- tokyo chapter: disneyland -

currently listening to - wind it up (gwen stefani)
mood - ...

having a mental block currently. been spending too much money at a time. such a traumatising experience..... my savings........

*****

it's been ages since i last went to disneyland. the tokyo one, i meant. never been to other disneylands in the world..

not again.. another 620 yen train ride.. this time, we went by another route (a different route from the one we took for jump fest). bought some sandwiches and onigiri and here we come, disneyland!! .......... thought that it would be a fun-filled trip to our destination, but.... the fun was beyond our expectations. never in my life have i experienced such a fully-packed train before. well at least, not that i remember of any... and i meant real man-in train that's packed to the brim.

for about an hour, we stood in the train, almost lifted up from the ground by the people surrounding us.. if i hadnt been standing next to the wall i wouldnt have been able to make some space for my bentou to prevent them from getting squashed. put my hand against the wall to leave a little space in front of me for the food, throughout the journey. it was my 1st time using foul language in public too.. kinda snapped a bit coz one side of my earphones kept slipping off my ear (yeah i get fussy over minor problems, i dont know why) thanks to those annoying beings who squeezed into the train one right after another even though the people near the opening doors were about to fall out of the train already..

some of our tokyo friends were complaining that one thing they didnt like about tokyo was that it's too busy and everyone seems to be always in a rush. as a proof, we see these japanese people, always trying to make way into the trains during peak hours even though these poor public transports are about to explode. but thats the way it is, i guess. thats the "culture" in tokyo. cant just tell the people to wait for the next train (or even bus)... and needless to say, im definitely not gonna give up tokyo just because i'll get irritated when riding a bus or taking a train during peak hours. anyway the experience wasnt that bad after all... was lucky that everyone around me wasnt that tall and i didnt have to suffer under someone's armpit.

and finally, we arrived at maihama. i always thought that the ticketing booths will be so crowded even on weekdays (that day, 19 dec, was a tuesday) but surprisingly the place was quite emtpy. the entrance fee costed around 6,000 yen. look at how money disappear from one's wallet. how depressing. im a money person. i love to save money (and not use it). maybe this gives me pleasure or something (err....).... whatever. right after we entered, my friend and i "armed" ourselves with our fluffy snoopy hats (which we bought in USJ) and began our little boycott on disney-related fluffy hats.

^ on the bridge connecting to the entrance of disneyland ^

^ the huge christmas tree near the entrance (along the souvenir shops) ^

1st we went to the fastpass machine for Big Thunder Mountain (a mine-train ride thingy) to book our places. then we went to the riverside for the Beaver Brothers Exploring Canoe. the title of this attraction's quite self-explanatory, right? basically we're gonna canoe around the river in disneyland. suddenly reminded me of our famous NJ canoeing team. believe me, they're scary. both mentally and physically. i remember how built our physics lecturer (who's the advisor for the canoeing team) was.. one of the asean scholars used to comment that "his veins pop out whenever he grabs his pencil". great teacher, in canoeing (i dont know about physics coz i had never concentrated during physics lectures before). heard that his team beat the singapore navy during the national canoeing championships..

gomennasai. sidetracked again..

yeah.. so we lined up for the canoe. there's a group of noisy japanese girls (hmm.. cant say we're not noisy though..) in front of us at that time. the guide person asked how many people were there in their group and all of them said simultaneously, in a sweet, joyful tone, "NANA MEI DE~SU!!" which meant something like "there're seven of u~s". hey, our group consisted of 7 people too. thats why when it's our turn to answer, one of us (actually it's me) shouted, or at least tried to shout, in a similar way, "NANA MEI DE~SU!!!" it's a pity that nobody bothered to stare at us (hai?)..

next we went to Splash Mountain (that splash-down-from-a-steep-slope water ride thingy..). thought of recording a video of the ride.. but on 2nd thoughts i didnt think it was a good idea. i mean.. i wasnt even sure if i could grab hold of my digicam firmly during the ride.. anyway, the ride was fun. more exciting than usj's jurassic park ride. there were more slopes during the ride (even double slopes). kept me anxious throughout ever since we splashed down the 1st small slope (im the someone who screamed during the back to the future ride).

then, we took the Big Thunder Mountain ride. we were expecting some steep slopes but it turned out to be a normal rollercoaster ride (= not frightening. but was fun..). also, we went to the Haunted Mansion later in the evening (or late afternoon maybe), which was basically another ride. with no thrilling moments..... sigh. the "mansion" was well-decorated, though. felt very much like halloween. not scary at all.. well as a matter of fact, i've never freaked out in a haunted house before.. when im not alone, that is. on the other hand, the tower of terror (disneysea) seems to be advertising a lot. wonder if it's worth going... anyone has any ideas?

^ road to the haunted mansion. those are pumpkins.. ^

of course we tried a lot of food in disneyland. went around different attractions in search of popcorns of different flavours. my friend and i tried honey, chocolate and curry flavoured ones. i'd say the honey one tasted like honey stars.. but the chocolate one wasnt anything like coco crunch.. just popcorns with a bit of chocolate on them. the curry one was alright, better than the chocolate one. and had stronger smell too. had to wash away the curry breath by eating turkey drumstick after that. at night we had dinner in a food court by ourselves. ordered seafood doria.. coz i didnt really liked the other ones. but this doria tasted so-so, probably because the seafood part of it wasnt properly processed and stinked a little..

^ my seafood doria. plus fries and coke and my wallet. ^

^ friend's "rice with chicken and egg" set thingie. on a mickey mouse plate! ^

and parades!! we 1st saw a performance by mickey mouse and the other characters at the castle when we were busy taking pictures with the many disney characters like alice, the 7 dwarves, wendy, peter pan and merry poppins.. later, there was a special parade for christmas, as well as the usual illumination parade which is held every night (but in christmas version). it's rather annoying when somebody obstruct you unintentionally (or not) when you're doing all you can not to shake, so that your camera wont snap some blurred pictures for you. unfortunately the 2 ladies in front of us were leaping up and down trying to take photos from the best angle. and it's even more annoying when.. whenever you want to take a picture, the performers will just look away and face their asses at you.. i was starting to think that this has got something to do with my phototaking skills (for moving things especially) itself.

before going back, we rounded most of the souvenir shops. that was when the rest of the group members decided that they would wanna go for karaoke after disneyland. so we well-behaved people (eh?) bid farewell and left for bed earlier.

speaking of bed... im too tired to continue now. i guess i shall end it here. sorry if it looks unfinished to you. will post more pictures when im more awake. tata..

*****

1) onigiri - riceballs.
2) man-in - (extremely) crowded.
3) bentou - packet lunch.
4) maihama - a place in chiba prefecture where tokyo disneyland is situated.
5) USJ - Universal Studios Japan. situated in osaka.
6) NJ - this is how the students call their alma mater, National Junior College. 1st junior college in singapore. lee hsien-loong's our sempai. =p