Disney Land Tokyo

 

 

Brad and I decided to be uber nice parents and take the boys to DisneyLand so they could see it dressed up for Halloween. We had heard that Tokyo DisneyLand and Orlando DisneyWorld are exactly the same but nothing in Japan could be exactly the same as something in Orlando. Most of the attractions were close but with some small and some big tweaks. Disneyland here is truly in the city of Tokyo so they had to condense. Everything was much closer together. You realized you were entering different areas by the color of the concrete - no picturesque segues. One second you were in Westernland aka Frontierland and the next Fantasyland. From on top of Dumbo you could practically spit on the people waiting for the Haunted Mansion which has a super cute Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Most of the rides had the queues lining up outside instead of inside so to get on Pirates of the Caribbean you didn't walk through the huge pirate caves but instead took a short walk through a Louisiana type swamp complete with a houseboat shack and voila boats. Once you exited you were in New Orleans! Caribbean, New Orleans who cares close enough.

 

Oh my, back on Royal Street. I'm trying to imagine how a Japanese person would pronounce Royal, but I just can't. There was even a Mardi Gras store.

Brad and I were really hoping for some Beignets and a PoBoy but the French Quarter restaurant featured crepes with strange asian twists. Although I had brought a ton of snacks, food became a huge problem. It took several hours to find just plain popcorn. We never saw a plain popcorn truck the rest of the day. Jude almost tried the chocolate popcorn but after waiting in line the smell got to him and he bailed. The other choices were curry, caramel or soy sauce with butter. Lucien had a Micky shaped pork steam bun for lunch and poor Jude didn't find anything to eat until way late into the day when we stumbled across some chicken nuggets in Tomorrowland. We had decided to let him go off of his diet for the day so I was looking for pizza for him which I did find but it was Japanese style with shrimp and mayonnaise. Yuck.

Anyway I'm so glad we did not go on a weekend because it was insanely crowded on a Thursday. A sea of people at 8:45 am waiting for it open which shouldn't be surprising since a crowd gathers in front of the grocery store everyday at opening time. The crowds were easily 98 - 99% Japanese. In Orlando it is always a mix of nationalities but not here. I suppose it isn't a destination type place. Brad and I were joking that we didn't need the kids in matching t-shirts here because just being American made us stand out. In fact there were a ton of kids in school uniforms and adults in business attire. I don't know if they were all playing hooky or what was going on. If the kids were on field trips, I didn't see any chaperones. Lots of people in Halloween costumes. I'm glad to say the Princess craze has not happened here. We saw many more Minnie Mouses and Lilos than princesses. If one lady had on mouse years then 48,000 did. We had been warned about the slutty costumes, but to Brad's dismay we didn't see too much of that. Loads of completely inappropriate foot wear though.

 

I wish these were the only stripper boots I saw, but they weren't.

   

Click on the pictures to enlarge. Mom, if you still can't read them the first one sign has 2 different Pork and Spicy Tofu entrees and Banana Jelly with Milk for dessert; the second has Steamed Pork Bun, Pork Tortillas with Sweet Miso Sauce and Jungle Tea - Black Tapioca, orange jelly and milk tea. The third is Curry Popcorn. Now I'm all for curry but not on popcorn.

I was super curious to see how the languages would be handled. Almost all of the big signage was in English with no Japanese. However on smaller signs there would be both. Pirates of the Caribbean - all English ... we pillage, we plunder .... yo ho yo ho with commentary by Jack Sparrow. Splash Mountain on the other hand was a mix. Haunted Mansion - Japanese. Some of the songs were English but the commentary was in Japanese. Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee day Japanese Japanese Japanese. Too funny. Buzz Lightyear was a mix; It's a Small was closed but I would have loved to see the American dolls. The Parade was a mixture as well. 

My family will be happy to know that the Carousel of Progress was noticeably absent as was the People Mover. The train only went around WesternLand and AdventureLand with no stops and the line was almost as long as the line for turkey legs. No thank you. Of course no Hall of Presidents either but the Bear Country "Theater" was there. Another thing we noticed was the absence of character handlers. They walked about all by themselves. Oh, Main Street is called World Bazaar and it was inside! All of it covered. Very strange. It rains a lot here so maybe this is a way to get people in the shops. 

 

Notice how neatly all the strollers are lined up. This cracks me up, so Japanese.

 

Ever since Jude started taking his new supplements this is the kind of thing he does. He made us very proud by going on Space Mountain.

 

 Anders got a lot of attention from the ladies. He's thinking, "Hey lady my mom is going to put this pic on the internet. Pink ears, really?". This was in Toon Town which is a much bigger section than it's Orlando counterpart with a lot more to do.

 

I can't even count how many small groups of school kids we saw in uniform. The amazing thing is none of the kids had taken off their ties and coats and shoved them in their backpacks.

 

I don't think Jude has ever seen the fireworks. Luckily they started at 8pm so we were still there. Anders was a huge fan and screeched every time I tried to walk away.