Day 22: The Magic of Tokyo Disney Sea!

Hello everyone! I am sorry again for the delay on these blogs school is taking up a lot fo my time so I might not always update on the exact day as I did in the past. Anyway this Sunday I planned to go to Tokyo Disney Sea (there are two parks in Tokyo Land and Sea) with some other international students. From what I had read it had seemed like a good weekend to go. Little did I know that a good weekend to go is still crazy busy! I left my dorm at 5:30 am and managed to get to the line in Disney at 7:00am and there was already a line! I really didn't care too much though since the journey there was nice and I was sucked up into the Disney ambiance. While I waited I made conversation with my friend Kevin (the only international student willing to leave with me early in the morning) and tried to work on my reading for my International Law class like a good student. I also learned that people in Japan take their lines very seriously. As the gates started opening people started running to get the fast passes for their favorite rides (or enter other lotteries I'll mention later). I myself made my way to Toy Story Mania the most popular ride at Disney Sea and by the time I had gotten there was already another line forming to get the fast passes. From what I heard from my other friend that they ran out of fast passes about thirty minutes after the park opened (just to give you a frame of reference to how crazy busy a "normal day" is. After we had secured our own fast passes we made our way to the other rides we wanted to ride. The whole time I was admiring how beautiful and detailed the entire area of the park was. Whenever you walked into a new area it really felt like you were at the place they named it after. The first ride we went on was s simple ride called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was pretty interesting briefly recreating the story of the famous novel in a ride where you felt you were underwater (not really it was screen). The funniest part for me was the narration was entirely in Japanese (what else can you expect from a Japanese theme park?) so Kevin and I never had any idea what was going on. After that ride we made our way to Mermaid Lagoon (also known as Ariel's Grotto). I felt like a little girl again seeing the world of Ariel come to life before me, though the area was mainly for little little kids so the few rides we went on were very underwhelming. I still enjoyed the feeling I got from seeing the world of one of the few ginger Disney Princesses. After Mermaid Lagoon we wandered around bit until the other group finally arrived. While we waited I got in line for the famous Alien Mochi (it's mochi in the shape of the alien from Toy Story) and also had an apple tart in the shape of Mickey. They were both fantastic but I especially love the mochi. After that I briefly separated from the group as they went to ride the more thrill seeker rides and I did some shopping and rode the Gondola around the Harbor. I then made my way to the areas of the park I hadn't been to yet. I eventually meet back up with Kevin to go finally redeem our fast passes for Toy Story Mania. Before that though I tired to enter the lottery for Big Band Beat (the best show in all of the Disney parks from what I had read). In Japan their society is based on situational equal opportunity by randomly selecting tickets fr the show by lottery no one could truly be upset if they didn't get it. I was a little smart and used my group's tickets to earn myself two tickets to Big Band Beat! After the lottery we made our way to the fast pass line. Toy Story Mania was such a fun and creative ride! Technically there is the same ride in other parks but I had never been so seeing the sets and everything for the first time was enchanting. The ride was a shooting game with 3D glasses. My competitive side came out strongly and I managed to win by a pretty big margin (though my accuracy was terrible). After that we got lunch at a restaurant on the American Waterfront. I tried my best to avoid food I could had in the US and had curry which was really good. After lunch Kevin and I split ways again since he had more fast passes to use and I went to the last area of the park I had yet to go to the Arabian Coast (the other areas I ha already walked through). There I rode on a two story Carousel which even as a an adult I an never deny and walked around the different shops. As I was leaving that area I ran into Jafar. He was the first character I had a chance to meet so I decided to stay and try and get a picture with him. I waited a pretty long time as he meet and messed with the kids and far more enthusiastic girls around me. Eventually he picked me out of the crowd for a picture. Now I decided that this was the perfect time to practice my Japanese and unleashed all my polished Japanese on him. Jafar was so impressed he gave me a kiss on the hand and we posed romantically together. I guess the only romance I can get is with Disney villains. With the wait time I had left I watched some street performances in the different parts and even saw the famous Easter show from a distance (they take Easter very seriously here). I then meet up with Kevin again to explore around as we waited fro Big Band Beat we rode a fun little express train for a few minutes, and then explored a private ship that was sitting in the harbor. The most interesting part was the castle we found. Inside were all these cool activities based on medieval times. You could pilot boats, examine the solar system in an observatory and so much more. We got so wrapped up i the castle we were almost late for being early to Big Band Beat. Which if we had not gotten there early it would have been big trouble for me. See I had actually won the lottery on my other friend's ticket and I didn't know that you had to have the winning ticket to enter. I nearly didn't get in but the very nice curator made an exception for me since Kevin had won on his ticket. I am so glad it all worked out because Big Band Beat was an amazing show! It was supposed to be a tribute to American jazz and I honestly got whiplash from all the different songs and how suddenly the sets and costumes changed. It was also pretty funny seeing the iconic Disney characters get involved (Mickey had a rad drum solo at the end). After the show we made our way to the Harbor to watch Fantasmic the night how Disney Sea puts on. It was honestly amazing. Unlike other Disney shows that are restricted to a stage this show used the whole harbor as its stage using water, lights, boats, and fancy electronics to put on a no pun intended fantastic tribute to iconic Disney movies. After the finale we all headed back to Totsuka to try and get some rest before school. Actually that was jus the the others went out to eat. Wow this was a long one, thank you for reading if you made it this far. I'll update later in the week with fun things that happen this week,

until next time!