Tokyo ’12, Day 11 – The Journey Home

The alarm went off around 5 am, so early! I had a lot of trouble waking up. >_< We showered, got dressed and went to check every corner of the room to see if everything we wanted to bring back with us had been packed. Then my mom and I left the room with our suitcases, while my dad did the last thorough check. After that my dad joined us and we made our way to the elevators, saying goodbye to our hallway. The hotel was completely quiet. We waited in the hall until our bus would arrive around 6 am. After some time the orange Airport Limousine bus arrived and we handed our luggage to the driver.

The Friendly Airport Limousine bus that would take us to the airport.
The bus was empty, so we could choose any place we wanted to sit. We decided to sit at the front. After a while, the bus driver sat down behind the wheel and we drove off, leaving our hotel behind.
The bus drove all around Shinjuku to pick up passengers. The first hotel we passed was the Shinjuku Park Hyatt, the hotel from ‘Lost in Translation’. At every hotel we waited for passengers and then continued our way. We were (quite negatively) surprised when we waited outside the Hilton hotel. Such a famous and expensive hotel, yet we had to wait for ages until we could leave because a certain form had to be signed! Oh well. Finally we went on our way to Narita Airport.
The route the bus drove was the same as the bus my dad and I had taken back to the airport on our previous trip to Tokyo. We past the clock, drove for a long time and then we went over the Rainbow Bridge (we could see the Skytree!), past Odaiba and Disneyland and we saw the IKEA again too! We ate our bread rolls while looking out the window, saying goodbye to Tokyo (and to my lovely Melon bread).
We arrived at the airport, where the passengers for the first terminal left the bus. Then the bus continued its way to terminal two (which was like 200 meters). When we got there, a little line of airport staff members bowed (while the bus pulled over XD) and then pulled out all the luggage from the bus at an incredible speed! Very impressive.
On our previous trip, my dad and I had flown back with Japan Airlines. Now we would fly back with KLM, therefor we had to be in a different terminal. We entered he terminal, where my dad checked us in. We also checked in our luggage (yay, no more dragging suitcases along).

Our flight wasn’t very hard to find, being the only KLM one. XD
We checked the details of our flight and then went through passport check. We arrived at the (official) airport, but I must say it was quite boring. Everything was grey and quite quiet. Luckily there were some shops we browsed. I found a book store that sold a book I loved as a child, but then of course in Japanese! Very cute. I bought a KERA magazine at that store.
My mom and dad got some coffee at a McDonald’s. We initially wanted to eat something, but apparently the pin device was broken and we only had some coins left. So coffee it was.
We walked around for a while. Through the windows we could see our airplane already. It was so big!
We passed a souvenir shop called Tax free Asakusa and my mom went inside. They had really nice (and cheesy, haha) souvenirs, including a lot of key chains. My mom said: ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if they sold the little lantern key chains here you’ve been looking for all this time?’ And can you believe it? They did sell them! I just couldn’t believe my eyes! XD I immediately bought two.

Just to prove the key chains were really there!
I also bought a beautiful black hair clip with flowers on it. After I had paid my mom showed me a really sweet souvenir: a little board with five Japanese girls on it, dressed in kimonos with Japanese things on it like cherry blossom trees and kimonos. She loved it so much I decided to buy it for her!

Mom with her cute souvenir! ♥
My mom also bought some chocolates for the flight. Then it was time to head to our gate, where we waited for a while until we were allowed inside. Around 10:10 am it was time. I felt quite sad while walking through the tunnel to the plane. I was saying goodbye to Japan, hoping to return someday again.
We sat down on our seats: my dad at the window, me in the middle and my mom at the aisle. After a while, the plane was ready for takeoff. We drove to the takeoff strip and the plane made speed and left the ground (*sniff*).
The flight was long, but okay. My mom and dad switched places after a while and mom loved looking out the window, because she could see the beautiful mountains and lakes we passed. I mainly watched movies: Atlantis (I had never seen that one before) and A Knight’s Tale (without subtitles, great for my English, although with a buzzing plane it was a bit hard sometimes). My mom watched the Hunger Games, so we could all talk about it. It also made us read the books after we had gotten back! The chocolates my mom and bought were really good: they had different nice fillings! ♥

