Tokyo Disneyland...

I went back to Tokyo Disneyland the next day, this time by myself. It was rainy all day but it turned out to be a good thing. The lines were short due to the weather. I didn't have to wait more than 25 minutes for any ride all day long.


At Tokyo Disney the "World Bazaar" it the equivalent to Main St. USA at the American parks. It has a glass rooftop enclosure to keep you dry on days like this one.

Splash Mountain in "Critter Country"

The ride had "technical difficulties" causing us to sit and wait while at the top of the big plunge at the end of the ride. It made the girl in front of me very anxious, but it offered me a chance to take a good picture.


Haunted Mansion in Fantasy Land. I tried to get Some pictures inside the ride but it was too dark and the ride moved too quickly to get a good shot. The Japanese dialogue throughout the ride seemed somehow scarier than the English version, even though I didn't understand much of it.

Pirates of the Caribbean in Advenureland. This was a fairly exact reproduction of the American version, including the the Johnny Depp and Davy Jones updates that were implemented in the US incarnations of the ride.


"It's a small world" in Fantasy Land.



Tomorrowland... I'm not sure but I think the Japanese version of Space Mountain is faster, although it hasn't received the somewhat cosmetic modernization that the American versions got.

Star Tours in Tomorrowland. Why can't I ever take a tour of the moons of Endor without the Empire fucking things up? This seems to happen every time. Maybe if I got a pilot with more experience...


At both tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea, they have some unusual flavors from the popcorn vendors.

There was:
Honey, Caramel, Sea Salt, Curry, Extra Black Pepper, Soy Sauce & Butter.

If you ask me Curry popcorn is the best.

The Disney Cheeseburger set. About $8.00 USD. I think it was a good deal considering it's captive audience food in Japan.

The "Meat Pie". A puff pastry filled with a mixture of ground meat and a "gravy" of sorts.
I first had this the day before at Disney Sea. When I heard it was called "Meat Pie" I had the girls ask the vendor what kind of meat it was. The vendor replied "every kind of meat." Somewhat ambiguous, but I tried it anyway. It was fantastic. To clarify, it really does taste like every kind of meat.

Tokyo Disney was awesome, and now I only have to go to the Hong Kong park and the Paris park to complete the lifelong goal of visiting all the Disney parks before I die.

Tokyo Disney Sea...

Tokyo Disney Sea... It was a lot of fun, but there weren't as many attractions as I had hoped. This is what you see as you pass through the main ticket gate. The theme of Tokyo Disney Sea is basically a collection of the different sea ports of the world with similarly themed rides and attractions at each port.


Some of my favorite attractions were the "Journey to the center of the Earth" ride, and the "Indiana Jones" ride.


Some of the views from the queue...




We were passing time in line by looking through Kaoru's ipod...

Another favorite of mine is of course the "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror". I feel like the Tokyo Disney cast members need to work on getting into character a bit more though. In the American parks when you are on a scary-themed ride such as the Tower of Terror or Haunted Mansion, the cast members behave in a creepy or morose kind of way. In Japan they are every bit as cheerful and polite as if you were going to ride the Winnie the pooh ride. This kind of takes away from the overall experience, but maybe I'm just being picky.

I got a lot of pictures from the "Mermaid Lagoon", not because it was my favorite, but I knew with the color scheme in there, the pictures would come out nice.



Tokyo Disney Monorail on the way back... It was a long but fun day.

Electronic Keyboard Concert

Kaoru and I went to see an electronic keyboard performance by Shizuka and her mother today. It was part of a contest sponsored by the Yamaha corporation (they make electronic keyboards among other things) and it was great. There were many performances and they went on close to last. I know I might be a bit biased, but I really thought they were the best that night. Every performance had a Yamaha Electone keyboard used in it in some capacity. So all the performances had a videogame-music vibe to it, but the effort and many hours of practice were still very evident.

