One more picture

Here is one last picture of us in our matching Disney shirts! We had such a hard time finding shirts that said "Tokyo Disney" on them for some strange reason!! There were lots of shops and stores, but they didn't really have the things that we were used to finding like bunches of different TShirt selections. The night before we left, Kelsey and I saw the people in the small gift shop of our hotel restocking and the next morning they had all this really cute stuff for their 25th Anniversary celebration. It was so much cuter than the other stuff we had seen and even though we didn't get to wear them to the park, we were excited to find matching shirts!! :)

We're Home!!

Well, we left the hotel that had free internet access and with all the other expenses we had, we decided that paying for internet service wasn't on the priority list. So......... here are all the updates from the last 3 days of our trip. I have one more picture to post of the last day and I hope to get to that tomorrow.

Tokyo - Day 7

Day 7 –
Yay……No rain today! It was very cold in the afternoon/evening, but we got to enjoy the parks SO much more today than yesterday! We started out at Disney Land where we wanted to do some more rides in Fantasy Land. We were hoping it wouldn’t be crowded, but there were more people there than we had expected. We rode a few things that didn’t have too long of lines and then we headed over to Disney Sea for a while. It was much less crowded and we did some really cool things there – we rode Journey to the Center of the Earth, Stormrider, Flounders roller coaster and we even got to meet Ariel! We rode the Indiana Jones ride again – it was our favorite ride there!!
Adysen and Kelsey wanted to ride a big roller coaster, but Adysen was disappointed that she wasn’t tall enough.

We ate lunch in a Mexican place and the food was OK – although it’s super expensive, most of the food here hasn’t been great, so even “OK” food is nice. We sow a really neat show on the water called “The Legend of Mythica”. We weren’t sure what the legend was as the story was in Japanese, but the boats and the dancers were just beautiful!! There was a show that we saw that was really amazing – Mystic Rhythms. We got really warm and comfortable in that show and were SO cold when we came out of there!! After that, we had done almost everything at Disney Sea, so we headed back over to Disney Land to ride a few more rides and see the Electric Parade. It was great, but very cold. There was a fireworks show after that and it was definitely not as good as the one in Florida!!

We had the latest night yet and were happy to get back our warm hotel room! Tomorrow we will leave at about 10:45am for the airport, We’ve had a wonderful and memorable trip!!

Tokyo - Day 6

Day 6
Today we had good times and not so good times. They Disney Sea park was absolutely incredible and the weather was absolutely horrible!!! It rained ALL day long and the wind blew like crazy AND it was cold!! Mimi had brought us some cheap ponchos just in case we needed them for a rain shower or 2, but there was NO way those things would hold up to this kind of rain!! We bought better ponchos and spent the entire day taking them off and putting them back on!! The park is so unique and beautiful and we did manage to enjoy ourselves, but I didn’t get to take many pictures today because of how wet it was!! We lasted until about 5:00 which was longer than I figured we’d make it. We rode lots of cool rides…. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Indiana Jones, and Sinbad’s Adventure. Kelsey and Allie even rode the Tower of Terror! Adysen said she’d never do that again!  We saw a cute mermaid show, an Aladdin 3D show and also a Broadway show that was all in English! We were all happy to get back to the dry hotel, enjoy a stop at Starbucks to warm us up, and take our rain ponchos off for the rest of the day!

We had some issues with our hotel room last night. The room was very big, but the furnishings were rather old and the worst part was that the air conditioner didn’t seem to work! We called for help and the guy came up and said that they turn on the heater instead of the a/c at night, so we had to turn off completely which lead to a stale and airless warm room – ugh!! He brought us a fan which helped, but it was still pretty icky in there and I figured that for what I paid for this room, SURELY there was a way to get the a/c to work! This morning I asked them to check it again while we were gone and when we came back, they offered to give us a new room. We weren’t looking forward to packing up again, but there is 1 floor that they just remodeled and they offered us a room there – the carpet still smells new and the a/c works GREAT!! There are murals on the walls and it’s very festively decorated. There is a magic key thing and a magic mirror and the girls LOVE it!! We are very glad to be here now!!

The weather is supposed to be better tomorrow, so we are hoping to visit Disney Sea again so we can have a better experience than we did today. We may head back to Disney Land to do a few more things too. We are praying for NO rain!!!

Tokyo - Day 5

Day 5
We began this morning with breakfast at the hotel with Deena and her kids who spent the night at the New Sanno and went to Disney land with us.
After breakfast, we got on the trains for the trip to the Disney area. We had to change trains twice and the trains were packed full of people as it was a weekday morning! We were very thankful that we had sent some of our luggage ahead - if we’d had all that luggage, I’m not sure that we would have fit on the trains!! It’s amazing how many people they stuff on there at once.