The beautiful view!
The downside of the flight were the incredibly annoying people sitting in front of both my parents. They were so terrible: jumping around in their seats, dropping down the back rest without even thinking of the person sitting behind them. The woman in front of my dad constantly demanded attention from the stewardesses! Ugh, I was so lucky I had no one in front of me. Around 12 pm (Japanese time) we received lunch. We all chose Japanese style. We got rice with a nice sauce, a bread roll, salad with some kind of meat in it, vegetable salad and jelly with fruits in it for dessert. It was really nice! Somewhere during the flight we got a cup of water and a cup of yoghurt I believe. Breakfast was less nice: we got some kind of pasta with another bread roll, salad and fruit pieces, but the pasta wasn’t very nice.
After hours and hours of flight, our destination came closer. The plane started to descend and we finally hit the ground, back in our own country around 10 pm (Japanese time).

Our huge plane from the outside.
We followed my dad and went to pick up our suitcases. We could see my grandpa and my brother waiting behind the windows. After a while we saw our suitcases appear, picked them up and left the hall. After passing the doors we could finally hug our family again.
We put our suitcases in my grandpa’s car and he and my mom drove to our house, while my dad, my brother and I went back by train. At home we could finally hug our dogs again too. Even though I missed Japan from the moment the plane left the ground, it was also good to be home. Of course I hope I can return to Japan someday again! It really, really hope so.


This was my last Tokyo post! Thank you all so much for reading about our adventures! I hope you enjoyed them! All of your comments were so nice and they always made me really happy! ♥ Thank you for staying with me~!

Tokyo ’12, Day 10 – Tokyo Skytree and Shibuya

On Wednesday we woke up and I felt a bit sad: this would be our last day in Tokyo. Of course we wanted to enjoy it to the fullest, so we quickly got dressed and went on our way to the 25th floor to have breakfast at 7:45 am.
It was strange to know that everything would be for the last time, like breakfast. I was going to miss the delicious dumplings, slightly old fries and pieces of paper saying you would either return to your table or that you had finished your meal.
We had a nice seat next to a window, where we could see the city. The weather was perfect: if we looked around the corner of the window frame, we could see Mount Fuji behind a building! We finished our lovely breakfast and went back to our room to get our things.

‘Meal end.’ Such funny English! XD
Then we went on our way. It was quite busy on the streets: lots of suits everywhere! We arrived at Shinjuku station and took the metro to Kanda to get to Asakusa. There we took the special Skytree train again, which was a lot less crowded than Sunday!

The beautiful stairs leading to the Skytree train station.
We arrived at the Skytree station and walked outside, into the nice, warm sun. We went up the escalators and quickly discovered, to our great joy, that there were no long lines outside! After checking with a staff member where to go, we walked into a big building and went to stand in line. Okay, so there was a line and it was pretty long, but it was in no way comparable to the lines from earlier that week. I noticed that most people who stood in line were elderly people. Coincidence? XD
We waited for quite a while, but it wasn’t unpleasant (even though I almost wrecked the sweater of the woman in front of me with my bag, ahem). The closer we got to the ticket counters, the more fun it got. On big screens hanging above the people, an animated city was shown with little people and cars moving around, showing all kinds of fun facts of cultural Japan.
We finally reached the ticket counter and bought our tickets to the first deck (if we wanted to go to the highest level we had to buy separate tickets on the first deck, very strange system). Then we went to stand in line again to get to the elevators. Yes, lots of lines!

Ready to enter the Skytree!
After a while we were allowed into an elevator and went up, up, up, to the first deck: 350 meters high! The deck was quite big and had tons of windows, which gave us a gorgeous view on the vast city of Tokyo! The windows were decorated in Halloween stickers too.

