2010.01.11

The plan was to wake up early, leave the hotel by 9am and reach DisneySea early to battle with the crowd. But we were so tired from the day before, that we just couldn’t get out of bed early… We ended up leaving the hotel about 3 hours later *汗*

We had brunch in the nearby Matsuya (which my Dad felt had one of the nicest food of the journey~). I’m not sure what he ordered but I think it was some beef slices with rice and salad… I ordered my usual Bibin Don, and what I like about Matsuya is… the free Oolong tea keke~ This was my lunch, and although I couldn’t finish it, it was still delicious :)

This was my bro’s Beef bowl, with the yummy raw egg. We were wondering why the eggs in Japan have white and hard shells… so different from the ones in Singapore.

Then we took a train to Tokyo station, and walked a super long way to transfer to the other line towards Disney resort. Along the way, I forgot to look out of the train to try catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji. Instead, I was observing a young family with 2 boys – the older boy has the Johnnys look lol. He might make it if his mom sends in an application for him lol~ After about an hour, we arrived at Maihama station.

From there, we took the Disney Rail. Everything was Mickey-like, the train windows and the handles were all Mickey-shaped. And I love the curved sofa seats :)

We had to take two stops to DisneySea station, and along the way, we passed by Disney resort hotel (I think), the American Waterfront ship, the Tower of Terror, etc.

Finally, we reached DisneySea, and it was already 2.30pm! LOL! There was no queue at all at the ticket booths, and we bought our one-day passes (5,800yen times 5 people *faints*), and entered the resort. And what greeted us was this huge revolving globe fountain. It was freezing, but we took some pictures there.

Then we entered the Mediterranean Harbour, and and there was a show going on – The Legend of Mythica. Many people were seated, and many standing, and watching. This was one of the shows I planned to catch, but we missed half of it already lol~

It was a very erm, disney-like performance with loads of singing and dancing, and water displays with many moving ships, plus fireworks from the volcano in the background… but as it was in the day, it wasn’t very spectacular. And I guess we had a bad view so we couldn’t really see what’s going on on the water…

And we had Goofy in front of us most of the time lol… He was funny, wiping invisible sweat off his forehead and stuff like that.

After the show ended, we decided to walk along the Harbour and head towards the Fortress. Along the way, we saw Goofy (again~ but another Goofy~), Pinocchio and his maker. Mom wanted to take a picture with Pinocchio, so she asked him for a pose. Before I could snap the photo for her, she pointed her finger at his nose (poked his nose), and he started giggling and wriggling his face lol! Mom was so amused… she was like a little kid :)

Then, we walked on further and found this patch of flowers and oranges, plus an ancient “ruin” structure lol… Youngest Bro did a “Sir Stamford Raffles” pose (folded his arms, and looked up towards the sky). Some passerby even thought that he was looking at something in the sky. And they looked up as well hahahaha~

Then, we entered the Fortress, and at the entrance was the Magellan’s restaurant! Isn’t this the place that Takki dined in (when he came to DisneySea recently)? I ignored the stares of the guy standing at the entrance, and took a photo of it lol. The restaurant looked too high class for me to even think of stepping in.

There was a snack stand nearby selling one of the best food we had of the trip — Maple Churros! 超美味しかった〜〜★ It cost 250yen per stick, and I bought one for each of us :) Btw, this churro was also selling at the Imperial theatre, but it didn’t taste as nice as the one in DisneySea, yet it’s more expensive at 300yen.

And so, we started exploring the Fortress. It’s like a castle. We didn’t try the Leonardo game, where people had to find clues within the Fortress or something. We just wandered around… and took pics of the 3D illusion thing, the frames on the wall, the neon ceiling (stars), the pirate boats game, etc…

Then we went outside the Fortress to the pirate ship, and barrels etc…

We could see across the water, the outline of the Mediterranean Harbour, which was a beautiful sight.

It was fun playing the “shoot the cannon”, and it reminded me of Pirates of the Carribean lol. Although it was freezing cold (till our hands were numb), we took many photos there, including the Captain’s cabin…

And then the sun started to set.

It was past 4pm when we were done with the Fortress, and walked towards Port Discovery. Along the way, we took more pictures.

On one side was the restaurants and fast food places…

And this was where we’d have our dinner later ↓

On the other side was more country-like…

And peaceful…

Then we got to Port Discovery – Aquatopia.

The ride looked mild, but when we actually tried it, every spin and jerk was so strong that we got sea-sick! Lol! But it wasn’t that bad coz we were laughing while being spun around… we kinda regretted after the first spin, but couldn’t do anything about it since the ride was programmed, and we were stuck on the boat lol.

This was Mom & Dad taking the ride, photo taken from our boat… Mom closed her eyes for 95% of the ride as she got sea-sick too lol.

