Summer Series: “夢がかなう場所!”

          After the Marine Day holiday I scratched another thing off of my “To-Do in Japan” list, and it was going to Tokyo Disneyland.  Being a native Californian, one may ask: “Why Disneyland?  Can’t you go to Disneyland anytime you want?”  And the answer is no, have you seen the size of California?  You can fit the entire country of Japan into the state, and it’s not like I walk outside and Disneyland Blvd. is down the street.  Besides, I’m a Disney fiend.  I love everything Disney, and as it turns out, so do the Japanese.

          Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are the only two out of the eleven Disney theme parks in the world that are not owned by the Walt Disney Company, but rather are owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company (OLC licenses the theme from Disney Co.).  The parks were built by Disney Imagineers (early 1980s for Disneyland, late 1990s for Disney Sea) to the specifications of the OLC; Disneyland as a fusion of the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland in the United States, whereas DisneySea was inspired by the Walt Disney Company’s conceptual park “DisneySeas” meant for Long Beach, California.  After Euro Disney flopped financially, Disney Co. passed over the concept to OLC to expand their Tokyo Disneyland Resort, and they then built and opened their version of the park in 2001.

          To get to Disneyland, we (the other Shingu ALT and I) traveled via train; you can also fly or take the night bus, but train seemed to be the cheapest and most comfortable mode of transportation (I’ve heard horror stories about the night bus, but I’m sure I’ll travel by it at some point during my stay here in Japan).  We took a limited express train from Shingu to Nagoya, then the Shinkansen to Tokyo, and then local trains to our hotel, which was about 15 minutes away from Disneyland.  We didn’t leave as early as we would have liked because someone (me) fell asleep about 40 minutes before we were supposed to leave for the train station after a sleepless night.  Oh insomnia!  But we got on the next morning train (9:30) and after some slight mishaps in Tokyo (the trains were delayed, but we didn’t know it and got on the wrong one), we made it to the hotel a little after 4:00 in the afternoon.

          But rather than wait around in our hotel room for the next day, we bought evening passes and went to DisneySea, the attraction next to Tokyo Disneyland.  To get to the actual park, you have to take a train that travels in a giant loop around Tokyo Disneyland, DisneySea, and some of the larger themed hotels, the grandest one being the Hotel MiraCosta, which is the only hotel in the world which is entirely placed inside a Disney theme park, located above the Mediterranean Harbor.  As both their names would suggest, DisneySea and MiraCosta are nautical themed; Hotel MiraCosta is inspired by the ports of Portofino and Venice, and instead of “lands” like there are in Disneyland, DisneySea has seven themed “ports of call.”  The park entrance is called Mediterranean Harbor, which leads to six other ports: American Waterfront, Lost River Delta, Port Discovery, Mermaid Lagoon, Arabian Coast and Mysterious Island.

          This park is apparently dubbed the “lover’s park” because most of the people we saw were couples, rather than families.  I was surprised to see so many women in towering heels and short skirts, but I suppose if so many of the people were on dates, than looking cute supersedes sensibility and comfort.  This park is also home to more “daring” jet coasters like The Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull, Aquatopia and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as well as shows and parades. 

          By the time we got to DisneySea, we didn’t have much time for rides – we went on Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage (think It’s a Small World + Aladdin) because of its two minute wait time – but the highlight of the park was the Fantasmic show, a nighttime light, pyrotechnic, video and music show.  I couldn’t tell you what the plot of the show was, it was all in Japanese, but it was super impressive.  However, it did take me a ridiculously long time to realize that the squeaky, high-pitched voice I kept hearing throughout the show was Mickey’s.   Once I realized that it was Mickey, I could hear it, but it was strange how eerily similar the voice sounded to its American counterpart.  I cracked up every time I heard Mickey say “Yosh!” which was quite often.  So after staying at DisneySea until they kicked us out (in one of the gift shops, a salesclerk said to me in broken English: “Please, you go now.  DisneySea closed.”  When I looked at the time, the park had closed about 20 minutes earlier.  At least they were nice about it), we went back to our hotel room to get some sleep before our Tokyo Disneyland adventure.

          Fast-forward about six hours and we were up and ready for Tokyo Disneyland.  Since I didn’t really have anything to compare DisneySea to, I was interested to see how different Tokyo Disneyland would be to Disneyland back home.  Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, and the Oriental Land Company wanted the best of the Magic Kingdom in Florida and Disneyland in California for their park.  The biggest difference I noticed between California’s Disneyland and Tokyo’s Disneyland was the layout of the park; the front pavilion was huge, but was pretty sparse except for a couple of benches and a few characters out and about for photo ops, whereas back home you’re greeted with a giant botanical Mickey face.

