a lovely weekend!

This weekend has been lovely! Exhausting, but really lovely regardless. On Saturday night C-chan and I went to Hikarigaoka Park to check out a festival going on there . We were a bit late, but we could have a bit of a wander through the stalls before things completely shut down. Then we played with fireworks for a while (sparkler type not, like, rocket type). Fun! Then to Ekoda where we met friends for drinks and karaoke (this ended up lasting all night).

After about two and a half hours of sleep on Sunday morning, I got up and went to a BBQ. It was fantastic! Good friends and good food and good conversation! It was such a relaxing time. We were there for aaaaages; it was fantastic. We had a second party at an izakaya, and it was also good times. Managed to get home before midnight. Immediately crashed after returning to home port.

On Monday I set a course for Shinjuku to meet up with The Crew x A Mommy. There was a delicious pizza adventure! And it was so nice to meet Andrew's mother! She was just lovely. After we parted, I stayed in Shinjuku for a bit to enjoy air conditioning and then headed to Hikarigaoka to check out the festival (see picture) for a while and do a bit of shopping in preparation for Tokyo Cousin Extravaganza 2010!

Anyway, it's just been a really nice weekend. I kept thinking how lucky I am to be here in this place with these friends and this happy life!

totally not sick of it yet

I spent my 4th of July at Disneyland! It was not very American though; the Tanabata festival was on July 7th, and that was being celebrated. We wrote our wishes and tied them to "bamboo" (less like bamboo, more like metal poles). It was lovely! I like when Tokyo Disneyland has an overlay that is appropriate for Japan instead of something like, say, Easter Wonderland.

Anyway, it was a fun day! The weather was kind of horrible - freakishly hot and humid and then rainy - but I think that kept the crowds down. We were able to enjoy every mountain twice (Splash, Space, and Thunder)! And Pirates twice. And AstroBlasters, Pinocchio, teacups, carousel, Small World, Star Tours, and Haunted Mansion once. And I did not enjoy Snow White's (TERRIFYING) Adventures (I might have screamed). Super productive day!

I ate a honey lemon churro and a salad and french fries and passion fruit shaved ice (in a souvenir cup) and an orange popsicle and crab and mozzarella pizza and cream puffs. Delish.

Probably this was the last Disney trip until August during Tokyo Cousin Extravaganza. I've gone so often lately! Can I survive a Disneyless month? I had a hard enough time this weekend! Sunday came and I was, like, "WHAT DO I DO?!" I ended up wandering around Tokyo aimlessly and eventually buying a Spanish textbook. Today was a bit less random; I saw Toy Story 3. And bawled. Which is apparently an issue when combined with 3D glasses. They got all steamed up! And filled with water as they collected my tears! It was kind of a mess. Loved the movie though!

ZEDtastic!

This blog has been rather Disneycentric lately. But life has been pretty Disneycentric lately, so I feel it's a true reflection!

Anyway, the original plan for this weekend was to go to Osaka, but that had to be postponed, so we went to the Tokyo Disney Resort instead. But not to a park! We went to see our local Cirque du Soleil show, ZED. I've been meaning to go for ages but never got around to it and am so happy I've finally gone. It was amaaaaazing. Lots of aerial stuff and some fire and a set that I pretty much want to model my home after . Stars! Giant cogs! Magical floor of mystery (sometimes it's solid! sometimes it spins! sometimes it's a trampoline!)! Afterwards, we had a Cirque-inspired photoshoot. Then we paid visits to the Ambassador Hotel (art deco style) and Disneyland Hotel (Victorian style) and did some shopping and had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Ikspiari. It was lovely; even though we didn't visit a park, I felt all Disney-happy.

Today I'm not sure where my wanderings will take me, but I suspect a burrito will be involved at some point.

And next weekend I'm going to Disneyland.

Please enjoy Mickey and me at the Ambassador, some flowers , the Cirque theatre, our reflection on the Cirque theatre (and DisneySea in the background), and a light at the Ambassador.

Tokyo DisneyRain

I went to DisneySea last Monday, and it was kind of incredible. It was raining, so no one was there. We got one FastPass, but getting more proved unnecessary. The longest wait time we got in line for was 40 minutes, but I don't think we actually waited that long for it, and for the most part wait times were 5 or 10 minutes, especially as the day wore on and people got sick of the rain and went home. We basically just walked onto Indiana Jones later in the day. It was amazing.

Just like at Disneyland three weeks ago, it was a day of debuts! We spent a lot more time in American Waterfront and Mermaid Lagoon than usual. In American Waterfront, we enjoyed the usual Tower of Terror and also went to Turtle Talk (which featured the most amazing cast member - her energy! her voice! her general incredibleness!) and Big Band Beat (it's a big band revue that occasionally features Disney characters to remind you where you are). In Mermaid Lagoon we went on Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster (a debut for others, but not for me). We spent quite a while in the Triton's Kingdom part of the area, which is the indoor bit where all the super kiddie rides are. We went on three of them: Jumpin' Jellyfish, Blowfish Balloon Race, and The Whirlpool. We also watched the Ariel show which is in a technologically amazing theatre and which I kind of adored. The last debut of the day was BraviSEAmo!, which is the night time show in Mediterranean Harbor. Unfortunately, it was presented in abbreviated form because of the weather, but at least I finally saw some of it.

Other non-debut rides were Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, Indiana Jones (3x, and one time Indy was wandering around the queue area - epic excitement!), Raging Spirits (riding a roller coaster in the rain was a debut though), and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Unfortunately, Journey to the Center of the Earth was closed; if it had been open, with wait times how they were, we probably would have gone on approximately a million times. Alas.

