The forecast is 40 degrees F, cold, cloudy and rainy all day in Tokyo. It's the second day of Boyfriend's meeting at Tokyo Tech and I have to kill 9 hours of the day alone. I'm shopped out and too large (by Tokyo's standards) to give shopping another try. There's is only one solution to this problem: Tokyo Disneyland.
This specific day is a Japanese holiday known as Seijin no hi or "Coming of Age day." Every year on the second Monday of January, young eager 20-year-olds get a day off school and sport their traditional garb to showcase their new stature as official adults. Before heading out Tokyo Disneyland, I went to the same panya as before to get a satisfying breakfast. Luckily, I got a preview of what Seijin no hi was like in person.
There were a few young girls dressed in their gorgeous kimonos, fur stoles, kanzashi (hair adornments) and geta (sandals). They were so beautiful, and they knew it, taking pictures of themselves. Ha!
My honey biscuit thing with the girls
As I rode the train from the hotel to Tokyo Disneyland, I began to notice all the people in rain coats, vinyl coats, leather shoes and earmuffs. I was beginning to get worried. I wasn't planning on riding Splash Mountain, but I didn't think weather would hurt too much. After all, I read a review online saying that the park is still fun even with some rain... though they probably wrote it for April or May, not January!
When I finally got off the train, the parks were right in front of the station... sort of. There was an immediate fork. This confused me considering the California Disney park layout; one park is right in front of the other. I had to walk about 10 minutes either way to get to a park, and there didn't seem to be any short cut the get from one to the other. Either way, it was time to get trekking, the park had already been open for an hour.
I have arrived!
Ta-dah!
When I first entered the park I was relieved to find that the World Bazaar/ entrance to the park was covered. Thanks goodness! As I walked through the many shops in the World Bazaar I noticed all the cute merchandise. If it was a nice day out I would've definitely spend way more than the price of admission in those shops.
Everything was so different than in the Disney stores I had been in before. There were no stuffed animals or dolls, no mouse ears, no costumes. Everything had a purpose. I even saw on the descriptions of the shops on the map, "Useful items" was used quite often. The snacks were rice crackers, the candy was individually wrapped and in adorable tins, the practical household items were character themed (like tissues, toothbrushes, lint rollers, stationary, etc). It was so different, but charming.
Tins of crackers
Chopsticks and rice paddles
Wall-o-underwear
Wedding card
Stationary
Tea cup and shoyu dish
Blocked Mickey and Minnie
Once I emerged from the Bizarre, there it was: Cinderella's Castle. The entrance to Fantasyland. Unlike the Disneyland castle, the inside is completely decked out with a sort of art gallery tour of the different movie scenes. At ground level there's a swarovski store with a beautiful hallway mural made of tile framing it's entrance.
The hall way of the castle
Inside the castle
Floor tiles
Every girl's dream
Just your ordinary chandelier
Swarovski castle
Everyone needs a swarovski duck with headphones
The mouse himself
Fantasyland was very quaint, not in the way that the California park is, but cute. The cottages were replaced with modern ride entrances but updated queues and even It's a Small World has a colorful face. Of course, just like when I went to Disney in summer, I missed the Haunted Mansion again, due to the seasonal decorating and undecorating.
I'll get you some day!
Beautiful girls in kimonos in front of Small World
Mickey hands as earmuffs!
Thought the USA rocket was funny
As the day continued, I needed some salvation. I armed myself with the only flat footwear I brought to Japan, my ballet flats and a pair of thin black socks. After about 30 minutes of rain, my feet were soaked. I headed back to the World Bazaar shops to find a solution.
The last time I was on a Disney theme park mission was when I went to Disneyland with a high school friend and the airline lost my luggage. Thank goodness for Downtown Disney, or else I would've had to go 3 days without fresh underwear. Let me tell you, it is no small feat looking for adult clothing in Disney. This time it was shoes. They had so many shoes for children, but I managed to find a pair of fuzzy socks and rubber soled sneakers for adults.