One of the many pictures we took of the view! If you look closely
you can see the Tokyo Tower in the left upper corner.
We walked around the whole deck, looking at magnificent Tokyo from every side. I could even see Disneyland in the distance! It’s not far away at all!
Suddenly, a tiny, old woman pulled my sleeve and asked if she could take a picture with me. I said yes, although I was a bit confused. She really didn’t want to leave me alone until she got her picture, haha! XD Very strange.
After the picture we continued to walk around. I think we all took pictures from every possible side of the deck. The view was so amazing! The only downside was that Mount Fuji wasn’t visible anymore, but hey.

Looking down on the enormous Skytree shadow!
My parents were craving coffee, so they went to get some at the Skytree Café. I got a Skytree ice cream, so good! It tasted like milk (sounds strange I know, but it was so nice)! It also had cereal in it! While enjoying our coffee and ice cream we just stared out of the windows. The view was so amazing, I can’t tell you enough!

My delicious little ice cream~!
After we had looked around enough, we went to stand in line for tickets to the Tembo Galleria, the second deck with the spinning hallway along the tower. After a short wait we bought the tickets and went to stand in the next line for the elevator. We quickly were allowed inside.
The elevator shot up (scaring me a bit, since at a certain point we could see the city outside and how fast we were going through windows) and we arrived at the upper deck, where we were welcomed by a staff member in a Skytree dress.

My dad was very happy to finally be at the Skytree!
We joined the crowd looking out the windows and whoa: the view was even more beautiful here! We could see so far away! We took many pictures and then walked up the spinning galleria, where we reached the highest point a person could get when visiting the tower. We just enjoyed the view for a while from every side. We also watched a little while people were having their picture taken by a photographer at the official photo spot.

The photographer taking pictures of people. I thought it was quite cool!
My mom sat down for a moment because she had gotten a little tired, when a staff member walked up to her and tried to tell her something. My mom thought the woman was asking her if she was alright, but it turned out she was trying to tell my mom she couldn’t sit there. XD
We took the elevator down to the first deck again, where we browsed the souvenir shop for a bit. The goods weren’t very special, but I still bought a key chain for memories.
We left the very crowded shop again and had a little fun standing on glass windows in the floor (thought my mom didn’t really like it that much). They really showed how high we were!

The Skytree is so high! And this was only the first deck!
Then we went down to the safety of steady ground again.
We passed a photo corner where you could take a picture with the official Skytree mascot (because everything in Tokyo needs a mascot). My dad and I couldn’t leave without a picture!

My dad and me with Sorakara-chan!
We passed more shops, but we didn’t enter them. We left the building and while we were walking, we decided to take more pictures underneath the huge tower. My dad lay down on the ground and took some pictures of my mom and me (it must have been quite a sight)! My dad also asked for a picture with one of the staff members, because of her cool Skytree dress!

Underneath the Skytree~!
We had gotten quite hungry (which wasn’t surprising as it was lunch time) and we decided, even though we had sworn not to do it, to go to McDonald’s (XD). We entered the small restaurant, where little toy train tracks were built in front of all the windows, which looked super cool!
We ordered chicken nuggets and somehow found a free table and enjoyed our simple lunch. After some discussing we decided to go to Shibuya again, to take new pictures with Hachi and to cross the big crossing again, this time in the sun. After staring at the countless trains passing the windows we left the restaurant and walked towards the station, passing the One Two Tree! shop.
We took the metro back to Asakusa and from there we took the straight line to Shibuya, where we arrived around 2 pm. We first looked around the station for a bathroom (my mom could have sworn she saw a family member of hers walking around there XD) and then we just stood by a window to look at the big crossing getting crowded! I can’t tell you how much I love the big Shibuya crossing. Despite the fact it doesn’t really have a well known name, lots of people now it unconsciously.

Wonderful crowded Shibuya crossing!
We watched for a while and then decided to go outside. We walked up to Hachi’s statue, where we took some really nice pictures together with him. My mom loved him so much! ♥

We all love dogs and we all love Hachi! ♥
We decided to take come pictures at the big crossing, so my mom and I walked to the other side when the lights turned green and my dad waited. When the lights turned green again, we walked back and my dad took pictures. We did this a second time, to make sure we had some nice pictures. It was a lot of fun! ^^ Then we walked to the other side, together with my dad. Suddenly we heard a weird sound of rolling wheels and two (Western) skateboarders maneuvered through the crowd of people, one holding a video camera. I thought it was pretty dangerous and apparently so thought the police, because later I saw a couple of policemen talking to the skateboarders and their faces were not so happy.

