Day 5- Tokyo Disneysea!

I got off to a late start after a long Christmas night. We arrived at Disneysea around 1230. The entire Tokyo Disney Resort has Tokyo Disneysea & Tokyo Disneyland.

Tokyo Disneysea is the one I wanted to go to as there are things not at other Disney parks. Some of the newer Disney attractions are there like the Toy Story ride & Tower of Terror. There's an Aladdin area, Little Mermaid area, & Mysterious Island area (what I wanted to see most). The first photo is me with Mysterious Island behind me.

I started at Tower of Terror (photo 2 & 3). The ride is similar to one at California Adventure. The story is completely different however. A British man found an artifact & took it back to his museum even though he was warned not to. The statue cursed him and killed him by crashing the elevator. It was already looking very crowded as it was a 70 minute wait. The ride was a lot of fun just like the one in the States.

We saw the end of the parade which is actually a boat parade in the water in from of Mysterious Island. It was pretty awesome seeing the characters talking in Japanese. (Photos 4-9)

There are 2 rides at Mysterious Island: Journey to the Center of the Earth & 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Journey is pretty great. The line was 100 minutes, but they put some good scenery in the line (Photos (10-14).

When you get to the ride, you first go into an elevator taking you down to the drill shaped vehicle. This is to simulate you going down toward center of earth. The drill takes you all the way down to center of earth.

The next stop was to get a gyoza sausage (photo 15). We went straight to 20,000 Leagues with the snack. The line was 40 minutes. I took photos of scenery leading to the ride (photos 16 & 17). You get in a bubble shaped ship and go down from there and see various things as you go deeper in the ocean. There are areas too where you can use a light yourself to see some of the scenery.

The next 2 rides we headed for were Indiana Jones related. The funny thing is Indy's friend is someone who speaks Spanish as opposed to Jonathan Rhys-Davies character. The workers yell Adios Amigos as you take off. There's a roller coaster & the ride that is at least Disneyland. You can do single riders on these two so that saved a lot of time. The coaster is fun & I ended up driving the car for the original Indy ride (Photo 18).

The girls cracked up the instant they saw an American was driving. Of course, I had to really act out then yelling Abunai at opportune moments etc etc. There's a great smoke ring effect out of a statue that they couldn't figure out how to do in time when the original one opened.

I had a fast pass for Tower of Terror so did that one more time at night (photo 19). I checked out the toy story area close by. The line for the ride was too long, but I took some photos (photo 20-23) & saw Mr. Potato Head sing in Japanese (photo 24).

It was getting late so I quickly checked out the Aladdin (rode a Sinbad boat ride similar to It's A Small World) & Little Mermaid areas. I had to get back to Mysterious Island & do 20,000 & Journey which I just had enough time for.

Photo 25 is the Nautilus boat from 20,000. Photo 26 is the Mysterious Island. Photo 27 is the Journey sign. Photo 28 is the temple for the Indy ride. The last photo is the train strap which is great.

The last thing I have to mention is they have different flavors of popcorn for sale throughout the park. The flavors we got were in taste rank order were apple cinnamon, black pepper, & sea salt. They were all good. There was a curry flavor, but the stand was closed.

There's a discount if you go later in the day. We will attempt to go to Tokyo Disneyland to try to cash in on discount.

Day 4 Part 5- Guitar Wolf vs Xmas!

We rushed over after dinner. The shows here whether it be any kind of show really start around 7 and end by 1030ish. This is order to get everyone home via train as they stop running around midnight.

We got there just as the 2nd band Melt Banana finished. It was time for the Guitar Wolf 25th Anniversary Show!!

They were a lot of fun as always. It was a pretty average Guitar Wolf show but average by their standards is still a rockin show. The only reason why I can say it was average as it was an hour long show. I've been spoiled as the shows in the US are like 90 minutes.

Seiji was rockin hard and getting hisses as you can see in a bunch of photos. He actually saw someone deep in the crowd to bring up to play during Kick Out Te Jams. He stage dove and surfed the crowd. He was definitely on!

I got a shirt and towel after the show. I got a photo of the setlist & the shirt below.

Day 4 Part 4 Christmas Dinner!

Christmas dinner was at Shisen Hanten. This is Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi's restaurant in Akasaka. It's actually on the 6th floor of an office building. He does have other restaurants, but this is the original. I believe it's the same one his father has who was famous for first bringing Szechwan style food to Japan.

The idea was to do 3 get different types of proteins cept for having to order Chen's Mabo Tofu. We started with a sautéed chicken Szechwan style which was very good (photo 1).

The second dish we ordered was cuttlefish fried rice. What came to us was 2 bowls (one looked like a soup and the other looked like a bunch of pork rinds). We were like this can't be what we ordered. The waitress and confirmed that was indeed the fried rice cuttlefish. The pork rind looking things were the fried rice. They poured the broth with cuttlefish inside the bowl with the fried rice (Photo 2).

This bowl was beyond tremendous! One of the best things I've ever had in my life.

The last item was the signature Chen's Mabo Tofu (Photo 3). A waiter talked to us a bunch in Japanese explaining what I believe is a warning of how spicy it is. Japan is not a spicy food eating culture in general. I saw the waiter give the warning to another table too. I've had spicier things in my life, but damn it was pretty spicy. It helps buying small bowls of rice to accompany it. Of course, this dish was awesome. I was really stuffed by this point that I was hurting to finish my portion.

Overall one of the best meals of my life. Unfortunately, Chen Kenichi was not there tonight. I do plan to make it to Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe's place too which I hear he is always at.

Day 4- Christmas Part 3 Ikebukuro, Otome Road, & Shibuya

We had time to explore some shopping areas and just other odd spots. We mostly walked through Ikebukuro & Shibuya. There's an amazing looking apartment building in Ikebukuro which are the first 7 photos of the exterior & interior of the ground floor.

In the area too is a famous shopping center called Sunshine City which is like 8 floors. At the top, there's a planetarium & an aquarium. There's a small theme park inside too that I hope to hit later called Namiya Town which has a couple rides, Ice Cream City, & Gyoza Stadium which several different stands selling gyoza.

We explored a massive store called Tokyu Hands. It's a 7 story department store which has pretty much everything you could need. I got some postcards including this amazing self portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe (photo 8).

We found a stranger part which we didn't know was close by called Otome Road. There are comic stores for girls which feature comics with boys getting it on. We walked in one store for a minute to see & to see the expression on the girls faces while walking around.

In this area as well are butler bars with boys dressed as butlers to serve the girls. There are maid bars in other parts for the guys as well. There are shops here and elsewhere for cosplay which is where you can cross dress as the characters you like.

We headed over to Shibuya for a short while before dinner to look around & find the club where the Guitar Wolf show was at. Just outside is the station is the Hachiko statue was dressed up for Christmas (Photo 9). The story behind it was a dog got separated from his owner and stayed in that spot waiting until he died. The statue is now a famous meeting point Here's a photo of the area by the train station which shows how crazy this area is to conclude this post. (Photo 10)