Japan: March 20 - 27
Tokyo : Wednesday March 22, 2006
Today we got up very early to catch a train to Tokyo Disney. We got up at 6:15 and began the hike to Tokyo station, where we caught a 15 min. long train to head towards “The 4’ th Happiest Place on Earth”. As we soon discovered the Japanese have a much greater love for Disney than the Americans or the French. We had to wait 20 min AFTER the booths opened to buy our tickets, just so we could get into an even BIGGER line to get through the gate. Obviously the locals knew about the wait time, so they brought electronics. Every third person had either a game boy or a mp3 player. Five minutes before the gates opened the characters started coming out. Minnie, Pooh, Donald and the Big Bad Wolf were all deployed in an attempt to stop the hordes of people. To make a long story short, it didn’t work. While we were waiting for the 100 people in front of us to enter the park, we saw all of the people from the other lines running pell mell towards the entrance to the rides. I even saw one determined Disney goer viciously elbow Pooh when he tried to slow him down. We eventually got through the gate and into the “world bazaar”. As we saw all of the people running down the narrow street towards the rides, dad and I tried to come up with a phrase that would fit the situation. We finally decided on ‘AHHHHHHHHH, IT’S GODZIILA’. Perhaps a mythical 20 foot tall fire breathing lizard would have been preferable to the sight that awaited us next:
Space Mountain: Wait time 30 min.
Only to be followed roughly three seconds later by:
Space Mountain: Wait time 40 min.
As the wait time continued to climb, Mom suggested that we get a fast pass for it so that we could go back later. We asked one of the cast-members where we should go to get a fast pass. She pointed us towards a huge undulating mass of people about 15 people wide and 40 people deep. Yes, the line for the fast pass was at least a 20 min wait. Then mom hopefully suggested “well let’s try the Buzz Lightyear ride, that one can’t be as long”
Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters: Wait time 45 minutes
Getting desperate now mom stammered “okay let’s go to the car racing ride” Sure enough the car racing ride had only a 15 min long wait. We soon discovered that this was because the cars didn’t work. The steering on them was completely wrong, and even if you held the wheel still the car still swerved. We bumped into the guide rail many times. (Note from the editor: Only Brennan’s car seemed to have a steering problem. We all think that it was the driver not the vehicle.) After one more hopeful check of the Buzz ride and Space Mountain (70 min. and 75 min. respectively) we headed into Toon town. Our hopes of finding a shorter ride line were soon crushed. The wait time for Goofy’s bounce house was 30 minutes, and to meet Mickey was 45. Mom and Sierra decided to go on Gadget’s mini coaster because the wait was only 15 minutes. After that we went onto Roger Rabbit’s cartoon spin after waiting 30 min. We then wandered into Adventure land and proceeded to wait 30 min for the jungle cruise in Japanese. As we hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet, mom mutinied and bought us had 3 tiny little sandwiches. Dad and I went to the Pirates of the Caribbean and mom and Sierra went to watch the princess parade. After the parade it was decided that we would walk around the park and then leave. After waiting 40 minutes for the pirates, dad and I visited some of the shops in order to get a gift for Sierra, who was feeling pretty let down by this whole thing. We decided on a triangular Pooh bear pillow. The parade hadn’t started yet so dad and I managed to get there and join up with mom and Sierra. Sierra saw that she got a present, but dad wouldn’t let her see it until after the parade. She was a little distracted but it didn’t keep her from taking lots of pictures of her favorite princesses. Mom and Sierra loved watching all the little Japanese girls dressed up in fancy costumes and dancing with the cast members. It turned out that she liked the present, as we thought she would.
On our final walk around Tokyo Disney we saw three amazing things that we have never seen before in any of our Disney visits worldwide. The first one was the astonishing wait time for Splash Mountain. The standby line, (without fast passes) was 150 minutes! Who would wait that long in a line for anything?????? Just around the corner in front of the Mark Twain’s riverboat, was the second odd sighting. We saw people queuing up 40 deep to buy turkey drumsticks for their lunch. No poultry would be worth that. All the other food vendors and restaurants were equally busy. As we were leaving the park, mom wanted to have a quick look in one of the souvenir shops in the World Bazaar. Pushing her way in through the crush of frenzied Disney shoppers, she made a tour of the store and then headed back to the sidewalk. If we had wanted to buy anything, it wouldn’t have happened today because the line-up to pay for an item was at least 30 people deep. It was worse than the Christmas shopping lines back home. I figure with all the people in the park and then with all the food and souvenirs purchased, Disney was hauling in a mint.
After taking the train back to Tokyo station, we attempted to purchase our tickets to Osaka. Not having tickets for the Shinkansen (or Bullet Train) for our trip to Osaka on March 24, was bothering dad. We had already tried once yesterday but the travel agency near the hotel was closed. It took a while to find the ticket office in the maze of Tokyo Station and then to explain to the clerk what we wanted. Eventually it all looked like we would have our tickets but then the machine wouldn’t accept any of our credit cards. It didn’t recognize our international cards. So we wandered around the station for half an hour until we realized that there were no international ATMs either. At this point mom suggested we try another ticket office; perhaps their credit card readers might take her Visa which dad hadn’t tried before. Ten minutes later dad emerged looking rather sheepish with a stack of tickets in his hand. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we realized that we could finally leave the train station. My major highlight for the day was the Sony store. It was very fun seeing all of the futuristic products for sale. My favorite was the mp3 player that looked like it was just one piece of metal but when you turned it on a screen appeared! I tried to get one but dad wouldn’t let me.
