Topic: BigMike's 2013 Japanese Vacation [many pics!]

[BigMike]

Zoomed in to see the water leaking


Check this out. Thanks to the Sea theme they have bumper cars, rather bumper boats skimming across a thin layer of water that splashes up with every bump! Cool!


Ok, take a look at this. This is a chain for Duffy The Bear. Duffy was made by Minnie Mouse to keep Mickey Mouse company while he went on vacation around the world. Because Mickey's love was so great from this gift, the bear came to life! So the concept is that throughout the park there are these little chairs that you can place your Duffy bear on and take a picture. Each chair has a different world/vista behind it so you can have a collection of pictures of Duffy "traveling the world"!


Strawberry popcorn!


On our way to Indiana Jones ride / Lost River Delta. The architecture changes as you enter into a different world.

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Air plane just sitting there as a prop.


Christmas chicks


Beast and the Beauty


Here is a place where you can meet-up with your friends. Nice concept

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Stole a picture of this chubby girl waddling around


Here is the cool temple building at the Indiana Jones ride


Just like in California, they have cool older vehicles converted into food trucks.


Indiana Jones has some "Temple of the Crystal Skull" connotation but I can assure you it is nothing like the disappointment of the fourth movie. It is 90% the same as our ride back home.


Busy but wide walkway

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Cool displays abound


Ahh yes, more Engrish: "It made it one by one with love."


This. This is awesome. I should have bought it.


It was about this time that I started noticing how many ladies are wearing short skirts. While there are a standard for school uniforms, these are definitely shorter than regulation. You can see just how cold it is as Misato is wearing a beanie, heavy jacket, and gloves. Even I had a neck warmer and also gloves on. Yet there were a lot of ladies in short shorts. My wife said this is another example of how the social pressure is very high on the younger generation to look "as cute as possible."


This was a fun ride called "Storm Rider." It had a few surprises we weren't expecting.

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This is the line outside of Storm Rider. HOLY CRAP.


I thought I would take a random picture of people waiting in line to give you an idea if it's any different than back home. Pretty much the same.


We rode the train back over to the American Waterfront. Here I found a couple with Duffy bears riding おんぶ piggy-back


Trains passing each other


Large Christmas tree

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Here is currently the #1 most popular ride at DisneySea. They sold out of Fastpasses by 9am! I walked over just to see what all the hype was about. Pretty crazy that Woody's mouth is the entrance.


This is from their version of our California Adventure's Hollywood Tower of Terror. The ride is the same except it is a bit shorter / they only make two passes whereas in California I think they make four up-and-down passes.




Check it out! I found Paradise Tropical Tea! Very good tea that I like very much back in the States.


Misato got this cool strawberry tea that is served as normal tea, and then you dip this strawberry-covered spoon in to let it melt its way into a tasty beverage

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A shot of the spoon before its coating melted away


Here is another one of those park transportation service vehicles I mentioned earlier. Pretty cool with the bars.


This is from outside the Tower of Terror ride. They actually did a really great job. In California, our Tower of Terror is based on the Twilight Zone. Well, they can't use this since hardly any Japanese have even heard of that old American show. So instead they made up a very believable story of a rich art collector who collected an artifact that was possessed! The inside details were amazing however we weren't allowed to take any photos. They did a GREAT job at making this ride, just as good and a detailed job as the one in California.

[BigMike [OP]]

So to continue from earlier, I decided to take some random pictures of any ladies in clothes not suitable for such cold and windy winter conditions we were in. All of these pics came from just moments apart. My wife says that women are under such high levels of pressure to look their best that they have to go to such lengths just to "fit in" with society. It seems fun and all, but if you Google Japanese teenager suicide rates its nothing to laugh about. Yes Japan has many great things but just like any other there are also many sad things. From the stories my wife talks about to news articles I've read to the hierarchy system in place, it's gotta be stressful growing up over there.

