Some leftover Tokyo pictures again

Tokyo Disneyland

We were kind of worried when we got to Disneyland at 10:20AM (the park had opened at 10) and the lines were so long! I’ve been to DIsneyland Paris so many times in my life and I’ve never seen lines that long, not even during peak season. And the day we visited Tokyo DIsneyland was a regular cold Wednesday so I wonder what the lines are like in the summer, woah. Anyway we got in pretty quickly and immediately went to Tomorrowland to check out the Space Mountain and the renovated Star Tours.

Then onto Toontown where we only rode the children’s rollercoaster and then to Fantasyland to visit Peter Pan and Snow White. During the day parade we went on Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (in which me and Juulia got drenched! wth I was completely sure we weren’t going to get wet but boy was I wrong 😀 And we were the only ones that got wet, so unfair!) and then Big Thunder Mountain again.

We ended our evening with a two rides on Pirates of the Caribbean, before running back to Tomorrowland to go on Monster’s Inc. and Space Mountain before the park closed at 7PM. We managed to ride Space Mountain twice before 7PM and we ended up shopping for half an hour on World Bazaar before catching the bus back to Shinjuku completely exhausted.

I was surprised lots of tricks I have learnt throughout the years visiting Disneyland Paris to work for Tokyo Disneyland as well but they did! Like what order to go through the park in, when to go to which rides, which fastpasses to get and when, when to go eat and when to avoid them and when to shop and when not to! The longest time we waited was like 40 minutes to Splash Mountain and I saw signs on the rides we had gone on saying you had to wait 1,5 hours at some points and usually we waited like 15-20 minutes on each. So the day turned out to be quite successful! The weather was pretty awful though, it was very cold, humid and windy so we were pretty much freezing throughout the day but luckily many of the attractions were inside rides so we could warm up from time to time.

I enjoyed the day a lot but I have to say most of the rides were a lot more boring than in Disneyland Paris or Disney World (not as thrilling and they were a little dated). E.g. Pirates of the Caribbean in Paris has better music, a more logical flow throughout the ride and it actually has a few slopes that make it exiting and not just a boat you sit in. Space Mountain is so thrilling in Paris and it is fun in Tokyo too but it is a lot more laid back and old fashioned. They changed Star Tours to be in 3D which honestly made me a little nauseous since it’s a simulator ride anyway and Big Thunder Mountain was almost as fun but the one in Paris goes faster and occassionally your heart jumps in your throat during the ride. But Splash Mountain was very fun so that was a big plus. And also the timing was kind of bad because they were renovating some rides like the Haunted Mansion and It’s a Small World that I wanted to see.

Overall, one more Disney Park added to my list, three more to go! (Although I still need to visit Disney Sea in Tokyo before my list is complete)

10 random pics from the Japan trip

I’m just gonna throw these here and that’s it.

Cat cafe

Here are a few pictures from our stay at the cat cafe.

The last two were my ultimate favourite ones! 😀

Ageha was okay, very interesting but smaller than I thought and the music was kinda bad actually. One DJ played awesome music for an hour but the others didn’t.. And it was so hot inside! Nonetheless, we had a fun time there and came home with the first train of the morning :’D

On Monday we met up with our friend and her husband and went to do some shopping and eat lunch in Shibuya. Later on we met up Kipsu’s new friend Tai and we went to izakaya together. He was a really fun guy and we spent 5 hours at the izakaya just talking and laughing! I tried chicken heart and ummm.. It was pretty disgusting xD

Yesterday I felt really sick so I stayed at home and slept and talked with Aleksi on Skype. I managed to visit Donki with the girls when they came back from exploring Skytree. But all in all it was good that I was able to relax and get better because I wouldn’t have been able to survive the whole day at Tokyo Disneyland today! I’ll write about Disneyland separately when I’ve returned to Finland because I want to add pictures I took on my phone!

From two to three

We took things easy once again with Juulia on our second day in Tokyo and hung out witj her friend Akane. We spent the evening at an izakaya having drinks, talking and laughing.

The next day I went to the airport to the airport to get Kipsu in the morning. She was pretty tired so we went to the local supermarket and spent time at home, talking to Aleksi on Skype and watching Monster’s University which I totally recommend.

The next day, on Thursday we did typical touristy things, explored Harajuku and e.g. spent time in the four leveled toy store kiddie land. Later on we went to the otaku/electronic district Akihabara which still does not appeal to me in any way xD

On Friday we went to sing karaoke and hung out at a cat cafe which I will post pictures of separately. The cats were so cute, I really miss my own cat now. Later we went clubbing first just the three of us at Club Atom and then together with our business partner at Club Vision which looked very cool but the music and people were kind of weird. Last night we went to see a gig as guests together with the same business partner. The show was great, especially the lights looked amazing. And it was also great to just see the show and relax as well as see business associates, the band and their management again. They’re great and friendly people. After the show we hung out at our partner’s house until the wee hours.

Today we are going to another club, called Ageha, which is the biggest club in Tokyo. Really looking forward to it! I’ve seriously gone clubbing here more in two weeks than I have in Finland for a year! But what can I say, it’s so different and interesting compared to what I am used to so I don’t mind!

On the fourth of January we went to visit Takuya in Kobe. We visited a Hawaiian restaurant, the food was great! And we had giant pancakes there for dessert, so good ;_;

For the rest of our stay in Kobe we just hung out and strolled around and then came back to Osaka. We went to the same club that we went to on New Year’s Eve and we thought it would be half empty. Turned out we were wrong and it was packed, just about as full as on New Year’s! We had a great time once again, this time we hung out with Japanese girls that were do adorable and nice!

On the fifth we just took things easy because we had to leave in the evening by night bus to Tokyo. The night bus was a very interesting experience, although quite an uncomfortable one. The trip took 9 hours and had three stops, one for almost an hour. The bus would have been relatively comfortable to sleep in if it weren’t for the awful draft from the windows. I did manage to sleep 3-4 hours and just kept my eyes closed for the rest of the time.

We arrived in Tokyo at 6:40am and we were going to get our appartment keys at 14:00. So we had 7 hours to kill, which we did by strolling around Shibuya and Shinjuku, realizing everything is a lot smaller than we remembered and shopping and going to cafes.

We had a minorly hard time finding our appartment and when we did we weren’t that thrilled since we were right at a junction road connecting our area and Kabukicho. We were a little nervous thinking the area is unsafe, but now that we have stayed here for almost the whole week, I can say it’s not bad at all and it’s actually a great location for a stay in Tokyo! And the appartment is really nice, although the gas stove and gas water heating are difficult to get used to.

It’s already the 11th now instead of the 6th the day that I just told about but I need to catch up later since I have to start getting ready.