          As per tradition, the first ride I went on was Space Mountain.  For as long as I can remember, the first ride my family has always gotten on when getting to a Disney park is Space Mountain: maybe it’s because the morning is when the line is at its shortest or maybe to set the mood for the rest of the day, I don’t know, but we always do it.  The ride itself wasn’t nearly as fast, but it was definitely longer than its Californian counterpart.  And, that’s how most of the rides were for the rest of the day: Slower speed, yet a longer trip.  There weren’t any rides that were original to Tokyo Disneyland, unlike DisneySea, but one of my favorites was the Monster’s Inc. ride because (1) I love Monster’s Inc., (2) I loved hearing Boo yell “Neko-san!” and (3) it was just super fun!  One of the greatest things about Disneyland is that it doesn’t matter how old you are, Disneyland is just fun.

          One of the highlights of Tokyo Disneyland – and something definitely original to the park – was its Natsu Matsuri show.  For the summer season, the park hosted an original water and dance show that lasted throughout the day; there were “semi-final” dance competitions throughout the day that led to the finale show in the evening in which the winners of each semi-final competed against one another for the title of Japan’s Best Dance Crew (JBDC).  Okay, I may have made JBDC up, but various characters made up crews: Team One Cool Family (Goofy & Max), Team Rhythmic Beat Makers (Chip & Dale), Team Perfect Heartbeat (Minnie Mouse & Daisy Duck) and Team Paradise Pop Pack (Donald Duck).  I attempted to film the finale, but unfortunately Cammie Jr. wasn’t quite up to the task, and neither was my butt (I was sitting on a railing to try and get tall enough to film the whole thing, but by the time it was over, I was experiencing the worst Charlie horse of my life; I couldn’t even feel it when my feet were back on the ground, and my legs were pins-and-needley for a good two hours afterwards.).

          Something that was not different was how poorly behaved some parents let their children behave.  At most “photo-ops,” we had to wait because parents would actually cut in front of us and lead their children to whatever attraction we were waiting for to take (at least) a zillion pictures.  At one point, my friend actually stopped someone from taking their child on the Dumbo ride so I could finally get a picture after waiting almost 10 minutes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, where you waiting?”

No, I’m just standing here like a Pedobear for my health. 
Go about your business.

You’d think at my age, I’d get over “line cutters,” but no.  It’s not the behavior that bothers me so much as the encouragement to do it, and the thoughtlessness towards others.  Why should I wait my turn when I can get what I want right now by being selfish?  That’s not really a great life-lesson to teach your children, in my opinion.  Besides, it really frosts my sugar cookies!  Wait your turn, dangit!  In another incident at the Haunted Mansion (my sister would be so proud of me! I hate “haunted” anything), there was a group of young parents with their children, and one child in particular was kicking and screaming before they even got inside the attraction.  SPOILER ALERT: They lead you to a room and hear about all of these individuals who either murdered or were murderers at the mansion, and they stretch the portraits in a dark room while talking about these dastardly deeds in a spooky voice – at this point, the little girl was beside herself, wailing that she didn’t want to go.  Her parents just laughed it off when a Disney employee asked them if they wanted to exit the attraction before getting in the carts to tour the mansion.  We could hear her crying and screaming over the dialogue and music in the mansion – and I have to admit, I thought that this Haunted Mansion was scarier than the one in California.  When your child is screaming and begging you to not go on a ride, you don’t go on the ride.  Period.  End of discussion; you take turns going on by yourself while the other waits with the kid if you really want to go.  Thus ends my parenting rant.

Clearly, she was not amused.

          Another part of Tokyo Disneyland that I really liked was the Electrical Parade.  I don’t really remember watching the parade back home, so it was interesting to see the floats all lit up.  My favorite was Pete’s Dragon (vintage, right?), Genie from Aladdin, and Monster’s Inc. with Mikey, Sulley and Boo.  I can see why people like that parade so much; we got a great seat on the sidewalk right in front of the parade route with the castle in the background, but we had to reserve our spot about an hour and half (almost two hours) before the actual parade.  People were placing tarps and bags down to reserve their spot shortly after we sat down, and we had to elbow strangers to keep our space!  But, we got to people watch and eat some pretty good food.

          Finally, it was time to go back to the hotel, get some sleep, and then check out and make the trek back to Shingu.  Overall, it was a really fun trip and I really want to go back, especially to DisneySea.  Yosh!  ;]