Disneyland - Detail

4:30am and the morning filled our room with sunshine. We got up and caught the train from Shinigawa to Tokyo Station, and then on an adjoining train to Disneyland, stopping for a quick sandwich on the way.

Buying tickets at Shinagawa

The whole place is impressively clean and coordinated. Trains arrive every minute and stop with precision, lining the doors up with markers on the platform perfectly. There is no sign of graffiti or tagging and everything looks well maintained.

It is only day two and already Tokyo feels comfortable, almost familiar. The TV commercials on the train provide an endless source of amusement and before we know it, were pulling into Tokyo Disneyland.

Disneyland
We walked from the platform with hundreds of other excited Disney-goers and lined up in the sun. It was hot and not even 9:00am. The lines were enormous and I can only impinge how long the wait for rides was going to be. After I exchanged the voucher for our tickets, the doors opened and we went in.

Wow.

The place was not just a replica of the Disney land in the states, it exceeded it. It could be because it was 16 years ago that we were in Disney LA, but this place seemed brighter, more modern. The boys were in awe as we charted our path, trying to hit the most important attractions first.

The centerpiece of the park.

Great apple and Orange icypoles in the shape of Mickey.

They have a system called “fast pass” in which you approach a ride and feed your ticket into a machine and it gives you a pass for the ride but for a time suited to the park. It might say, come back in 1 hour. Then, in an hour, you don't queue for ninety minutes with everyone else, you fast track to the front and get on in something more like ten minutes. It took us a while to get the hang of this. We were in a huge queue for the haunted mansion, shielding ourselves from the sun as best we could and were annoyed that there seemed to be this other queue passing us at a rate of knots. Anyhow, we worked it out and found we could book in a time for what we wanted, go and shop or eat or simply wander the park, then return and get on easily.

We saw everything we wanted to and more. All the classics which, like the pirates of the Caribbean ride had undergone a substantial overhaul (animatronic Johnny Depp for instance) and all the new rides too. The animatronics were amazing to me. The fluidity of the characters bordered on the best of cel animation. In the Tiki room (daggy I know) the birds all sang like the kitsch show of the sixties that it was, but as a finalle, an animatronic Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) emerged form a pot in the center of the room and played a ukelele. I was suitably impressed. No sounds of motors and the thing was quite believable (even if his paws missed the Uke's strings).

The attention to detail at the place is simply amazing. Sculptured detail and strokes of authenticity kept us constantly intrigued and entertained.

Detail everywhere.

Every attraction had it's staff in different costuming, and on the subject of staff. In the states, the vacuous grins and sunny disposition seemed a little fake but here, the smiles and warmth and politeness is utterly believable. It whole place didn't seem friendly, it simply was. The boys asked for drinks in Japanese, Sharon took every opportunity to ask in Japanese for what we needed and I jumped in too even though I had less preparation time at home. (That said, if I anybody needs to identify a small truck, I can confidently press through the crowd, point at it and exclaim in my best Japanese, “It's a small truck!” much to the delight of  the assembled onlookers. I imagine everyone being impressed.


The haunted mansion was great, and despite being and old school type ride, had the boys bamboozled as to how the apparitions were created.

We did...
Big thunder mountain (Yay! Mine cars though the wild west)
Pirates of the Caribbean (See above. Good fun)
Jungle cruise (dated, rubber jungle animals but funny because of the Japanese guide)
Western River railroad (Scenic railroad)
Swiss family tree house (another old school attraction. I didn't like the heights)
The enchanted Tiki room (see above.)
Splash mountain (nicely made water ride with a great drop at the end)
Chip and Dale's tree house,

Minnie's house

Mickey's house (met Mickey there. Got some fun photos)

Gadget's go coaster (small but fun coaster. Sharon filled the whole thing)


The smallest roller-coaster we did so it was easy to record. :)

Monster's Inc. ride and go seek (really fun ride where you find monsters with torches)
Star tours (dated Star Wars simulator)

Droids everywhere.

Space mountain (OMG! Completely bark and blindingly fast roller coaster)

Waiting to have the life scared out of us

Buzz Lightyears astro blaster (another newer, un ride. Really cool animatronic Buzz lightyear)

A great animatronic Buzz with a projected, animated face.

Starjets (very old Disney rocket ride)
Toontown

Between the rides and shopping, we ate a lot and took a lot of photographs.

There was a lot of conversation through the day about what Astro might think of any given thing. What would he make of Chip and Dale? What would he do if he ate one of those... What do you think he's doing right now? Curled on a blanket in the cold with Cooper? What if he was way over there? What would he do if he saw us? A stare for a beat, then ears down and a fast bolt across the flagstones to us!

Then it was 10:00pm and time to go home. We were spent, our camera batteries were flat and we waited with throbbing feet for a courtesy bus. It arrived (on time naturally) and we rode home though a dark city.

That night, having only one power adapter (damn that girl in Chadstone that sold me the wrong plug) I had to set the alarm on my phone to wake met at intervals to charge the cameras and my phone in turn. Every three hours.. sheesh.