Food was consumed at Cape Cod Cook-Off in American Waterfront (lunch + orange dessert in souvenir mug, although not a souvenir mug of the current overlay, Spring Carnival), Mamma Biscotti's Bakery in Mediterranean Harbor (orange pastry and orange biscotti), Tropic Al's in Lost River Delta (honey lemon churro), and Vulcania in Mysterious Island (Chinese dinner in a volcanic cavern + Mango mousse). Typing this out, I see there were more sweets than I realized at the time. Most of them orange.

I managed to restrain myself on the souvenir front and only purchased the souvenir cup, snacks to share at work, and the picture from our first Indy ride.

The only negative aspect of the visit was that my feet were wet all day which was kind of horrible. They might actually never be the same again. But that was a small price to pay for a really lovely, albeit rainy, day at the Sea!

This weekend featured a welcome/farewell party for new and leaving co-workers on Saturday night. Izakaya + karaoke + another izakaya = going to bed at nearly 7 am. I somehow managed to get out of bed yesterday in time to go to my student's piano performance. It was lovely! Then to Azabu-juban for my current favorite dinner, a vegetarian burrito from Frijioles. Then home where I attempted to stay awake but completely failed and fell asleep at 9:45. Slept for 11 hours and am feeling much more with it today than I was yesterday! Might venture Harajuku-way for some Forever 21 and bubble tea.

down the Easter rabbit hole

Last weekend was epic. There was some pizza. And karaoke. And an amazing sleepover. And porridge in the morning accompanied by Mickey toast before setting off for Tokyo Disneyland. There is a special deal on Disney tickets at the moment for those of us living in Tokyo, so obviously that needed to be taken advantage of.

It was an amaaaaaaaazingly beautiful day at Disney. And a day of many debuts! I took a night cruise through the jungle (first time Jungle Cruisin' in Tokyo). We took a drawing class and learned to draw Mickey. My Mickey is a little crazy in the eyes, but we got to draw on special paper and there was a special folder to put the picture in and we got to keep our special pencils, so it was well worth the ¥500 it cost. Also, it was fun. We went on Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. The only thing I can tell you about that ride: there was a lot of spinning. The queue was really enjoyable though. We ate at the Blue Bayou (looks exactly the same as California, but the menu is different and no mint juleps; still, love). And we went on Pooh's Hunny Hunt which, unlike the drug trip American Pooh ride, is pretty much amazing. The ride technology is all cutting edge and incredible. I'm kind of sad I couldn't be bothered with it before (the line's always long and Fastpasses run out quickly). It's a really enjoyable ride!

For anyone interested in the rest of the rides experienced (so...Mum), we enjoyed some piratey adventures (2x), a haunting experience, a serenade from the children of the world, a mission to save the universe from the Evil Emperor Zurg (not my best performance on that mission, but I still won), and journeys to two mountains (Splash and Space). It was an extremely satisfying day.

The current park overlay is Easter Wonderland. Because, you know, Easter wasn't ages ago or anything and also isn't something most Japanese people couldn't care less about. Anyway, the Tokyo Disney Resort is really into selling desserts that come in a souvenir mug and since, while organizing my kitchen recently, I realized I appear to be collecting them, it was very important for me to acquire an Easter Wonderland mug. There were a couple choices, but the one I really wanted had Alice on and was heart-shaped with a heart-shaped handle. Love. Unfortunately, it was not easily found and it was late when we got around to seriously searching for it. It was finally discovered to be available, not at a kiosk like the other ones, but at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall (it's, like, cafeteria-style). So I had to go in, wait in a queue (a super hot queue), and get one thing (panna cotta). And then they made me eat it there; it took longer for the girl to seat us than it did for me to eat. It was all much more complicated than I'd expected! The mug is really great though.

Anyway, love. Disney love.

This weekend has been less epic. Lots of laundry, reading, movies, and Pokémon. It's been nice, in a much more relaxing and much less Disneytastic way than last weekend!

epic wanderings!

Huzzah, I am back in Japan! I was so happy to return. The first order of business was to go to Shakey's. Yay, pizzafest! Then a lot of sleeping. I didn't have jet lag coming back. I was just a bit tired from the long flight. But a good night's sleep and I was fine for work the next day!

Last weekend included beautiful karaoke and gay times and a massive wander around Tokyo. I went to see the currently-in-construction Tokyo Sky Tree (shaping up to be Tokyo's most phallic structure!) and ended up walking from that area to Asakusa and then around Ginza to the Diet building and then from Harajuku to Shibuya. Epic exhaustion! And my shoe fell apart while I was walking. It was totally worth it though.

This weekend I ate an amaaaaazing burrito and sang some of the most beautiful karaoke ever. We were delighted to find that a couple songs from Wicked were available, including "Popular" and "For Good", the latter of which provided us with what I'm pretty sure was our best duet ever. Fantastic times! This was followed by a wander around the Tokyo Midtown area where we were momentarily trapped in an elevator, faced off against terrifying playground equipment, and got kicked out of a park. Yay, adventure!

Today I'm not big on the plans, but maybe I'll head out for another epic wander a little later in the afternoon.

culture shocked!

Hello from Americaland! I am here on holiday because I had to take care of some business since I've decided to stay in Japan longer.

While here, I wanted to visit Target a lot (have been 5 times), eat a lot of Mexican food (have had 3 times), and have a nice walk by the river.

Yeah. It was not a great day for a walk.



Anyway, going home tomorrow. America has been weird. The money is weird and there are all these big cars and apartments are massive and everywhere is really dirty and shop/restaurant workers are sometimes rude to me and people are really loud and not even remotely stylish. The (reverse) culture shock has not been great.

I really loved Target though.