Micky and Minnie socks
My new Disney kicks
When I came out of the covered area I was shocked to find SNOW! Literally the first thing that popped in my head wasn't, "Oh no!" or, "Is the park going to close?" but more like, "Well, this would never happen in California or Florida! :-D" I took it as a once in a lifetime experience, after all snow is beautiful and Disney is beautiful. Everything will be fine.
The man, the mouse, the snow
Outside of the Winnie the Pooh store
It's a Small World
For lunch I decided to go a little upscale. Ordering pizza in a line wasn't going to cut it. I was alone and willing the spend the dough on an all out Disney themed lunch. Wouldn't be the first time I shelled out a good amount of money for food at Disney, wasn't going to be my last.
I chose the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall in Fantasyland, right next to Small World. It's kind of an upscale cafeteria-like place, but it's better than eating out of a box.
Care for some tea? (before the snow)
The menu
The cafeteria
My heart-shaped hambuger patty with cheese, veggies, tomato sauce and crown-shaped cracker
Also: heart-shaped strawberry mousse
Inside decor
More decor
Restaurant and It's a Small World
One of the surprises of the trip to Disney was Pooh's Honey Hunt. My only memory of any Winnie the Pooh rides at Disney was in California with my family, and it was great. This, however, was amazing. The technology, the decorations, the design, the queue.... it was all awesome.
Unexpectedly, one of the best rides in the park: Pooh's Honey Hunt
Oh Pooh, you and I are so alike
Think... think... think
Another great ride adaptation is the Monsters Inc ride. If you ever rode the Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, it's very similar. You have a flashlight in your car and when you shine your light onto a Monsters Inc helmet with the signature "M" a monster pops out. Very cute, except there are no points.
Something that I was happy to see was the Captian EO show. It reminded me of the first, and only time, I went to Walt Disney World. It was in the early 90s and I went with my grandparents. It was a pleasant flashback.
As the day went on, the snow continued to pile up. It become more and more difficult to navigate the park. My rubber-soled shoes become inadequate in the 3.1 inches of snow and my feet were sinking into the slushy snow and try as they might, the park workers couldn't shovel it fast enough.
New Orleans Square
Adventureland
Enchanted Tiki Room
Waterfall in Adventureland
I'm not sure if it was the doing of the park goers, or the crew members, but every once in a while I spotted little Mickey Mouse snowmen around the park. Cute enough to melt your heart.
Space mountain, with a 10 min line. WHAT!
Since the park was prepared for such weather, each store had umbrellas, ponchos, mittens, hats and children's rain boots. But the weather was unforgiving and the 50 mph winds tore up umbrellas all over Tokyo. The park and the city, normally extremely clean, became graveyards for abandoned umbrellas.
Luckily my yellow child-sized Disney umbrella withstood the powerful gusts and I managed to take a quick picture with my fellow short people before leaving the park.
ooooOOOOOoooo the claaawwww
Disneyland hotel on the way back to train station
Unfortunately due to weather and lack of time, I didn't get to visit Tokyo Sea. But it's just another excuse to return to Tokyo's busiest attraction. At the train station, I bought a hot chocolate from the vending machine, solely for the purpose of warming my hands since my cotton gloves were soaked. I got back to the hotel a mere 45 minutes before Boyfriend and his collaborators returned from their meeting. Thank goodness, considering he had the key to the hotel room and I was sitting in the lobby.
When it was time for dinner, I could think of nothing better than to get out of the cold and find a warm bowl of soup near the hotel. Unfortunately for us, it was a holiday and a snowy one at that, so many establishments were closed, or at least closed before 8pm. We finally stumbled upon a Chinese-style casual restaurant and I got something called tan tan, whatever that may be. At least is tasted good.