[BigMike [OP]]

Cool! Hot Dogs!!





Check this out!! Biltkowski! A fellow Polish Engineer!

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Thank you to the old man who took this picture for us


Check out these cute Mickey mouse waffles. Everything down to the last detail including the stick. That is the Japanese way of life. And this thing was like $5. Of course we bought it. It has little Mickey's on it.


Heading through to the other side of the Volcano area...


...we emerge in the マーメイドラグーン Mermaid Lagoon, Misato's favorite place to be! Much more to come about this fun place.


HA! CHECK IT OUT! Some people are using the Duffy chair discussed earlier!!

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This is looking towards the アラビンコースと Arabian Coast, another really fun area out here. It's all about different regions here, I guess similar to Epcot in Florida.


This is back towards the ロスとリバーデルタ Lost River Delta. Cool mixture of water and fire here.




SA-WEEEET! A ジェトコースタ Jet Coaster!


Hey, why don't I wait "hear" until I come back. Engrish FTW!

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Haha check out these hats. Gotta love it


Wow nice hair


They do have awesome smoked Chicken legs but they are no where near the same size as the Chicken (or are they Turkey legs?) in Disneyland, California. It was still delicious


Check out this lil guy. His hat is of "the claw" green alien guys from Toy Story. Unbeknownst to him, Misato had a fun time walking behind him while she repeatedly bounced the white puffball at the end of his hat. Ha ha it was funny.


Grrrraaaaawwwwww!!!!!!

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Grrrraaaaawwwwww!!!!!!
How many Duffy Bears can you find in this picture? I count five. Disney souvenirs sell like hot cakes over in Japan. The consumers are just crazy for this stuff.

Enjoy this sequence of Misato's inner monologue...





Ha! I found "normal" Churros! So they do exist over there, and these are better than the Mickey ones because there is more extruded material, more bang for you buck.

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Found a Camel, had to be at one with my own kind (according to my wife I am a rare Camel that talks)


Combined pictures from within the center of the Arabian Coast area


Curry popcorn!


Of course regular salted popcorn


This is the entrance to the Mermaid Lagoon. From the outside it looks cool but from this vantage point you have nooooo idea of the awesomeness that is waiting ahead literally right below your feet.

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Flounder, Sebastian, and Ariel


Check out this future gansta


Christmas Tree The Little Mermaid Style


Misato welcoming us in to her favorite place in all of DisneySea!


Once you enter, you walk down hill for a ways and then find this large opening where you are overlooking the entire Underwater Lagoon. The shapes above do a great job as a reflective ocean surface.

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Here we are on the floor level of the Mermaid Lagoon. There are endless things to do here mostly for little kids, but still a lot in store for big kids too.


Another shot from the ground level


Here is Misato crawling around

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Because this place is mainly for kids, while the kids are away playing you can only imagine what many parents are doing....



This is a room where Ariel has stored all her "human artifacts."


Check this out, I climbed up and ran all around these nets trying my best not to trample any little Japanese kids. This was the only picture I took and the only net-bridge not jam-packed with kids.

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This was one whale of a store.


This place was PACKED. Soo many people buying things it took forever just to walk from one end to the other.



Painting above

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And finally, this is the reason why we come down to this children's paradise and is one of the coolest things in DisneySea. It is a live show taking you from start to finish of all Ariel's underwater adventures but is arranged and choreographed as if Cirque du Soleil and Disney had a partnership. Great set, amazing musical score. It's difficult to explain but the show includes wire-framed structures cable-suspended and moving all over the place from above that resemble many of the original Little Mermaid characters ... with the cool part being that each structure has a Japanese dude inside the wire-frame skeleton pushing and pulling levers with his hands, feet, and head to dictate the movement of each character. It is a really well designed show and is really fun for me to watch because of the high level of mechanics involved with each character. I'm not exactly sure why everyone else likes it though.





