東京ディズニーランド

No apartment pictures yet, sorry. But I have an excuse! On Monday I went to Tokyo Disneyland!

It was FUN TIMES. It wasn't super crowded! The weather was lovely! I experienced rides I haven't been on in forever! Dumbo! The canoes (awesome)! I experienced rides I know and love in Japanese! Star Tours! AstroBlasters! The Haunted Mansion (well, some of it was English, but the narration was Japanese)! I experienced rides I know and love in pretty much the same form as in California! Pirates of the Caribbean was so similar it kind of weirded me out a bit. The first skull after the bayou speaks Japanese, there is only one waterfall, and you disembark right after Captain Jack Sparrow gets his treasure, but everything else - the smell, the look and sounds of the Blue Bayou, the temperature, the everything - tricked me into thinking I was in Anaheim. It was jarring to get off the ride and find myself in Japan.

There were some fab eating times too. I had a delish orange popsicle. And I had two churros! A regular cinnamon one and a honey-lemon one! Oishii!

Other stuff! I got to see the Electrical Parade! I got to see a cute live show! I got my picture taken with Wendy and the scariest Peter Pan ever (I think only my mother will know what I'm talking about, but he reminded me of that guy at Nordstrom - replace "Omigod, it's coming to LA!" with "[huge gasp] Did you fly here using pixie dust?!" - only he was terrifying in his unrelenting cheerfulness). I was super lame and wore mini Minnie ear barrettes most of the day!

Maybe the best part of the day was that I didn't get stressed out by other guests! No one was rude! No one shoved! No one got right up on you in line! No one acted like the park was only for them and no one else deserved to be there! The one time some kid bumped into me in line, his mother apologized! Everyone listened to the cast members when told to do or not do something! Even if everything else had been exactly the same as Anaheim, the excellent behavior of the other guests would have told me I was somewhere else. I've possibly been forever spoiled; I foresee being extra annoyed next time I go to Disneyland back home.

The only tragic thing about the day was that Space Mountain was not open. Hopefully next time!

But in general, the day was happiness. I want to go back already! Before I went, I obviously knew that it was close, but it didn't seem real since I hadn't experienced it for myself yet. But now that I've been and know exactly how close to home it is, it will be hard to resist going. If I could afford an annual pass, I would be there, like, every weekend, even if just for a couple hours. ALAS.

Pictures all ended up being of the "Oooh, look at this thing!" variety than the artistic variety, but enjoy anyway. The Pirates line one is total blurry crap, but I include it for the "Dude, it does look like the CA version!" factor.