Tan tan
For our last full day in Tokyo I had to get dessert. The entire time we had been in Japan, I hadn't had dessert. I passed by so many little patisseries while roaming around and never took the time to buy something. It's now or never. Boyfriend, his friend Evan and I split a sampler from the dessert shop in the 7-Eleven across the street from the hotel. It looked like chocolate cake, custard, strawberry shortcake, a fruit tart, a green tea cake and a strawberry tart. Oishi (delicious)! We ate the desserts in our hotel room while watching Japanese television and trying to figure out what they were saying (aka making up translations).
Our sampler
The next day would be our last of the trip. Our flight leaving at 6:45pm from NRT gave us enough time for one or two more adventures. Bittersweet feelings of conclusion and homesickness haunted me, but didn't keep me from passing out from a long day.
-Akemi-chan
5 comments:
Hi, my name is James Wong and I am impressed with your picture's of Tokyo Disneyland. I would like to ask you two question regarding the park, was the park crowded throughout the whole day and was there any other activities such as parade or firework during the snow? The reason why I ask its because I will be visiting Tokyo Disneyland during January and I am only available to visit during coming of age day also due to scared information on the internet I can find on Google.
P.s: this is not any kind of spam message or any of those malicious type of message nor I'm being a stalker.
Hi James. The park was quite crowded at first. Not as crowded as the US parks during Summer, but still quite crowded. When the snow started falling heavily, there was an announcement throughout the park saying that the parades and fireworks would be cancelled due to the weather. However, this was an unusually large amount of snow for this time of year.
Hope that helps.
Hi Carly, may I ask you to explain more about the 'crowds'. As in was it so crowded that you couldn't ride the rides or was it crowded but you can still ride the rides. Also I heard that the fastpass can run out by afternoon if im not mistaken. Please do share more about it, I am particular about crowds.
No, that's ok I appreciate the information that you share, that was what i need for a start, its something better compare to trip adviser. Oh yea sorry but I've never been to the US parks during summer. I'm a Singaporean.
P.s: do share as much information as much as you can, it helps a lot, Thank you.
James, sorry about the US reference. It's the only parks I have to compare to.
From my understanding there was a big event in honor of Coming of Age Day. Due to this event, there was a large gathering of people coming to attend this event. The shops at the main street area were full, but any area outside was scarce.
The park wasn't packed, due to the weather. It started raining early in the morning. The longest line I had to wait in was about 45 minutes and once it started snowing the lines became very small, about 10 minutes long, even for the Fast Pass rides. To lend a bit of context, many of the park goers were dressed in their fancy robes and probably didn't want their clothing to be soaked by the rain or snow.
By the time the snow started falling heavily, many of the outdoor rides were closed, parades and shows were cancelled and even the indoor rides had very small queues.
The park is very spacious and many rides have queues that are covered. Also, the ride attendants allow single occupancy for rides. This is in contrast that the US parks where they couple you with strangers to fill up each ride to capacity to move lines faster. However, this single occupancy approach could be a park policy or it could be because the lines were so short.
The most occupied parts of the park were the food areas and the train station landing. Again, I only have the US parks to compare to, but in California the Disneyland and California Adventure park entrances are very close to each other. For Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Sea, I did not see any obvious bridge between the two. The train station acts as a type of fork in the road and you choose left for Tokyo Sea or right for Tokyo Disneyland. It was about a 5 minute walk from the station landing to the park.
I did not have enough time to explore Tokyo Sea and the snow made it difficult to walk, so I didn't risk trying. Though I do want to go eventually.
I'm sure this was a very unusual situation for Tokyo Disneyland. My research shows that Coming of Age Day is usually one of the most populated times of year for the park. So if you plan to go during that holiday and there is favorable weather, it will most likely be very crowded.
My only clothing regret is that I wish I had waterproof shoes.
Good luck James!
Carly, no not problem, its good information anyway thank you for helping me out and also given the fact that In a complete stranger here and the chance of not replying. If there's anything I'll ask you if you don't mind but once again thank you for the information.
James
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