I need to start this post with a fact.
After this trip, I Googled "the most populous city in the world" and guess what came in first? TOKYO.
Yes, seriously. Not any cities in China, neither in India, nor in America, but TOKYO JAPAN!
I haven't actually dive into the reason why Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, I'm sure there is some history, campaign, law or legislation to this, but I have yet to read it somewhere, so if you DO know, please let me know!
How true this article from IB Times is, must have somewhat truth in it because... planning to go into Tokyo Disneyland, without purchasing ticket online, on a weekend is a little crazy.
We had Disneyland in mind simply because, we just had to. We are child at hearts and we're already in Tokyo, might as well check it out. That sounded so simple.
We stumbled upon the Disneyland Ticketing Office while walking around Shibuya looking for the Robot Restaurant, and decided, HEY, let's see how much the prices of the tickets are!
So we entered only to see a spiral of people queuing what we could only imagine people would queue for - the entrance ticket of Disneyland. We followed the queue and after about less than 10 minutes we finally got to the counter and asked for tomorrow's tickets. GUESS WHAT. It's SOLD OUT.
WHAT. CRAP we thought. Now we really want to go to Tokyo Disneyland more than ever!
BUT she said, we can still sell the tickets to you but you have to be there by 8am. It sounded okay... until we started counting the estimation of leaving our home and reaching Disneyland. So basically, we had to leave by 5. That means get ready by 4am. And when we reach Disneyland, we have to run for our lives to get to the main gate first to be able to confirm our entry?
OK. Challenge accepted. 6400 Yen (MYR 190) for each of us then!
After Akihabara, we went home to sleep and get ready for a super early day.
Waking up at 4am during winter in Japan is NOT cool........ but we had to do what we had to do. So we took the suburb train into the city, and then to Disneyland and by the final leg of the train (towards Disneyland) we had already seen tons of kids in quirky costumes, bright makeup, cutesy facial add ons, and adorable hairdos. "We have to compete and run with these kids?!"
When we reached Disneyland, and upon reaching the train station, the exit felt like a standstill. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE. I was literally taken by the waves of the crowd and I admit, I became so stressed. Already I am so short, so to be moved by these waves of people felt a little bit claustrophobic I must say.
My stress all changed for the better when we got in :))))))) Circle of Life played in background, and the Cinderella castle stood so gloriously there, it was ... magical. The queue didn't bother me anymore, although the cold did, but I was more relaxed after seeing everything Disney around me, THIS was what I had come for!
When we finally got in!!! We realised a lot of the characters and shows were speaking in Japanese........ I wanted to laugh at the whole experience but everything was really funny when I think about it, that I thought to myself, well, I am in Japan aren't I.
The first thing we did was to get ourself filled. With waffles. Seriously, it smelled so good we decided to start the day with a Mickey inspired waffle, omg so magical seriously how is this not!! And also because we can afford it (now that we're adults and stuff) :P
If you think the entrance was crazy, wait till you see the queues to the rides...... some of them had 4 hours waiting time. 4 hours!! We really thought it was crazy to do so until we figured a strategic way of going into the rides (you really need a strategy for Disneyland),
1) Use the fast pass where you can choose a time to come and once that time hits, you can skip the long queue and be allowed in. In this case, sucks to be those who are queuing!
2) Go to the rides that have lesser people (relatively "less"). Well, because eventually the goal was to try and see as many as possible things isn't it
3) When it rains and no one else want to ride on that ride, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!! (even if it means getting hypothermia while you're at it).
4) REST when you can, take a seat, look around. It's Disneyland!
^ I love everything in Disneyland. This quirky magical restaurant top of Pan Galactic :)
^They had a very interesting way of getting into these shows, you actually had to be lucky to get into one! We had to scan our ticket at the lottery hall (yes it's called a lottery hall) and find out whether or not we would be able to get tickets to the "One Man's Dream" Show. AND WE DID! It was really out of luck and sheer random that we got it.. hehe.
^Daren was obsessed with this machine that churns out Disney inspired medallions. He would spend hundreds of Yen to get these medallions. I think he eventually had 15 - 20 of them :))
^This was how far the Cinderella castle to us. THERE WERE SO MANY people and no fireworks because it rained pretty heavily.
^The intensive 4am to 9pm trip to Disneyland was so exhausting that we decided to eat at McDonalds nearby our place. It was godsend. I tried this Hawaiian Pork because we don't have them in Malaysia and it's because meat just feel like a darn good choice after a cold long day in Disneyland.
- Tokyo Disneyland, checked.
Read More Japan posts:
Japan Day 1: Day 1, Tokyo, Shibuya & Akihabara Electric Town
Japan Day 3: Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto
Love,
Jacqueline Rowena @ Jacqkie.
After this trip, I Googled "the most populous city in the world" and guess what came in first? TOKYO.
Yes, seriously. Not any cities in China, neither in India, nor in America, but TOKYO JAPAN!
I haven't actually dive into the reason why Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, I'm sure there is some history, campaign, law or legislation to this, but I have yet to read it somewhere, so if you DO know, please let me know!
