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Old 26 Sep 13, 12:11 PM  
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私たちは、東京ディズニーリゾートに行きます G&D Day 9

DAY 9 - (6-9-13) - Good Bye to Tokyo Disney

If I gave the impression we had finished at Disney then I do apologise. We have managed to squeeze one longish morning before we catch out bus into Tokyo later this afternoon. However, before I tell you the events of today, it was only last night I realise I hadn’t included an area at Tokyo DisneySea so let me put that right now.
If you actually walk from American Waterfront up to Port Discovery you actually pass through a beautiful Cape Cod area.



Sadly it is fast becoming a mini Duffyland. The buildings and water frontage together with the lighthouse really do make you think you are in the far north east of the USA. It is beautifully done. There is a great eatery here which we never got to try called the Cape Cod Cook Off. Its décor is themed like a cargo warehouse with some of it suspended from the rafters and ship’s wheels as light fittings. It is also home to a show called My Friend Duffy. The show is some ten minutes long telling the tale of how Minnie created the bear for Mickey on his travels. Finding a seat in this place can be a challenge as the Japanese coo and beam over this blasted bear! Right next door is Aunt Peg’s and this emporium is stacked from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling with all things Duffy and Shelley Mae. Whilst a bear is reasonable enough the outfits are outrageous. The 30th anniversary outfit worked out to well over £75! A couple were over £100. Some days you can’t get in the door – lines form of rich women, who, as I mentioned previously, can be carrying up to 4 Duffy bears in their arms and bags! Just around the corner is where the DisneySea Transit ferries leave from……………..time to take one I think.
Back to today. We have breakfast at Chef Mickey and enjoy the time with the characters – so much better than the lines and jostle in the parks. We do check – out and leave our luggage with Guest Services who seem to cover Bell Services as well at this hotel. The team here – mostly young ladies have been delightful and Darrin and I have bought them a box of chocolates to say thank you. As you know tipping is “no no” in Japan so we thought this would make a nice gesture. They are astounded when we present the box to them. I think we must be the first ever to have said thank you in this way. We get lots of waves from them all as we head for the door.
Heading outside we wait for the bus to the Disneyland park. We have our Magic 15 tickets so will get through the turnstiles early ahead of the crowds. If there is one ride we haven’t tackled yet it’s the Monster Inc. – Ride – go seek. This in essence is somewhat similar to the California Adventure ride but the layout of scenes is different and you are firing at targets – they being the Monsters Inc. logo which is on loads of hard hats, locker doors etc. distributed throughout the ride. Hit the target with your beam and things will happen. Whenever we have passed this attraction the lines have been of mega proportions. We secure Fastpasses – hoorah!


We head up to Fantasyland and the wait for Pooh’s Hunny hunt is only 10 minutes. Be a shame not to ride it. The wait time for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is 25 minutes so, as we aren’t in a rush, we join the queue. Funnily enough I think we only waited 15 minutes before we were careering around the mesa on the hurtling train.


We decide a coffee would be good so we grab two and settle down at a table at the Café Orleans to enjoy them along with cream sponges.


We go over to Monster Inc. and discover it’s “down.” CMs are turning people away. Well, we figure that as we have Fastpasses it won’t be a problem so we plough on. We join the line for the Disneyland Show – One Man’s Dream II. What the “II” is in aid of we have no idea unless this is version 2 of the show. We are allowed to video or take stills but the rule about not raising your camera above your eye level still applies.
It all starts in black & white:


Soon everything becomes colour:


There is a “It’s tough to be a bug” sequence and they had little ants which we presume must be played by children or dwarfs.


And the finale is done a la Hollywood:


It is a totally brilliant show and we are really glad we got to see it. We manage to get Fastpasses for Star Tours.
Lunch today is at “Hakusai”. This is a genuine Japanese restaurant right at top of Main Street. We had popped in earlier to get a Priority Seating for 12:30.m. When we are guided upstairs the whole restaurant is paper walls and SO Japanese.
The food was amazing, interesting and very different. What freaks them out is that two Europeans can actually use chopsticks as we said no to the knife and fork.
The meal:
Miso soup and sushi for Darrin:

For me, breaded pork with miso soup and salad. The white lump is the finely sliced daikon radish which I hate:


Dessert is a blueberry mousse with a sesame tuile and Earl Grey ice cream:

We have a view out over the square and towards the castle and lo! and behold, there are two thousand people sat in front of the castle stage being soaked beyond belief. It’s the last day of that Soryo Kobu show today. I presume they move on to something Halloween-y next week. Whether it will involve water or not we have no idea.
Fed and watered we head back to Monsters Inc. It had re-opened but the Fastpass line is now as long as the Standby line (which was at 70 minutes) and they weren’t bothering about the time you had on your FP ticket so if you’d got a time of 11:15 you could very well be in front of 9:45 returns like ourselves. We decide not to bother and keep the FPs as souvenirs. As Star Tours is right next door we head into that. The sequence was the At Ats on Hoth again.
The one bit of the park we haven’t visited all the time we have been here is ToonTown. We head on over and where pillars once were, they are now columns of piled up cartoony pumpkins.
It’s nice to know Mickey still has a proper home here unlike his WDW counterpart.




I check out Mickey’s mailbox.


