Well-it is final-we finish work on Friday. My coworkers are so anxious to go home, they have decided not to go to Kyoto, and so instead of spending a small fortune going alone, I have opted to spend a couple of nights in Shinjuku at a decent hotel-Tokyo Prince- from Saturday. I think I will be flying out of here on Monday night, depending on availability. I am myself getting a little anxious to go home-mainly to indulge in pho and the ocean-but I do miss everyone as well.

So I “promised” a recount of Sunday’s activities. My two coworkers and I had planned to go to Disneyland, or DisneySea, as it were. While not my first choice in activity, like I said-I was a little tired of venturing on my own. I have actually heard from a few sources that Tokyo Disneyland is worth seeing, although being that the advice came from grown men who went on their own, I am not sure how reliable the information was. But the choice was made to go to DisneySea, as there is none in the states. It is an approximate 2 hour commute to the place, with one transfer at Tokyo station. But they had agreed to stop off at Shinjuku station so I could try the Beard Papa there (you have to get it from the homeland, right?!). But alas, at 10am-it was closed! Oh well, maybe on our way back. So back on he train, change at Tokyo station for a subway line. And we went seemingly into the bowels of the earth to get to the train platform-conveniently enough, there was a big painted red trail that led to it, and that goodness because Tokyo station was a maze. A crowded maze. I will have to go back there before I leave.

Finally, we arrive at the Maihama stop, aka Disneyland. On the train there were already a few others obviously going to the same place. A mother with her toddler in a stroller-the toddler dressed in a red and white polka-dotted dress, the stroller adorned with a Lilo and Stitch bucket with a strap, various Minnie mouse books and charms, and a bottom mesh compartment with even more Disney-themed paraphernalia. The mother herself had a purse with mini dolls of Minnie and Mickey hanging from the zipper. It looked like they were going for the umpteenth time. At one stop before Maihama, the mother busily tucked a Minnie Mouse doll into the arms of the child. Of course, the doll was wearing the same outfit…And this was only a glimpse of the kinds of people in the park itself. When we got in, we found that DisneySea is a various culture-themed park built around a roughly ring-shaped lagoon. There was American Port, Mediterranean, South American, you get the picture. What struck me was the people actually in the park. There were many more adults than there were children. Adults in mouse ears, tiger ears, Stitch ears. Adult men in ears and hats. And that bucket with the strap I saw hanging uselessly and empty on the stroller of Minnie Mouse toddler? Obviously a souvenir popcorn bucket. For 1400yen, you get your flavored popcorn in that bucket-refills for 500yen. Most people sported a bucket around their necks or on their shoulders. I saw chocolate, sea salt, curry, black pepper, and caramel popcorn carts throughout the park. We rode a ride or two. The waits were about 20 minutes in line for rides, much better than we thought it would be. But they have a “Fastpass” option, where you obtain a ticket with an assigned time to return to the ride and get in an express lane, we did it once, but after that the wait times were really only about 10-15 minutes. We ate lunch at the Amazon area, which had Mexican food. They had these soft tacos, which were filled with meat sauce that tasted more Italian. But the soft tortilla shells were pretty good. Turns out they make them there fresh. On our way out, we saw a window in which a lady was feeding dough into a flattener, which spit out tortillas, and sent them through an oven. I was surprised by that. I opted out of the roller coaster that did a 360degree loop, and people watched instead. A lady on the bench next to me started to take the plastic off of three plush dolls she had bought. One Stitch doll in his Elvis gear, one Stitch doll in hula gear, and one Duffy the Bear in some sort of pleather garment. She proceeded to arrange them on the bench while her husband looked on almost admiringly. When they were sitting just right, with Duffy’s arm around Elvis Stitch’s shoulders, and hula Stitch looking sassily forward, she snapped 5 photos of them. Before the last photo, she made Duffy put his arm around hula Stitch’s shoulder instead, leaving Elvis Stitch looking sultry and facing slightly downward. It was quite a spectacle, that did not seem to be a spectacle in this surreal land.

One thing I had heard about Tokyo Disney was the characters-like Cinderella with an Asian face and blonde wig. This was not true at DisneySea. Alladin, Jasmine, Indiana Jones and Cruella DeVille were all played by haoles. At first I though that they might have hired “little people” to wear the full costume characters- then I remembered where I was, and realized that my height was average. Are the characters that short at Disneyland in California? I don’t recall. We pretty much hit everything in the park, including a ride that I never would have agreed to had I known it was a straight drop. It was in an “elevator” in a haunted house, and had we understood Japanese, we may have known the story, as it was, we got into the elevator which lifted us up to a floor of ‘ghosts’, then darkness in which we dropped slowly for a little while, then a window to the actual outside is opened up, showing us how high we were in the tower, the park dwarfed below us. At that point I freaked out. I screamed and tried to push myself out of my seat, a half-hearted attempt to escape the ride at the last minute. Then the window shut, and we dropped. My stomach hit the roof of my mouth and various expletives erupted from my mouth-thank goodness there were only Japanese people on the ride-then we stopped, and I knew we hadn’t fallen all the way. I knew another drop was coming. Sure enough I felt the thing lift a little, then a window opened again. This time I shut my eyes and put a look of terror on my face, not voluntarily. We dropped again, and I think I discovered a new curse. A trio of bad words perhaps never used together, but flowing so effortlessly and clearly from my hoarse throat. The ride finally ended with me none the worse for wear, except for a couple of wobbly knees, proving once again that I do not do well with the anticipation of anything. We saw a mini show at the American port-all in Japanese, but understandable, and watchable in that broad Disney way. It was 6pm when we finally headed out with our obligatory few souvenirs. Amazingly enough, they were game to stop back at Shinjuku to try Beard Papas. Thankfully they were open, even had a few people in line. I got a twisty donut looking puff pastry shell for my filling. I ate it while they got their train tickets. I’m not a sweets person, but it was satisfying. What was good about the shape I got, was that the ratio of filling to pastry was perfect. Usually there is too much filling for the pastry. Luckily we were able to get seats on the train back to Fussa. The day left me exhausted. The walk back to the base seems so long at the end of a long day-a mile becomes four. Sorry this was so lengthy, but rest assured, this blog will end soon.