Japan 2.12: Disneysea and a 5 floor toy store

Before writing about the day, there are two things that I had forgotten to mention.

1.  Yesterday, we got a One Piece fortune, from a fortune telling machine.  We were able to get someone to translate the message for us, and it something along the lines of, "If you study hard, there is nothing you cannot achieve."

2.  Onsens.  I tried my first onsen, or hot spring/bath, in Nikko.  First, you wash yourself on a stool, with soap and a showerhead.  Then you go in the bath.  There were two inside baths.  One hot and the other, hotter.  There was also an outside bath.  I chose the hotter bath.  Genders are segregated and it is nude only.  It is an experience that is very unique for Japan and there are many, many towns dedicated to onsen.  There was only one other person, that used the other bath, and didn't say a word to me, which was fine.  It was just "eh" of an experience to me.  The heat helped my muscles relax though, better than a bath.

  The second time I tried the onsen was in Yudanaka.  This time I took pictures, though they are of poor quality, as they were taken with my phone.  Yudanaka's facilities were much nicer and I had the place completely to myself.  It was great for my muscles, but the experience is still a bit creepy to me.



On to today's events.  Miles was not informed on what we would be doing today.  We woke up at 6:10, ate breakfast downstairs, gathered our jackets, and around 7.  Disneysea opened at 8, while we arrived at the gates at 7:55.  Miles had no clue until he saw the signs as we were entering Disney territory.  He had a few questions about the park("Does it have rides?") and then became incredibly excited.

We took the Disney monorail from the train station exit.  Their monorail is much more modern and well themed than Florida's.  It had mickey windows, handle bars, and if you went to the front cart, you have a clear view through the front windows.  There is no driver there.  Unfortunately, I did not think to take a picture of the front.



The entrance to the park is beautiful, as is the initial view once past the entrance area.



We beelined it to our first ride, The Journey to the Center of the Earth.  We grabbed a fastpass, rode the ride twice like normal, went to the next ride, and then doubled back to use our fastpass for a third go.



The line was well done.  You were lead to a long elevator that shook, with flashing lights, making it seem like you were going deep into the earth.  In reality, you were actually going up, but I didn't realize that until later.  The vehicle was three rows of 2.  It starts out slow, through crystal caverns, until you reach a huge monster.  Then, you speed up tremendously, spiraling upwards until you are spit out of the volcano's top into a short drop that appears and feel more dramatic due to the height as you emerge. 

This is the only borderline acceptable image taken while on the ride.

This is the view when looking up at the mountain.  The smoky area in the top left is where the car exits into the drop, disappearing again back into the mountain.

Next up was the ride 20,000 leagues Under the Sea.  The line was empty.  There are three two person benches in the submarine.  We got the entire sub to ourselves.  That being said, it was still a very cramped feeling.  Also, the screens were below you, so it almost forced you to bend down a bit, which was uncomfortable.  I understand that it is all supposed to be underwater, and looking down, but it just wasn't comfortable.



Miles took the front bench, while I took the side one.  Watching both of ours, his was clearly the better seat.  It made us seem like we were underwater and moved along, showing us the sights of the deep blue.  Occasionally, our joystick would light up, and moving it would move a flashlight shining out from the sub in our section.

While exiting the ride, we caught a wave crashing against the nearby rocks.  Miles had us wait and watch for further waves.



Once I was able to drag Miles away from the waves, we went straight for the new ride to the park, a Nemo ride.  We locked in fastpasses for two hours later, and went to a nearby ride, Aquatopia.  It was a short and slightly nauseating ride that moved you in the water and spun you around.  The technology is neat though, as it is a trackless system and there were different "courses" depending on which car you got, that brought you around the area slightly different.



Afterwards, we wandered toward the furthest area from the entrance, which had an Indiana Jones ride.  The outside and the inside line area were spectacular.



The ride experience was identical to the Dinosaur ride in The Animal Kingdom, but in brighter surroundings and Indiana Jones themes.  It was odd to hear Indiana speaking in Japanese.  I guess it makes sense though that an explorer would be versed in different languages!  The ride ended with a massive boulder heading our way, with us ducking underneath it.  Miles had a wonderful time.

Next door was Raging Spirits, which was a clone of the Indiana Jones themed wooden roller coaster in Disney Paris.  Miles complained about the seats hurting him in Paris, so I warned him that this was an identical coaster.  He wanted to go anyway. 



