Bryan Acts a Fool in Tokyo!

...also starring: Nicole and Edgard!

Part 1

Disney Sea, or, How I Got Lots of Angry Glaring from Japanese Mothers

Originally I wanted to go to Korea for my September trip. Originally I wanted to walk on the demilitarized zone and be as unhelpful to the political relations between South Korea and Best Korea as possible. The plan was mostly to wear my heart boxers and moon those pinko-commies on the other side, but then I found out that flying to Korea costs a great deal of money that my bank account doesn’t have for some reason that must clearly be beyond my control, so the original Korea-acting-a-fool plan had to be replaced with the subsequent Tokyo-acting-a-fool plan.

So a few weeks ago my friend Nicole and I booked our overnight busses to Tokyo from Niigata where we would sleep (hahahahahahahahaha) our way to Tokyo Disney and awake refreshed and ready to physically assault any characters we would come across via camera flash.

And so, that’s how it happened. Away we went on our bus at 11:30 in the evening. As soon as I could I exited consciousness, but the evil bus driver who stopped once an hour turned on the lights every single time forcing me like a screaming child back into the reality that my back hurt and I was drooling everywhere. When we arrived at Tokyo Disney 7 hours later, the only problem was that I hadn’t taken my contacts out (and its a well known fact that contacts turn themselves into razor blades if you don’t soak them in saline every night. Thus, my eyes were angry).

But we were at DISNEYLAND! And not just any Disneyland, TOKYO DISNEYLAND, which I’ll have you know only costs $58 per ticket. 

How about them fuji apples? 

Well, Tokyo Disney actually has two parks, Disneyland and Disney Sea. We decided since we’ve both been to a Disneyland before that Disney Sea would be the best bet for this trip. Hopefully it would be new, and exciting. And Sea-like.

And there we are! The entrance to Disney Sea. Brass bands are playing, it's wildly decorated for Halloween, giant chipmunks are hugging children (and doing their best to ignore yours truly. EXCUSE ME. FOREIGNERS WANT PICTURES TOO, YOU KNOW. We eventually just started photo bombing all the children’s pictures just so we could get in, and the parents were none too happy about it.), and there’s the ever present possibility of a typhoon basically destroying us at any given time. More on that later.

Disney Sea is separated into a few different areas, all of which have some sort of Sea theme going on, hence the name! Right when you walk in you’ve got this giant lake across from which sits Aladdin’s castle and a neat little pirate area that you can wander around. 

Immediately we saw (and heard the screaming emanating from) the Tower of Terror! Right next to this big boat which has an all you can eat buffet (on which poor Edgard had his heart set, but the 30 dollar price tag dissuaded us from going and we opted for street food instead).

Then there’s Triton’s Kingdom. 

It’s so incredibly full of neon colored whacky things that you’ll convince yourself that you’ve traveled to an alternate universe that is hell bent on making you all headachy/vomity thanks to the tea cups ride and ever present black lighting. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved the place and went back for more).

Also, Disney Sea has the Indiana Jones ride from California! It’s actually the exact same ride except it’s Crystal Skull themed rather than Temple of Doom. It was great, and made me think of home!

(Also, why buy those pricey photos when you can just take pictures of the screen? Here we are!)

As you’ve probably noticed, the sky was a pretty ominous color all day and the threats of typhooning destruction lead to the following series of events.

1. Me buying a silly hat and wearing it around Tokyo for the next three days and us buying rain coats to protect ourselves from said typhooning destruction.

2. Hiding mostly in the carousel to avoid the rain at all costs.

3. The destruction of my umbrella by uncontrollable events, i.e. Nicole.

Happy functioning umbrella:

Unhappy angry umbrella after Nicole gets ahold of it:

Then, of course, there was the food. I hunted and hunted for Churros, thinking that Disneyland could not be Disneyland without $10 Disney Churros of which I would buy at least twenty seven. It was in between rides, as we wandered hungry, cold, and wet that Edgard suddenly shouted “THAT GIRL HAS A CHURRO!” to which I responded by yelling at the girl “WHERE DID YOU BUY THAT CHURRO!?” She took a bite of her seemingly delicious churro, pointed to a nearby churro stand, and off we went happy as clams… until we saw they were sesame flavored.

Nevermind. I don’t want a churro that bad.

But remember that piratey area I mentioned earlier? While wandering through there, Edgard’s keen perception led to him finding this sign here:

Now PUMPKIN flavored churros, especially this close to Halloween, is something I can get behind.

I got two. I double fisted those churros. 

….and they were DELICIOUS.

As the night went on and the rain continued to pour, the crowds began to disperse towards the exit where the Disney Sea show began to take place (appropriately named BraviSEAmo. I didn't add the capital letters to the name, that's just how it is), so we wandered right on over that way, and in the process took my favorite picture of the evening. Here's Edgard looking surreal!

BraviSEAmo was a very Disney-esque tale about a nice, peaceful water…. ship… thing... and an angry fire dragon who was very angry until the nice peaceful water ship comes along and sings its song of happy peacefulness and sprays its water and then the angry fire dragon isn’t so angry any more.

After the nice little show all the crowds headed right for the souvenir shops (of course) which mostly consisted of this weird bear I’ve never heard of before named Duffy. He’s everywhere. He has tote bags and sweaters and stuffed animals and mugs and everything in the world is all about Duffy the Disney Bear that I’ve never heard of before. Duffy, Duffy, Duffy. Every kid walking around had Duffy the Bear tucked under one arm.

But how easy do you think it was to find ANYTHING at all labeled Tokyo Disney? I think Nicole and I hunted through every single store and we found ONE mug labeled Tokyo Disney. That was it. No sweaters, no purses, no magnets, no necklaces, not even a damn trash bag. Nothing. Consider my mind boggled.

But if you wanted Duffy the Bear, by God you could have him.

Personally I wasn’t interested. I don’t know who Duffy the Bear is, and since he’s not Pluto or Mickey, I don’t care.

After the hunt Nicole and I called it quits. Edgard had taken off after the show because he had school the next day and so Nicole and I were left to wander the underground labyrinth that is the Tokyo Metro until we found our capsule hotel. But more on that later.

So that's my little tour of Tokyo Disney for you via pictures and blog. Honestly it was way too much fun wandering around and going on rides and trying desperately to photo bomb pictures with Disney characters, but then, I imagine Disneyland pretty much anywhere would be a good time.