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Baby Ariel, Odaiba, and RIDICULOUSNESS

Okay, here's a pic of my Baby Ariel bento box - 3 boxes, actually, of smaller and smaller size! I ask you, how could I possibly resist this triple dose of cuteness? めちゃかわいい！

Also, have some pics from Odaiba (the lovely view of Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower, and Statue of Liberty; a Halloween ad; proof that in Tokyo, the future is NOW; and the Fuji TV building). I was there the weekend before last and had a much happier time than the other time I was there. The weather was gorgeous! We thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon over there. To get there, we took a monorail which is a little expensive, but which is kind of worth the price because it feels like a ride! And you get crazy good views! Anyway, Odaiba! I want to spend more time there!

Finally, ridiculousness! I walked into Daiso yesterday and was greeted with an aisle of Christmas. DUDE. There is apparently nowhere in the world where I can get away from the unnecessarily early appearance of Christmas.

東京ディズニーシー

Yesterday was my birthday, and I spent it at DisneySea!

DISNEYSEA IS AMAZINGLY AWESOMELY AMAZING.

I have been known to complain about California Adventure, and DisneySea really made me realize exactly why, despite quite liking a couple rides, I hate that park. DisneySea is easy to get around and there is shade and places to sit and it's beautiful and there are a ton of amazing rides and every area has great atmosphere and even though it's completely different, every bit of it still feels like Disney. Most importantly, while you are there, you don't just wish you were next door at Disneyland; we completely forgot about Disneyland until some point late in the day when we were somewhere that was high enough to give us a glimpse of the castle and then it was like, "Oh, that's right, there's another park over there. Okay, let's get back to the awesomeness here!"

DisneySea's theme is nautical exploration, and there are seven ports of call: Mediterranean Harbor (the entrance area, very Italian), Mysterious Island (Jules Verne stuff), Mermaid Lagoon (Little Mermaid), Arabian Coast (Aladdin), Lost River Delta (Central American ruins), Port Discovery (the marina of the future!), and American Waterfront (Cape Cod and New York). There are a couple familiar rides - Indiana Jones is in Lost River Delta (the ride is pretty much the same, but the theme is Crystal Skull and not Forbidden Eye, so some visual things are slightly different) and Tower of Terror in American Waterfront (the ride bit is the same, but the overall experience and story line is completely different and AMAZINGLY AWESOME). Tower of Terror was probably my favorite ride. My favorite lands were Mysterious Island (it has two very cool rides - Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - and looks all awesome and steampunky) and Arabian Coast (it had a nice atmosphere! and it smelled like curry! and after going on Sinbad's Storybook Voyage I learned the important lesson that "your friendship is a treasure"!).

We managed 10 rides (Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull, Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster, Caravan Carousel, Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Raging Spirits, Tower of Terror, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Aquatopia, and StormRider) and I ate sea salt ice cream and a sesame churro and I got a Baby Ariel bento box (I will take a picture of it later - it is even cuter than you could imagine) and when we were on our way out we got a little lost and ended up trapped in Fortress Explorations, which has this fortress and ship that are full of interactive stuff (tubes to crawl through! cannons to set off! the chance to pretend you're the captain of a galleon!), and since the park was near to closing there were only a couple other people there, so we could spend our last bit of time running around on a ship and crawling through tubes and generally acting like kids. So, pretty much the best possible end to our day!

I wish I had pics from every land, but my batteries kind of died and also my camera is crap at night anyway, so...yeah. Enjoy what I do have though! I will definitely take pictures everywhere next time I go!