My dad and me at Shibuya crossing!
We decided to just walk around Shibuya for a bit. My dad wanted to visit the Spanish Slope again, a Spanish-like winding street, which we found after a while.
We looked around the little streets, enjoying all the shop fronts (and also those that covered the second floors of buildings with pretty stairs leading to them). We passed a wonderful Bershka (I don’t really care for the shop, but the store front was made of neon green glass, really cool). We passed a cute shop where they sold the sweetest animal plushie slippers. When I noticed a sign that said ‘3 pairs for 1050 yen’, I didn’t hesitate for a moment and chose two pairs of dog slippers (one white and one brown) and one pair of bunny slippers. Inside they also had a lot of those gorgeous skin coloured tights with prints on them and as they were also 3 pairs for 1050 yen, I chose three pairs: one with hearts, one with stars and one with love on it. My mom bought a really nice cap in the same shop too. ^^ We also briefly visited the Disney Store.
It was 3:30 pm by now and we decided it was time to go back to the hotel to start packing, as there wasn’t any opportunity to do that the next day. We walked back to the big crossing, when I suddenly got an idea: I really wanted a jumping picture on the big square! I told my parents to get ready and as soon as the traffic lights turned green, I ran as fast as I could to the middle of the zebra crossing and started jumping like an idiot! It must have been quite a sight, but at least we got some really great pictures! People did laugh a little, but hey: I laughed too! XD

Yay, a jumping picture on the big crossing! I love the result of my weird behavior. XD
We walked up to the station when I suddenly saw a girl wearing a ‘free hugs’ sign. Call me crazy, but I just love hugs! So I walked up to her and we hugged, haha! XD She was so happy and sweet. ♥
I took a last good look at Shibuya. The buildings looked so beautiful in the light of the setting sun.

Goodbye Shibuya! Hopefully I’ll see you someday again!
We entered the station and bought tickets so we wouldn’t have to recharge our Suicas (I bought an extra ticket for memories). We took the metro back to Shinjuku, passing Harajuku for the last time (*sniff*). We exited Shinjuku station and bought some bread rolls at Hokuo for the next day, as there wouldn’t be a chance to have breakfast at the hotel.
We arrived at the hotel, where my mom and I already went to out room while my dad took some pictures of the outside of the building. He had wanted to do that before but forgot, so now was his last chance.
When we arrived at our room, my mom and I started our almost impossible quest: packing everything into our suitcases! We had bought so much (well, I had bought so much) that it was a big adventure to find a place for everything. Luckily both my mom and dad are pretty good at packing. We managed to divide everything well and we only had to leave superfluous things behind, like shampoo and toothpaste.
We decided to eat at MyLord for the last time, so we grabbed our bags and left the hotel. It was strange to know this was our last night in Tokyo. Every day we discovered new and interesting things, but the streets we walked every day to the station had become familiar and even a little at home to me. Realizing this was the last time for who knows how long made me a little sad.
We arrived at MyLord where we decided to eat for the last time at Café Est! Est! (we really liked that café, haha). My mom ordered a bowl of something I really can’t remember, I chose a salad with chicken wings and smiles and my dad ordered the 15 inch long plate filled with different kinds of food. While we were waiting for our orders to arrive, I noticed one of the waiters, who was so incredibly cute! ♥ Oh my God, I fell in love with a Japanese guy for one night. *_* He was so good looking! I really had to make sure I wasn’t staring at him, ahem.
Our food arrived and it was so good (meanwhile I still secretly looked at waiter-kun now and then). My mom didn’t really like her dish unfortunately, as it was really hot.