After the concert we went to "yakiniku" Japanese bbq where you cook your own meat right there at your table. Our waitress took this picture. (Clockwise from the left: Me, Shizuka, Shizuka's Mom, and Kaoru.)
It was my first time meeting Shizuka's mother, and she was so sweet and nice, and she knew a fair amount of English, so that helped too. I tried some unusual stuff that night... beef toungue, beef heart, and small intestine. A few beers really lowers your inhibitions when it comes to food.


Outside the restaurant...


Later on that night at Shizuka's house, they threw an early mini-surprise b-day party for me. The cake reads "O-tanjoubi omedetou Brian" or "Happy birthday Brian" and it was Oishii.


I slept at Shizuka's because we were going to "Tokyo Disney Sea" the next morning and it's near where she lives. I slept in a Japanese style bedroom on a futon, and it was sooo comfortable. This is the room I slept in.

Tokyo Tower

Kaoru and I went to Tokyo Tower. It's the Japanese version of the Eiffel Tower. They use it as a television signal broadcast tower, and a tourist trap. I normally try to avoid the touristy-type things, but I figured I would get some nice shots of the city from the tallest structure in Tokyo, and I was right.


Some interesting facts about the Tokyo Tower...

Height: 333 meters. Eiffel tower is a mere 320 meters. (suck it, Paris!!)

Weight: a slim, trim 4,000 tons. Eiffel is 7,000 tons. (Paris, see above.)

Birthday: Tokyo tower opened in 1958. The same year that instant ramen noodle soup was introduced to the world. (I don't think Paris minds this fact so much.)


On a clear day you can see Mt. Fuji to the south. This wasn't a very clear day unfortunately.




I picked up a souvenir at the gift shop. Like it or not I am a tourist after all.

Akihabara Electric Town

I went to Akihabara, the area of Tokyo known as electric town because there's sooo many different electronics stores/vendors. They have any and every type of video game, gadget, camera. Some parts of Akihabara are like a flea market with used, beat up, and sometimes even non working old electronics for sale in big bins on the ground, and then there's also the high end, high priced electronics boutiques. I only took a few pictures on my phone, because that's all I had on me, but I'll be going back with the good camera for better coverage.

This is my favorite store in Akihabara. It's called "Super Potato" and it's made for people who nerd out for retro home video games and consoles. (Me.)
The first two floors were jammed with every game and system imaginable, and some of the really rare systems had pricetags in the thousands. They had signs in Japanese and English saying that you weren't supposed to take pictures, so I took some of these from the doorway.



The top floor was a retro arcade that was mostly full of coctail style arcade machines, and a few sit dow standard style arcade machines. The machines were hacked/tweaked to make them easier to win. For instance I played Final fight to nearly the end stage on just one coin, because they made the punch button set to matrix-like turbo speed. There was also a throne made out of old Japanese nintendo cartridges, presumably for the king of nerd-land. I sat in it.

Questionable product names Pt. 2...

This one might not qualify as a questionable product name, because I think there really is placenta in there, animal or human placenta, I'm not sure.

Mitama Matsuri summer festival

Went with Kaoru & Shizuka to the Yasukuni Jinja shrine to attend the Mitama Matsuri Festival. According to Kaoru, the purpose of the festival is to "enshrine our Japanese ancestors". It was pretty fun although insanely jammed with people.


There were many, many food vendors along the main path.



The "catch a goldfish" game...


There was a pretty funny haunted house attraction. Lots of dudes in masks jumping out from behind corners and scaring the crap out of you. good stuff.



Traditional "Bon Dance" performance.

onlookers joined the dance around the stage.

There had to be over 100,000 lanterns there, and I'm not even exaggerating. It just kept on going and going....



Several large groups of people hoisted these mini "portable shrines" up on their shoulders and slowly carried it to the main shrine while continually chanting and bouncing up and down in unison.



Kaoru doing the purification ritual meant to show respect for the shrine.