Disneyland

Since Monday was an American holiday, we went to Disneyland.  It was still pretty crowded.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  Sunny and low humidity.  Lots of Japanese used this day to skip work and enjoy the park.  By the time we got hot, the wind picked up and we had a pleasant afternoon.

We took Thomas with us.  He is a year older than William, and was a fun playmate while we waited in lines.  Our longest wait was for the Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster.  Over 2 hours.  

They did really well, considering we were all bunched up for the longest time.  They would play, fight, mess around.  I appreciated not having to entertain William.

Tokyo Disney has FastPass options which makes the lines shorter, but the lines to get the FastPass tickets were HUGE!!!  We only managed to get one FastPass for the day, and then the park was out of them (you have to wait for a period of time before you can request another).  We got Splash Mountain tickets so our wait was 15 minutes versus 2 hours predicted from the end of the standby wait line.

What did amaze me was how long the lines were for the carts for beverages and snacks.  To be fair, night time Disneyland gets long lines around the stands where everyone is waiting for the shows or parades.  But this began from morning and lasted all day.  

Tokyo Disney has another way to slow the patrons down from getting in line for the rides.  They have re-fillable popcorn buckets.  You can get different Disney characters on them, and you can bring them back to the park.  The refills are only $5.

  The equivalent amount of popcorn in two cardboard boxes is $6.  The lines to re-fill them are atrocious!  The boys needed a snack, and they went to wait in the Thunder Mountain Railroad line, and I waited 20

 minutes for popcorn.  That was the shortest line for popcorn that I saw that day.  Thomas wanted to get the Buzz Lightyear bucket, but for $13.50, we gave it a skip.  Plus, I didn't want to carry it around all day.  I did see buckets from Christmas-time, and ones that the park no longer sells.  The good news is that the popcorn snack helped distract the boys for a bit of the 2 hour wait. 

Tim and I got to practice our 'summimasen' and 'gomen nasai' as we had to apologize for the boys several times.  They would be horsing around and bump the people in front or behind us. 

The worst was in the line to ride the rockets.  William and Thomas were kind of shoving back and forth (no fighting, just being silly games).  Thomas reached out a hand to steady himself.  Instead of the butt ahead of him being mine, it was the lady in line in front of us.  I had moved to the side.  We were hugely embarrassed.  We apologized.  The people kind of thought it was funny.  Their boy must have been around 6, so she probably understood.  

Both William and Thomas loved getting to drive the cars.  They were both terrible at it, hitting the guide rail all the time.  At one point, Thomas and I came along-side a Japanese lady driving.  At full-throttle, we were going the same speed along a straight part of the track.  She looked over and I did a pantomime by pointing at Thomas, tipping a bottle back and zig-zaggy driving, like he had been hitting the sauce and driving drunk.  She laughed.

Tim was kind enough to sit and wait and stake out a spot for great parade viewing.  It was the electric parade, and it was just fun.  They use the same music as the classic electric parade in America Disneyland.  While Tim and William waited, I took Thomas shopping.  His mom had said to get him a souvenir, and something for the 2-year-old daughter at home.  Thomas can shop.  But, he couldn't make a decision.  So, we ended up not getting anything.

Thankfully, the parade wrapped up, and we had a few minutes to go get what Thomas had decided upon as we waited for the parade to start.  Tim also got a tie with very small Mickey shaped dots.  Kinda neat since he is wearing ties to work all the time now.  He needs more of a selection.  

We took the kids out of the park gates to watch the fireworks.  We didn't want to get into a bottle-neck of people trying to get out.  It was perfect.  We got back to the bus, and there was a quick sprinkle of rain.

William fell asleep within minutes.  Thomas went to sleep after talking to his mom on the phone.  I wanted her to know we were on the bus and safely headed home, and what time I might show up.

If you want to experience Disneyland here, I'd say, "Do it!"  It was like being back home for a day.  Some of the food choices were different.  Because of the language barrier, I ended up getting shrimp burgers instead of chicken nuggets for the boys.  I fed my sandwich (chicken) to William.  It was a grilled chicken thigh with the skin still on it in a bun.  We took it out of the bun, scraped off the sauce, took off the skin, and William cheerfully ate it.  Thomas had stated he'd only wanted fries in the first place, so he was happy.  A shrimp burger has whole pieces of recognizable shrimp in it.  It is shaped like a patty, breaded and deep fried.  They're pretty good, and every McDonalds has them here.  Well, except the McDonalds on base.  Only American food there!