Waiting in line for this one is always worth it


This is from the show! They have on-duty camera Hawk employees that are REALLY strict about no photography and are Johnny on the spot to bust anyone using a camera. Being such an American Ninja, I was able to get this picture without being spotted. The large face of the sea witch Ursula at left is all animated by two Japanese guys sitting from within (visible when her head moves to one side through the tubular structure of the device), even down to such details as each guy pulling on a lever to operate the movement of each of her eye brows!

Additional notes: The four long hanging objects are seaweed that move via their human operators as if there was a real ocean current in the room and you can see twin moray eels Flotsam and Jetsam at the lower left corner with connecting bars to operate their breathing and speaking mouth movements and the elevation and forward-facing direction of their heads.

[BigMike [OP]]

Finally above and back to normal life, the sudden darkness alerted us to just how much time we had spent under the sea The entire becomes alive and very colorful at night!


We walked back over to the Arabian Coast to check it out at night and also to watch another show that I was not able to take pictures from.




All of the water fountain, um, things, are of the Genie's face from the movie Aladdin.


Really cool lighting effects and architectural work made this place feel really authentic. This shows as if there is a full moon out but really I don't even think there was a moon at all that night...

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Ahhh! Now we are back at the Lost River Delta finally ready to put our Indiana Jones Fast Pass ticket to good use! This is looking from from an above walkway. If you like how much detail Disney puts into the line-waiting section of their rides then Tokyo Disneyland will not disappoint.


Not only is Indiana Jones one of my favorite movies (all occult influences aside), but the rides are always jam packed with cool mechanical equipment from yesteryear.


It was fun watching this instructional video that I've seen many times played in Japanese.


This is where the fun begins!


Look ma! No eyes! No wonder everyone is freaked out!

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Back outside. Look how cool and tranquil it is at nighttime. A 5 min walk in any direction from here and its crazy party time with tons of people and attractions going on. Then you walk over here and it is so quiet and peaceful.




People taking pictures of people taking pictures of people at a fiery waterfall.

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This was really cool. This is back at the Arabian Coast and was a fireplace in a sort of blacksmith shop sat just off to the side of a busy walkway. Every 5 mins or so you'd start hearing hammering sounds and then suddenly from within the fireplace a Genie would appear and remain for about 30 seconds. I'm not sure how they did this but it was really neat!


This is the Magic Lamp Theater which is a pretty fun show. The neat aspect of the show is that the animated Genie that appears on the big screen reacts and responds to the audiences reactions, and even uses names of people from the audience. Neat how far interaction animation has come.

[BigMike [OP]]

We finally got on the jet coaster. It was good but as a regular at Six Flag Magic Mountain it is nothing to write home about.

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There were these really neat (advertised as) hand-made Alpacas that I regret not picking up a couple. They were really well made and I do like Alpacas.

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That was about it for the day. We needed to catch one of the last trains out of the area so we headed back towards the entrance.

Passing back through the volcano...


Looking across the lake at the entrance to the park...


Looking back towards the castle...


Looking over at the American Waterfront...


Looking back towards the Tower of Terror...

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Misc pics from near the entrance...





It's cool how Japanese restaurants have detailed plastic examples of their menu items.

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And of course one cannot leave the park without first being tempted to purchase more Duffy the Bear merchandise..









Duffy the Bear is everywhere

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Here we are outside and in front of DisneySea. Had a lot of fun, thanks for the memories Disney!


Buying train tickets to make it to our hotel.


Quick stop before the train ride for dinner. I had this very good pasta...


...my wife had this Poke dish that was also very good.

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And finally made it to our hotel!

So my wife tried to find the cheapest place near the airport since we'd only be here for about 7 hrs or so and we prefer to save $ for actually doing things while on vacation

Check out how small this place was! I'm standing in the entrance doorway to the room:



Immediately to the left is the bathroom. It was a neat a one-piece bathroom unit made by Mitsubishi.



And that is it for day #2!