Every day I seem to wake up really early. Between 5:30 and 6:30. My body has obviously still not adjusted from being half a world away from home. The only good thing is that it gives me time to write in my blog and upload pictures.
The first thing we did today was go to Chiba University with Katie because her friend is a doctoral student there. We were to be guinea pigs in a study comparing Americans buying instincts with those of the Japanese. She was having trouble finding Americans. Apparently Katie has Canadian, German, British and other European friends, but Americans are few and far between. The setup was interesting. There were lots of computers and you put your chin on this chin rest and they put a piece of equipment that was like glass between you and the computer screen and calibrated it so the machine could see exactly where you were looking on the screen and what you were instinctually drawn to. After that, we headed back to the house and then got some Dominos pizza comfort food before making our way on the train to Tokyo Disney Sea.
Tokyo Disney Sea is the best themed and most intricately detailed park I have ever been to. Not a single penny was spared in recreating amazing different areas themed around water. You walk in the park at Mediterranean Harbor with an amazing view of the canals of Venice, Mt Prometheus and other park landmarks. All of the parks lands were amazing. “American Waterfront” is themed in two areas, Cape Cod and 1900 New York City. This is where you’ll find an all new version of Tower of Terror (without the Twilight Zone part.) There are also shows and lots of transportation vehicles here… cars, ferries and an electric railway. Next to that is Port Adventure with Aquatopia and Stormrider (like Star Tours and Soarin combined.) In the back of the park is Lost River Delta where an almost exact duplicate of the Indiana Jones ride from Disneyland resides. The kids’ areas are Arabian Coast and Mermaid Lagoon, both charming and amazingly themed and detailed. And finally is the centerpiece of the park, Mysterious Island. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the parks flagship ride, with its next generation Test Track ride system and a thrilling end to the ride shooting you out of Mount Prometheus. There is also 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, one of the more interesting dark rides I’ve been on. The definite highlights of our day were the shows in Mediterranean harbor. The day show, Legend of Mythica was like a water parade and fountain show combined, and the night show BraviSEAmo was a fireworks, fountain and fire show that reminded me of Reflections of Earth at Epcot. The park was great just to walk around in and take in the detail of paths that lead to Venetian Gondolas or exploration trails. You could have a fantastic time in this park without going on a ride or seeing a show. We had a great Beef Curry dinner in the Arabian Coast section. Just the atmosphere of the place takes you away to a different world.
Its good people here don’t mind waiting in lines because these places are mobbed. They patiently wait hours for rides and shows. They just started the Halloween special programming and these people LOVE Halloween. They are dressed up in the most intricate Disney costumes I have ever seen. These people are born seamstresses! In Florida all you see is the off the shelf crap Disney makes. Here if you dress up like Ariel or Jasmine you have to wear a leotard under your costume (not socially acceptable to show all that skin…) They have decorations for Halloween in every corner of the park. People wait hours to see the special Halloween shows and meet and greets and the Tokyo Disneyland runs a special afternoon parade, Welcome to Spookyville, three times an afternoon it’s so popular. They even have a crappy four minute long fireworks show that is special for Halloween. It was so busy we refused to wait 90 minutes for Tower of Terror or 110 minutes for Journey to the Center of the Earth and resolved to get up tomorrow at the crack of dawn to try and beat the crowds. We headed back on the train at about 10pm and met a few more friends for a couple minutes, but we got to bed pretty quick having to wake up early.
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