Our wonderful dinner!
When we had finished, I asked if I could have one of the big ice creams from the shop window. They looked so good and I really wanted to try, plus they weren’t that expensive at all! My dad said it was okay, so I went to pick one from the window. My mom also ordered a crêpe.

And this is what I ordered! No, your eyes are not deceiving you:
there are two pieces of cake on it!
My ice cream and cake were sooo good! ♥ Ugh I could eat one again right now!
After I finished my ice cream, my dad went to pay (I stood outside of the restaurant, too shy to stand close to waiter-kun). I really wish I had asked his name. I would have loved to know.
We left MyLord again and walked back to the hotel, where we packed our last things. We wrote a little note to the cleaner (I wrote ‘thank you’ in my prettiest katakana), uploaded pictures to Facebook and Skyped with my brother. Even though we had to wake up very early the next day, we just couldn’t lie down to sleep. Around 12 am we decided we really needed to rest for the next day and went to sleep after all.

Purchases of the day

Tokyo ’12, Day 9 – Shopping Day

On Tuesday morning, we slept a bit longer. Our Disney adventure had taken a lot of our energy, so we deserved to sleep a bit longer. We got dressed and went to have breakfast.
We had decided to make this day our ‘shopping day’. We had checked online what kind of weather it would be in the days after Disney. Tuesday would be a grey, bit rainy day and Wednesday would be clear and sunny. We wanted to return to the Skytree, so we wanted nice weather for that, making the choice of day easy.
My mom and I had noted the places we wanted to return to to do some last shopping, which were MyLord in Shinjuku, Harajuku and MaruiOne in Shinjuku. We decided to start at MyLord.


My mom and dad ready for our shopping day.
We calmly browsed the stores of MyLord a bit. I really wish we had a mall like this near where I live. ^^ My mom spent some time in the Home&Kitchen store. She bought some adorable small bowls and drink coasters in the shape of biscuits. We both also spent quite some time at the DIY shop, where my mom bought supplies and beads to make necklaces and I bought a lot of supplies to deco things!


The Home&Kitchen store, in Halloween style.
We passed a store where they had beautiful tulle skirts on display and I tried on a Bordeaux red one. The shop girls were super sweet and enthusiastic (as usual ♥) and my mom decided to buy it for us both. We also browsed my mom’s favourite shop: Casita (Retro Girl), where she bought another soft scarf for a friend. I bought three gold glittery hair accessories in the shape of a star, bow and a ballerina. They also had adorable hats with little ears on them. I kind of regret not buying one…
As it was past 12 pm already, we had gotten a little hungry. We decided to have some crêpes at Café Est! Est!


The way too many amazing choices at Café Est! Est! *_*
My parents both chose a crêpe with tiramisu, I chose one with whipped cream and banana. The crêpes were very delicious and made a wonderful lunch! ^^
We went on our way again to Shinjuku station, where we took the Yamanote line to Harajuku.
When we arrived at Harajuku, the sky was quite grey but there was no rain (lucky us). We followed the road to Takeshita dori, which was a lot less crowded than Sunday! ^^ We entered the shopping street and suddenly, while looking down a hall with stairs I remembered we hadn’t done any purikura yet! My mom really wanted to do it, but my dad passed to get some coffee at the McDonald’s across the street.
When my mom and I got downstairs, our eyes had to get used to all the colourful booths! I quickly fund a purikura machine I wanted to enter: Kyary’s Puri-ma-donna (that name is just genius)!


Kyary’s Purikura booth really is an eye catcher!
It was a bit complicated to explain to my mom what to do while simultaneously keeping an eye on the time and where to put my stuff, but we managed! We took some nice pictures and then went to the other side to decorate them! It was so much fun! My mom got a bit over-enthusiastic and covered me completely in bows on one of the pictures, but we couldn’t find the eraser! Luckily, two English-speaking girls were doing purikura in the next booth and they were able to show me! ^^