Thursday, March 23, 2006: Tokyo, Japan
When Brian and I woke up this morning, we didn’t have any set plans because the weather was quite unsettled. On our first day here we had toyed with the idea of visiting the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market but got going too late that morning. So today at 6:30 am, the two of us headed out on foot to see it. We couldn’t convince the kids that seeing aisles of fish was worth getting up so early. The last few days have started in the wee hours, so Brian and I gave them a break. Or at least that was the plan for just as we were leaving, Brennan got up to get access to the computer and the internet for two uninterrupted hours. We left him with a huge smile on his face.
The market was a couple of kilometers away from our hotel and it was drizzling. So it wasn’t a pleasant stroll but all the activity at the market made it worth the trip. I had never seen such a large fish market before this one. The fish were still being off-loaded from trucks and distributed in small Styrofoam coolers throughout the market to the vendors. Motorized trolleys whipped around the tight alleys and pathways through the vendors. It was an organized chaos! However, we noticed that the vendors kept their stalls very clean and organized. The variety of seafood in fresh, frozen, dried, pickled and live forms available for purchase was astounding. Some types were recognizable such as shrimp, crabs, tuna etc but there were many species that I didn’t have a clue about. The red coloured octopus really caught my eye, as it looked dyed.
After the market we had planned to visit a nearby park but with the resumption of the rain, we turned back to the hotel. Sierra must have been really tired because she was still asleep but Brennan was continuing happily on the computer.
Eventually Sierra woke up, so we could plan our day. As the weather continued to be gray and overcast, Brian and I thought it would be a good day to visit the Tokyo National Museum near Ueno Park. Brennan was less than impressed with this choice as it also included more gardens, shrines and a cemetery. I think that he has had enough of Asian architecture and history after all the touring we have done here for the last 2.5 months. So I gave him the option of staying in the hotel room but he had to do the journaling for the first three days of Japan. He jumped on this opportunity and you probably just finished reading his efforts. Unfortunately for Sierra, she didn’t get this option and we made her go with us.
It turned out to be her lucky day because as we exited the subway at Ueno Park, the sun peeked out between the clouds. Then we discovered from the park map that there was a large zoo located here. So our first stop wasn’t the “boring” museum (as titled by the kids) but rather a couple of hours at a fabulous zoo. Sierra was so thrilled to see Giant Pandas, Giant Japanese salamanders, Galapagos turtles, penguins and more that she is going to tell you about our visit to the zoo.
The Ueno Zoo by Sierra:
The zoo was great. We started off with the giant panda, a very cute animal that I had never seen before. Every time some one took a photo with a bright flash, the panda raised its head. Some other new animals for me were sun bears, raccoon dogs, armadillos, the giant Japanese salamander, Sumatran tigers and various birds. The armadillos were so funny. They were running around blindly and a couple of times they ran into each other head on. There was also a crocodile and a turtle as big as me. The zoo had thousands of birds too. The Ueno Zoo was a very nice surprise.
As we walked through Ueno Park, we passed dozens of cherry trees just beginning to blossom. They were beautiful; attracting just a few photographers today because of the weather. Eventually we arrived at the Tokyo National Museum and it wasn’t the “boring” museum in my opinion. However, Sierra was tired and hungry by this point (1 o’clock) so she wouldn’t have given a high evaluation for anything. I liked the museum because it gave a good, concise overview of Japanese art and archaeology, from 10,000 years ago to the end of the Edo period in the late 1800’s. We saw paintings and calligraphy on scrolls, pottery, porcelain and lacquerware, statues, theatrical costumes and masks, traditional dress, swords, armour, painted screens and much more. Some of the pieces were obviously influenced by Chinese styles but most of them were uniquely Japanese. I really liked the garments and Brian was most interested in all the swords. Sierra hoped to see a collection of fans but we didn’t find one. She wants to get one from Japan and wanted to understand about the different types available.
Just outside of the rear gardens of the museum was the Tokugawa Shogun Cemetery. I thought it was going to be an old cemetery but it was a modern one named after a famous leader and family that reigned from 1600 to 1868, during the Edo period. The grave sites were so different from others that I have seen. The headstones were very thin and engraved with characters but this wasn’t the most unique feature. What intrigued me were the large (up to 4m) wooden sticks shaped like tongue depressors that were propped up beside the headstones and covered in black Japanese characters. Brian thought that they were prayers for or epitaphs of the deceased, as the sticks at each grave were the same but differed from grave to grave. Sierra spotted small “mailboxes” in front of some of the headstones; perhaps they were for prayers as well. Many of the headstones had small altars for incense and other offerings. Brian liked the family that left a can of beer on their loved one’s grave. Large decoratively shaped trees (like gigantic bonsai), separated many of the plots and added spots of colour to the mostly gray landscape. It was a very serene place.
By this point it was almost 3 o’clock and now I was joining Sierra in her quest for lunch. Walking back to the subway, we noticed a take-out window and ordered some fried dumplings just to curb our hunger for a while. It didn’t hold us for long because somewhere lost in translation, we ended up with one large dumpling instead of the three shown in the picture. So far we had been quite successful in our menu pointing choices, this was the first time that we didn’t get what we expected. At least the dumpling was tasty but it was just a mouthful for each of us. We would have ordered more but when we discovered the price was for one dumpling rather than three, we chose to wait and order elsewhere.
We gave Sierra the opportunity to choose lunch since she had been dragged out with us this morning. Her pick for today was KFC (again!!!) and we did a big takeout order near the hotel. It left the hotel room smelling like fried chicken but three out of four of us were pleased with the meal. (It’s not my favourite and twice in Asia is too often for me.) The problem was that everyone else was full with such a big lunch at four o’clock. So I didn’t get dinner either!
Tomorrow we are off to Osaka on the bullet train. ( NEXT PAGE )