Tokyo Disneyland = Land of a million lines

Friday night we met up with my friend Karen and her fiancee Jason. I've known Karen since elementary school and they were passing through Tokyo for a few days before visiting some other Asian cities. We had a great dinner at this Yakitori place right around the corner from our apt. I've been wanting to try the place out and glad we did. The Yakitori (grilled chicken speared on sticks) was great and so was the sake so Kenn and I will definitely be going back there.





Afterwards we went to our favorite local bar Propaganda for a few drinks and then to another bar nearby that Jason passed by earlier and wanted to check out. Super small place, I think it was an old diner car or something. Very random, I remember shots and meeting random people both Japanese and expats... Kenn and I hit ramen afterwards :)



Saturday was a relax and recovery day, I felt a cold coming on. The plan was to get
up early on Sunday to head out to Disneyland. There is also another park next to it called Disneysea.



The main thing I can say about Tokyo Disney is that there are lines for absolutely everything. It was a holiday weekend so maybe that added to the crowds but it was pretty bad. Just 30 minues by train from Tokyo, most of the major attractions were 2-3 hour waits. There were lines for tickets, lines for food, lines for snacks, lines to take pictures with Disney characters, lines for bathrooms, there were people everywhere!



I have to admit that kind of distorted the fun a bit, making it not quite the happiest place on earth. I cannot believe how calm and patient Japanese people are. Amidst all the crowds, no one seemed to be aggravated. At one point the crowds passing through one area were so thick, I thought I was going to get stampeded. They even closed ticketing for a few hours due to the crowds! Now that to me is just insane. Kenn and I managed to get on a few rides and wait only 20 minutes for pizza. We decided to try going over to Disneysea to see if it was any better. This is when we discovered ticketing was closed. Our tickets were only good for one park so we went to a shopping and eating area and walked around and ate at Planet Hollywood for awhile. We decided that we were never going to come back to visit so might as well try to check out Disneysea for the rest of the evening. It turned out to be pretty cool there and by that time it was less crowded. First thing we did was wait on line for the Tower of Terror.



We ended up waiting nearly 3 hours. I know, stupid. It's hard to explain our thought process. We thought we should at least see something. Once you start waiting, you just feel committed. Weather was not really cold during the day but by the evening, it was getting chilly and windy so after a few hours we were freezing. It was a cool ride, broken elevator-themed free fall kinda thing but as you can imagine it was not worth the wait for the minute we spent on it. We managed to sneak in a few other rides too. By an hour of close time, things thinned out. Anyway, it was an interesting day. We can say we experienced Tokyo Disney now. No more Disney until if/when we have kids of our own....