How true this article from IB Times is, must have somewhat truth in it because... planning to go into Tokyo Disneyland, without purchasing ticket online, on a weekend is a little crazy.
We had Disneyland in mind simply because, we just had to. We are child at hearts and we're already in Tokyo, might as well check it out. That sounded so simple.
We stumbled upon the Disneyland Ticketing Office while walking around Shibuya looking for the Robot Restaurant, and decided, HEY, let's see how much the prices of the tickets are!
So we entered only to see a spiral of people queuing what we could only imagine people would queue for - the entrance ticket of Disneyland. We followed the queue and after about less than 10 minutes we finally got to the counter and asked for tomorrow's tickets. GUESS WHAT. It's SOLD OUT.
WHAT. CRAP we thought. Now we really want to go to Tokyo Disneyland more than ever!
BUT she said, we can still sell the tickets to you but you have to be there by 8am. It sounded okay... until we started counting the estimation of leaving our home and reaching Disneyland. So basically, we had to leave by 5. That means get ready by 4am. And when we reach Disneyland, we have to run for our lives to get to the main gate first to be able to confirm our entry?
OK. Challenge accepted. 6400 Yen (MYR 190) for each of us then!
After Akihabara, we went home to sleep and get ready for a super early day.
Waking up at 4am during winter in Japan is NOT cool........ but we had to do what we had to do. So we took the suburb train into the city, and then to Disneyland and by the final leg of the train (towards Disneyland) we had already seen tons of kids in quirky costumes, bright makeup, cutesy facial add ons, and adorable hairdos. "We have to compete and run with these kids?!"
When we reached Disneyland, and upon reaching the train station, the exit felt like a standstill. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE. I was literally taken by the waves of the crowd and I admit, I became so stressed. Already I am so short, so to be moved by these waves of people felt a little bit claustrophobic I must say.
^When you think you're earlier than everyone else at 8.00am......
My stress all changed for the better when we got in :))))))) Circle of Life played in background, and the Cinderella castle stood so gloriously there, it was ... magical. The queue didn't bother me anymore, although the cold did, but I was more relaxed after seeing everything Disney around me, THIS was what I had come for!
When we finally got in!!! We realised a lot of the characters and shows were speaking in Japanese........ I wanted to laugh at the whole experience but everything was really funny when I think about it, that I thought to myself, well, I am in Japan aren't I.
The first thing we did was to get ourself filled. With waffles. Seriously, it smelled so good we decided to start the day with a Mickey inspired waffle, omg so magical seriously how is this not!! And also because we can afford it (now that we're adults and stuff) :P
If you think the entrance was crazy, wait till you see the queues to the rides...... some of them had 4 hours waiting time. 4 hours!! We really thought it was crazy to do so until we figured a strategic way of going into the rides (you really need a strategy for Disneyland),
1) Use the fast pass where you can choose a time to come and once that time hits, you can skip the long queue and be allowed in. In this case, sucks to be those who are queuing!
2) Go to the rides that have lesser people (relatively "less"). Well, because eventually the goal was to try and see as many as possible things isn't it
3) When it rains and no one else want to ride on that ride, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!! (even if it means getting hypothermia while you're at it).
4) REST when you can, take a seat, look around. It's Disneyland!
^ I love everything in Disneyland. This quirky magical restaurant top of Pan Galactic :)
^They had a very interesting way of getting into these shows, you actually had to be lucky to get into one! We had to scan our ticket at the lottery hall (yes it's called a lottery hall) and find out whether or not we would be able to get tickets to the "One Man's Dream" Show. AND WE DID! It was really out of luck and sheer random that we got it.. hehe.
^Daren was obsessed with this machine that churns out Disney inspired medallions. He would spend hundreds of Yen to get these medallions. I think he eventually had 15 - 20 of them :))
^This was how far the Cinderella castle to us. THERE WERE SO MANY people and no fireworks because it rained pretty heavily.
^The intensive 4am to 9pm trip to Disneyland was so exhausting that we decided to eat at McDonalds nearby our place. It was godsend. I tried this Hawaiian Pork because we don't have them in Malaysia and it's because meat just feel like a darn good choice after a cold long day in Disneyland.
I loved my Disneyland trip because eventually I went on to a lot of rides, 6 - 7 tops probably, had my Mickey waffles, explore magical buildings, saw the parade, got onto the Mark Twain ship, eat at a cowboy restaurant and just so much more all in such magical setting.
But if you don't appreciate crowds and waiting, think of something else, don't say I didn't warn you! :)
- Tokyo Disneyland, checked.
Read More Japan posts:
Japan Day 1: Day 1, Tokyo, Shibuya & Akihabara Electric Town
Japan Day 3: Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto
Love,
Jacqueline Rowena @ Jacqkie.
Comments
Used to live and work there for 2 years, lives on the east side of Tokyo Metro called Edogawa. Small District but it has 600k population resident lives there, almost the same size of KK City.