Time to go. I hate this bit. It’s been a terrific week and we make a decision to return in 2015. (2014’s holiday is already sorted!) We return to the Ambassador Hotel and Darrin decides we should have afternoon tea with champagne. We spend a half hour reminiscing about the last few days. Time to get our luggage and head on outside for the Disneyland bus. This time it’s not for the park. We are headed to Bus Stop No2 for Shinjuku. This is located slightly North West of Tokyo’s centre. The fare is 800 Yen each (about £4.50) and it takes around 45 minutes. Disney fades into the background as we head on in to the city. We pass a lot of docks – this is after all Tokyo Bay which we had only previously glimpsed over the sea wall at the Tokyo DisneySea park. It is quite industrialised in this area and you soon spot familiar names – Sony, Seiko, Daihatsu, Casio, Pansonic………………etc. etc.
As we approach the city proper you discover that to get people around quickly they have built many raised freeways. Two of the main ones run north / south, east/west respectively. Because you are up above you get a great view of streets. Now let me try to explain Japanese addresses. You certainly ain’t going to get 23 Cherry Tree Lane! Areas of the city are broken up first of all into Prefectures or “Ken”. These are the country's 47 first-order subnational jurisdictions on a state or provincial level (think of them as counties). Within that prefecture the addresses are written using the opposite convention from Western addresses, starting with the biggest geographical entities down to the more specific ones. Following the prefecture is the municipality. For a large municipality this is the city (shi, 市). Tokyo has both ordinary cities and special wards (ku, 区), each of which has the status of a city. For smaller municipalities, the address includes the district (gun, 郡) followed by the town (chō or machi, 町) or village (mura or son, 村). Are you still with me?
The final three elements of the address in Jūkyo hyōji (住居表示) style are the city district (chōme 丁目), the city block (ban 番) and finally the house number (gō 号). Chōme and ban numbers are usually assigned by order of proximity to the center of the municipality. Gō numbers are usually assigned by clockwise order around the ban city block. I’d hate to be a postman in Japan! Anyhow, our hotel the Tokyo Hilton is 6-6-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo. So that’s the 6th district (Shinjuku), the 6th block of buildings, the second building. Geddit?
We actually arrive at the bus station next to Yoyogi railway station which is a couple of hundred yards from the Shinjuku station.


This is the busiest railway station in the world – there was a programme about it on UK TV a few weeks back. Staff sleep at the station between shifts and there is a train every 3 seconds at rush hour! Dragging our cases behind us we start to head for the hotel. To walk half a mile takes us an hour! The pavements are choc-a-bloc with workers heading homewards. If only we had known there was a hotel shuttle bus from Shinjuku station to the hotel. By the time we get to the hotel foyer we are both totally frazzled and in need of a drink. The guy who checks us in is called Odwada and he was born in Manchester! He sorts all our bags whilst we make our way up to the room. I want a cuppa and as soon as the luggage arrived the kettle is dug out and is soon on the boil. I didn’t explain about how we coped for milk. We had actually bought a box of those little portion pots at Costco before we went on holiday. As they are UHT treated they are admissible to Japan. Saved us having to buy cartons of milk and trying to keep it cool in crammed mini bars. I digress.
A hot bath is drawn and I’m soon in it.
Our room is on the 32nd floor.
I’ll show you the room and the view tomorrow.
Tonight we have a dinner reservation at the Park Hyatt Hotel. The New York Grill restaurant is on the 52nd floor. First time I’ve eaten a meal with a flashing red aircraft warning light outside the window.




They bring us a whole ciabatta loaf and a pot of butter. I nibble at this whilst waiting for my green shore crab soup. I follow this with Japanese Kusami duck with an orange caraway sauce.


Darrin foregoes a starter but chooses Surf and turf – prime Australian grain fed tenderloin with a half rock lobster.


Neither of us want dessert.
We are back at the Hilton by 10:45p.m. and boy! Are we ready for bed.

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Edited at 09:34 PM.
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Old 26 Sep 13, 07:09 PM  
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highland lass
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So reading this report with future planning in mind
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Old 26 Sep 13, 07:18 PM  
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Wow a long day...

The postie must have a nightmare delivering his mail.

Shame you never got onto the Monster Inc ride.
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Old 26 Sep 13, 07:51 PM  
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What a confusing address system

Very informative and great photos to accompany it all too
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Old 26 Sep 13, 09:21 PM  
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Really enjoying your reports...
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Old 26 Sep 13, 09:31 PM  
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Originally Posted by MarionG View Post
Really enjoying your reports...
Thanks Marion - and everybody else for your kind comments. I move on to Tokyo proper next and it's just as thrilling.
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Old 26 Sep 13, 10:32 PM  
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You lost me on the address! Great day & fab photos as always
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Old 27 Sep 13, 09:52 PM  
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Originally Posted by fudgesky View Post
You lost me on the address! Great day & fab photos as always
Seems to work for them Jenny. Guess it's what you are brought up with. Tokyo is yet to come and it's every bit as fascinating as Disney.
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Old 29 Sep 13, 06:58 AM  
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Food looks amazing
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Old 30 Sep 13, 11:51 AM  
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Fabulous instalment today ! You really make us feel like we're there ! Thank you for writing it
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