We took pics of some flowers outside the toilet there lol~ I couldn’t get my camera to work properly, but the focusing turned out quite unique in the end that I kinda liked the result~

And we could also smell the Strawberry Popcorns from a nearby cart, while the sky turned slightly darker. I was conserving battery life for the show later, so I took this picture with my keitai ↓

The queue for StormRider was long, and at first we thought we could try a ride. But… after the sea-sick Aquatopia ride, we decided that StormRider could be worse, and gave up lol~

We didn’t wait for it to be fully dark before heading back to American Waterfront for dinner. Dad figured we needed some warmth lol. And so, we found Cape Cod, took a peek at the menu and decided to go in (as it’s not costly). These were the counters where you order and take your food. The lady there was really friendly and always smiling :)

Dinner wasn’t too expensive actually, about 700yen per set, but the burgers weren’t very big. The Herb Chicken looked nice yo, I regretted not choosing it… but this was my Cheeseburger set (with Oolong tea) – again, the pic was taken with lousy keitai camera lol…

It was already past 6pm by the time we were done and decided to move our butts. I told them we had to catch BraviSEAmo at 6.25pm, so we walked towards the Mediterranean Harbour again, this time via American Waterfront. But we still stopped along the way to take photos *lol* Our hands really were numb coz it was super freezing cold!! The Tower of Terror looked scary at night with the light shone on it from the bottom.

The ship looked nice lighted up at night, but we couldn’t go in coz there was no time. And it was a challenge to use the night-mode of my camera as it was impossible to get a good picture with shaky hands. I needed a platform, and had to use the timer to take some of the shots.

Then we finally reached the harbour, and saw some girls running…

Oh no, BraviSEAmo was about to start! So I ran too, and there were SO MANY PEOPLE!!!! We thought we saw a good spot somewhere in front, so we gave up where we were standing and moved forward, but it turned out that the “good place” was barricated or restricted — only some people could enter. Sigh…

We didn’t exactly have a good view but it was still awesome. Really the best show! If you go to DisneySea, you HAVE to watch BraviSEAmo. It made our money worth it XDDD Initially, I planned the 14th for DisneySea, to avoid the public holiday crowd on the 11th. BraviSEAmo would only be performed until the 12th (and I’d have Takirev show at that time so it’s muri~), so I was deciding whether or not I should give BraviSEAmo a miss, but my colleague told me I MUST watch it, so I switched my itinerary and I’m so glad I did!

We filmed video for the show, which took place on the waters of Mediterranean Harbour. Even though there were heads blocking, it was still spectacular. The audio for the show was just music, so there wasn’t a need to overcome any language barrier lol~ The music, along with the display of fire and water, can really move people to tears yo!! The scale was so grand~~ We were just wow-ed by it all. And the finale was literally “jaw-dropping”!

Here are a couple of screen captures from my video – Fire vs Water :)

The show ended at about 7pm, and that’s also the closing time of the park. People started to head out of the park, LOADS of people… but it’s kinda dark so it’s not easy to see the crowd from here~

I tried my night-mode challenge again, and managed to get a few shots which looked decent enough to post lol… The 2nd one was taken by my bro with his “steady hands” lol

We didn’t wanna squeeze with the crowd so we decided to go into the souvenir shop to get some goodies back. And… we were in there sooooo long that… WE WERE THE LAST CUSTOMERS TO LEAVE!!! LOL!!! And we spent about 12,000yen there! Can’t believe it, but yeah… the chocs, biscuits, senbeis look so-so only, but the tins are so pretty~~~~

So yah, we were the last to leave the shop, and as we exited the Harbour to the globe area, we took MORE pics there… The staff were standing there ready to shoo us off looking at us taking funny photos with the globe… and one even laughed when they found out what we were doing haha. Youngest bro was ‘spinning’ the globe with a finger… and the other bro was holding the globe up with both hands… u know what I mean la~ haha~

There were still people hanging around, but we were one of the last ones to leave the park. This is a picture of the entrance to Mediterranean Harbour. As you can see, there is hardly anyone in sight :)

And we seemed to be the last ones to take the monorail back to Maihama station too hahahaha… From there we could see the outline of the Disney Resort. It was quite pretty~

Anyway, we weren’t aiming to take any rides for this trip at all, coz 1) my family aren’t themepark-type people, 2) my parents can’t take thrilling rides, 3) we ‘kids’ aren’t exactly the thrilling-rides-type either lol… Just wanted to see nice scenery, experience the atmosphere, and see what Disney is about, since none of us (apart from my bro) has been to Disney before. And erm, Miss Itinerary-Planner here chose DisneySea in the end (instead of DisneyLand) because Tono went there recently LOLLLLL

But it’s a pity we went there late, and only managed to step into 3 out of the 7 Theme Ports in DisneySea, not even half the park lol~ Anyway, this was my one-day passport aka ticket. My brother had a different picture, but I got “Number One” (from Monsters Inc) :)

Although it has been dark for so long, it was actually only about 8pm. We took the train back… and went shopping around the Sunkus and Family Mart combinis (for tomorrow’s breakfast), and I went to Yamachan to buy 10 tebasakis for my family…

They all LOVED the tebasakis, coz they have a really unique taste that really, none of us have tasted elsewhere but at Yamachan. While eating, I watched the last part of the first episode of Code Blue Season 2 (btw, the posters were EVERYWHERE we went – on the trains, at the Shibuya Hachiko exit, on the FujiTV building, on a building at Shibaurafuto~). Don’t really like Pi’s hair in it, but Gakki’s hair is nicer than in Season 1… I hope Takki and Gakki can act together one day hehehe~

That’s about the end of our 2nd day in Japan (and arguably Day 3 of our trip) :D