sure is a hot favourite with everyone crowding to take a photo of her ....i mean, her.


Disney is serious business in Japan. But I was still surprised by how big it is over there. Almost everyone had a Duffy bear, which costs around S$60, in the arms. And the girls would have other accessories on them. So it means a person literally had at least S$100 worth of Disney merchandise on them.


My pirated version of the Duffy bear who like me, is tired from walking around.


This was the only ride that we managed to take and we took it after the night fireworks. We spend the rest of the time watching the shows, like the Mermaid performance and Aladdin shows.


More exploration of the displays as night falls.


Our dinner


This was the queue when we went back to the 2000 leagues under the sea ride after the fireworks. Everyone was rushing to squeeze in more rides before the park closes. Even when it was near 10pm, there were still people rushing to take the last ride.


This was the collection of two young girls who were taking a family photo of their Duffy bears. I couldn't resist also taking a photo of it to portray how big is the Disney business over there.

We had planned visit Disneyland the next day but decided to give it up after witnessing the crowds. We heard that the crowds at Disneyland is worse! And we wanted to start exploring the city. On hindsight, I'm glad we skipped it and visited other sights in the Asakusa and Ueno areas!

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