Tokyo Disney Sea Day 1

For Columbus Day we headed back to Toyko for a visit.  This time, our main focus of the trip was Disney.  We love Disney in the states and were excited to "feel" like we were at home for awhile.    We knew going into it that it was going to be busy. Our Columbus day holiday also fell on a Japanese holiday weekend.  The plan was to go to Disney Sea on Saturday, then take Sunday off and go to Tokyo Disney resort on Monday.  We debated about buying tickets online, but you had to print them off with A4 paper, and while I was able to buy some, I just wasn't sure our printer would do it right and I didn't want hassles when we got there.  So Saturday morning we left the hotel at 6:30 am in order to get to Disney Sea in time to buy tickets for the opening.  The hotel said it took 30 minutes to get there, in reality it was closer to 1 hour.   The best part of the trip was the train ride to the park.  Have you seen the videos of people cramming onto the trains and they fall out, but someone keeps shoving them in?  That was us!  This train was SO PACKED with people, the doors kept trying to shut, but it took about 3 attempts before we were able to leave.   We ended up with 3 day tickets because that was the only way we could pre-buy tickets for Monday.   It was worth it to not have to stand in the long line to buy tickets. 

The next 3 pictures are from our walk from the hotel to the subway station.  The hotel was in a great part of town, and the French embassy was right across the street.

Notice below the guy sweeping the street under his car tires.

We couldn't believe how narrow this apartment building was (the middle one).

 Once you get to Disney, you had to buy tickets for the Disney Monorail, this was the line for those tickets.

Notice the handle bars, they are Mickey shaped.

This was the ticket line, then, once you were finished with this line, you had to get in line to get in the park.

The very front entrance to the park.

Riding the Carousel

We rode gondolas in the Venice section.

This was the wait line for the gondolas, which was only about 20 minutes long.  

We discovered real quick that Brock is not a patient person....

Riding our gondola.

The Tower of terror

Duffy and Disney bear were very popular...

No chocolate covered mickey bars, but these were delicious.

We ate lunch at a mexican place at about 10 am.  

Brandon with our margaritas to go :)

Mickey shaped Churros.  At this point, the park was insanely busy.  We were snacking our way around.  These had pumpkin filling and were very good.

This was from one of the gift shops - They are tape lint rollers with all kinds of disney characters on them. 

Here's a random shot of the inside of one of the stores.  It was just wall to wall people all day.  

As were were leaving, the entrance to the park was fairly empty and we snapped a couple of photos.

 Brandon made me take a picture of the girl in the cat costume.  I wish I could say she was rare, but surprisingly, lots of adults dressed up.

Brandon in line for Black pepper popcorn.  It was very good, we also tried Soy sauce popcorn, but that wasn't as tasty. 

This was the ticket window as we were leaving.  The parks reached capacity both days we were they so they stopped selling tickets and were not allowing entry.n   It happened that there was also a Japanese holiday on Monday, which we knew going in, but we had already had reservations, so we just made the best of it.

Here Brandon is waiting for the Disney train to take us away from the crowds.   He looks like he had a fun day, right?

Zip lining

For my birthday this year Brandon arranged for us to go zip lining.  It was one of those things that I have on my bucket list and this seemed like a good excuse to go.   We were also using this as a Recon mission to see if we thought Reagan could handle it.  She has expressed interest in going, but we weren't sure if she could do it.  On this particular course, she doesn't meet the height requirement, and even if she did, I don't think she could do all the climbing to get up the poles.  

We had to go through a short training session and then we were off on our own.   Here Brandon is getting strapped in.  

This is the baby course, where they taught us how to use the clips.  

Mixed in with the zip lines, were some obstacle type things.  

 This one kicked my butt.  It was a lot harder work climbing up this than I thought.  

Right before the last zip line, they had a rest area with sodas and tables.  While we were enjoying out break, we saw this huge banana spider.  It was easily the size of my outstretched hand.  Gross!

Not a very lady-like pose, but after landing backward several times and being drug through the dirt/wood chips, I finally figured out how to run into the landing.  

We had a great time and I would  definitely go zip lining again! 

Kyoto Day 3

Day 3 was overcast and rainy like the past two days.  On the agenda today was a trip to the Golden Pavilion, Nijo Castle and the Nishiki Market.  I was most excited to see the Golden Pavillion, so we started there.  Here's what Trip Advisor has to say about the pavilion.

"One of Kyoto's most famous attractions, this temple was originally built in 1397 as a residence for shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. The structure was completely covered in gold leaf, earning it the name Golden Pavilion."

Holy Cow!  Everyone's looking at the camera!

On the grounds of the Golden Pavilion there is a waterfall with a rock formation that looks like a carp jumping upward.  Reagan's in front of it, but you can't really see the waterfall, or the carp.  

This is Nijo Castle.  Nijo Castle is famous for its Nightingale floors.  The Shogun had the floors built to tweet when walked on so that no one could ever sneak up on him.  There weren't any photos allowed inside.  The floors were amazing in that they did tweet sweetly like a bird and didn't just squeak like old floors.  

Notice the rain!

After a hotel nap break, we set out for Nishiki market.   This is the "kitchen of Kyoto" and was a really neat experience.  We ran across this parking garage on the way.  Space is a premium here. 

These are tiny in the picture, but they are squids on a stick. 

Snails...mmm

No idea what theses were, but I liked the display. 

The kids relaxing in the room.  Reagan on the Ipad and Brock playing the phone.  Ahh...technology, how did we entertain our kids before it?  Kidding!