At about 10:00, we made it to the Disney monorail, went to the hotel to have them hold the rest of our bags and then we were so excited to go into the Disney Land park! We had so much fun – it was so interesting how some things were the same as Disney in Florida and some things were so very different!! Many of the rides were the same, but we laughed our heads off at some of the shows where they spoke in Japanese. The Country Bear Jamboree was the funniest one! They did it part in Japanese and part in English. We all rode Space Mountain… even Allie! Last summer, she would have never ridden that and Adysen was a little nervous then too. This year, the bigger the rides were, the more Adysen loved them!!

We were not impressed with our first meal at Disney Land. We had some chicken sandwiches and other things that were not the best. We left the park at about 5:30 so we could come get checked into our hotel. We were hungry, so we decided to check out the hotel restaurant. I think we got spoiled at the military hotel where we stayed in Tokyo…. the prices were so reasonable there and the amenities were great. Here, you have pay for EVERYthing and the restaurants are all super expensive! The girls split a kids meal that was $17.50 and it was gross looking food that reminded me of Furr’s. Mimi had an eggplant salad that came without eggplant and we didn’t realize it, but we were paying $7.00 EACH for sodas!! We spent $28.00 just on sodas!! We will definitely not be eating at that place again!!

Our room is very large and has a beautiful view of the Tokyo bay. The beds are hard, but we don’t really care tonight. We are all so tired that will sleep good no matter what kind of bed we have. Tomorrow we will be visiting Disney Sea and we are very happy not to have to pack up anything or take any trains!

Tokyo - Day 4

We had a fun adventure today. We took the subway all the way across Tokyo to a place called Asakusa. We thought the main attraction was a temple, but when we got out of the train station, all we could see was shopping EVERYwhere!!! It was seriously like Canton in Japan!! We shopped some and finally found the temple after asking for directions. The temple was very interesting…. We had no idea what anyone was doing, but there were all kinds of little rituals going on all around. There was a little area where incense was being burned and people were fanning the smoke onto themselves. It was an interesting and beautiful experience!

After that we got adventurous enough to try some of the food that the vendors around were selling. I got octopus and shrimp Tako Yaki balls which we have enjoyed in Guam before. These were even better, though! Mimi tried some unidentifiable food and enjoyed it and Kelsey had a baked potato! The little girls had some chicken that didn’t look too weird.

We had planned to take a boat tour, but this place was SO huge and overwhelming and I had NO idea how we’d ever find the boat station. So, we shopped some more with the million other people that were there and then made the subway ride back to the hotel without getting lost – yay!

Back at the hotel, we did some laundry and then packed up our suitcases and had 4 of our biggest ones sent over to the hotel where we will be staying tomorrow. We decided after having done the million stairs at the train stations that it would have been next to impossible for all of us and all of our luggage to get from here to the Disney hotel tomorrow!! We will have our first day at Disney Land tomorrow and will enjoy 3 days at the next hotel which is right by the Disney Parks. We’re excited!!

Tokyo - Day 3

Today was the day of the subway! It seemed like we were on and off it all day long! We started out with a trip to the fish market. I had been there when I was here last February, but we had more time to wander around this time. The fresh fish and other sights and smells there were truly amazing. Allie was less than impressed – she said it stunk and held a tissue to her nose most of the time!! The rest of us enjoyed the unique experience, though.

After that, we took another train to the Tokyo tower. The observatory is about ½ way up the gigantic tower and the views are just awesome! You can see the hugeness of the city and it looks like it extends forever from each side. It’s just amazing! They had a food court there where we enjoyed lunch. The little girls had McDonald’s for lunch – even in Tokyo, they love it! 

Next, we got on the subway again in search of the 100 Yen store. We found it in a shopping area where it seemed like at least a million more people were!! We found some treasures in the 100 Yen store and then fought our way among the HUGE crowd back to the train station. We finally made it back to the hotel and were very relieved to rest our sore feet! We did a LOT of walking!

For dinner, we had Mexican food!! Yes, it’s a strange thing to eat in Tokyo, but it was actually very tasty and we miss good Mexican food in Guam. The place was up 3 flights of stairs and everything was so tiny – everything from the bathroom to the chip basket seemed like it was made for dolls (or maybe small Japanese people??) After some yummy Starbucks coffee for our chilly walk back, we finished up the day with some fun at the the hotel pool.