The line was fairly long.  When we were ready to board, I requested that we be seated in the back car of the two.  The woman informed me that the last row is "Japanese sized."  I suggested the front row of the second car, and she put us there.  It was slightly more roomy, but my knees were less than an inch from the end of the car.  Now that I think about it, there is indeed a warning ahead of time that you must be under six foot three in order to ride.  I found the ride to be enjoyable.  Miles had no problem with the seats this time, and enjoyed the ride, but complained that it was too short.

Following the circle of the park, we went on a Sinbad ride. 



This was a small boat ride, a la It's a Small World.  There was a lot of singing in Japanese, that was shockingly good in my opinion.  The ride was long and the scenery was varied.  Miles enjoyed it too.



We walked through the kiddie area, themed after Little Mermaid.



It took us three attempts at vendors to find an English map after I had misplaced mine.  At one, I said "aygo" for "English."  She handed me a Japanese map.

We were within our fastpass time period, so the Nemo ride was next.  We stood in line and were told something in Japanese.



We were then let into a small theater sized room.  The ride was like Star Tours, in Hollywood Studios(or any other motion simulator ride), but with more seats.   It was cute, and Miles enjoyed it.

Hungry now, we went towards a buffet that I had looked into.  It had western food for Miles and it supposedly had a good variety.  Before waiting on line, I stopped by the Tower of Terror next door, that seems to be the attraction that they build in every Disney park it seems, and the fastpasses were deep into the night.  No thanks.  We waited in line for a bit, while Miles grumbled about the length of the wait and how they were conspiratorial letting all the people with babies in, ahead of us.  He really enjoyed the food.



I looked into a show that was highly rated from online sources, that had its venue nearby.  The show booklet given to me by the park explained that you needed to enter into a lottery to possibly get reserved seats.  Otherwise, there was a limited amount of unreserved seats for each show.  We walked there after the buffet, in time for a show.  With limited English, the staff kept simply saying that it was lottery only.  It didn't make sense to me, and we just walked away.

I was interested in a fortress that everyone online said to check out, in the middle of the park.  On the way there, a shop caught our eye when we saw a fountain on top of a pile of gold.  It was a store dedicated to Scrooge McDuck, from Ducktales!



Precisely zero pieces of merchandise were Ducktales related.  This was massively disappointing. 

Miles really did not want to go to the fortress area.  I insisted anyway.  At the bottom of the fortress was a ship.  We walked onboard and Miles discovered that the three cannons would make the ground rumble and blow smoke as if firing, if he pulled the fuse.  He did not want to leave.  He played there, while I sat on the ground with my phone, for nearly an hour.  I eventually had to tell him that I was too cold, and we needed to move on.

We did a brief, survey of the fortress.  I was all Disneyed out at this point, and was ready to leave.  We discovered a room with the planets orbiting the sun.  There were handles in front of plaques of each planet, and spinning them around in a circle would rotate the planets around the sun above us.  This occupied Miles for a while.



We also found an alchemist's laboratory.



There was a hint based scavenger hunt for the fortress, but this was only available in Japanese, which was really disappointing.  At this point, I asked Miles if he was ok with leaving.  He said it was fine.

On the train ride towards our hotel, I noticed a man carrying a bag that said, "Tokyo Comic Con."  Then I looked up and saw an advertisement on the train for it.  Apparently, it is right in town, near Disney, and featured Stan Lee and Nathan Fillion, along with a few more lesser actors. 

While on the train, I looked up our area of Tokyo and tried to find any stores that would be interesting.  There was a two story craft store and a five story toy store. 

While walking, we found multiple copies of the same robot that we saw at our first hotel.  The craft store was disappointing, as its second floor was closed for some reason.  Miles really didn't want to check out the toy store, but I insisted.  We ended up spending over an hour there.  Each floor was different.  One floor was dedicated to miscellaneous items.

Hand gel covers.

Samurai Darth Vader

Another floor had aisles of stuffed animals.

Miles had found our cat, Gibson.

One floor had action figures and a huge race track in the back, for remote control cars.

One was filled with puzzles, games, card tricks, and more Star Wars items.

A Star Wars tie for those special occasions.

The basement floor was dedicated to fashion dolls, so we did not venture there.

We walked home to retire for the night.  We must have taken a popular street, as there were beautiful lamp lights.  We also found a pretty neat Christmas bauble mountain that changed colors.

Tomorrow is our final day in Japan.