I looove purikura! We should have done it more! Shame the pictures don’t come out as big as they are on the screen.
Because there were no other people using our booth, we had plenty of time to decorate. The result was really cool (even though my mom was a bit disappointed by the size of the pictures when they came out. XD)!
We took our pictures with us up the stairs and joined my dad, who had just finished his coffee. We continued our way and entered the Paris Kids, where I bought some really cute accessories including two pairs of the cute cherry pins I had seen floating around the internet. We walked on and entered Bodyline, also significantly more quiet than Sunday. ^^’ I spent some time picking another pair of shoes (I decided on another pair of the ballerina-like shoes, but in red) and I also picked out a nice lavender blouse. My mom discovered a very sweet yellow and pink cutsew that I also bought. When I arrived at the checkout, I experienced one of the many amazing Japanese services when it comes to shopping. The sweet shop girl showed me the size of the shoes and both the blouses, so I could check if I really had the right ones. Suddenly she pointed out that the lavender blouse was missing a pearl. She immediately went to check whether they had any blouses left that had all the pearls, but unfortunately there was only one blouse left with a flaw. So she carefully cut of one of the pearls of the other blouse and put it in a little bag so I could sew it on myself if I wanted to. I thought that was very thoughtful!


With my Bodyline purchases! ^^
We left Bodyline again and I jumped into Closet Child (this time I really promised not to try on anything). I picked out some adorable Chocomint and Angelic Pretty accessories, but I should have checked them better. One of the Chocomint hairclips has a missing clip. -_- Oh well.


A picture I took in Closet Child! All the pretty dresses…
We walked on towards the end of Takeshita dori, when I suddenly noticed a shop to my right where they had lace collars hanging! My mom had been looking for them all week, but just couldn’t find them and now I saw a whole bunch of them! She was so happy, she bought two beautiful lace collars! ^^
We left Takeshita dori and walked into Meiji dori, where we walked on to Laforet. We went down to the Lolita floor and I looked around for a bit at Angelic Pretty, but I ended up buying nothing.


Wonderful pink Angelic Pretty! ♥
We walked on an passed Nile Perch, the amazing pastelly and cute shop with very high prices unfortunately.


A little look into Nile Perch. Sorry for ruining it with my arm. -_-
We walked on again and I went on a shopping spree at Swimmer, where I bought two pairs of socks, a folder with macarons on it, a lunch box and many, many cute accessories. It was so sweet, my dad helped looked around with me and pointed out the cutest things! I received them all in an adorable bag and I even got some Halloween cookies from the shop girl! ^^


My dad helping me pick out cute stuff! This is my ‘Everything’s so adorable’-face.
It was almost 4pm and we were getting quite tired, so we decided to go back to Harajuku station to go back to the hotel.


My mom wanted a picture of her holding all the (or rather, my) shopping bags. ^^
Back at the hotel we rested for a bit until we were reenergized.
Around 5:30 pm we left the hotel again to go get dinner. We looked around the restaurants at MyLord for a bit (again) and decided to go eat sushi! I mean, you have to eat sushi at least once when you’re in Japan right? We entered a sober but cute restaurant, where we were seated at the bar and where the chef made the sushi right in front of us! It was a lot of fun to look at!


Yay, food! Our sushi chef was so nice. ^^
We had all chosen the same plate, a selection of different kinds of sushi.


Mom posing with her sushi because it’s awesome!
The sushi was absolutely delicious and it probably tasted even better because of the atmosphere. Ugh it was so good! ♥
After we finished our dinner, we decided to split up for a while. My dad went to browse around in Tokyu Hands, while my mom and I went shopping at MaruiOne, aka Lolita Heaven!
As usual, Shinjuku looked amazing at night. We passed a cute, old fashioned stall and also a little pink van that sold crêpes. I’ve seen pictures of it on the internet after I got back! After a little while we arrived at MaruiOne.


OIOI One, aka MaruiOne~!
My mom and I entered the shopping center, where I told her bits and things about the different shops. I showed her MILK, which is such a cute shop, and also La Pafait and Jesus Diamante. At La Pafait, the shop girl looked amazing and she was very kind, but at Jesus Diamante they looked suspicious at us, haha! XD
We went up to the seventh floor and browsed Baby, the Stars Shine Bright a bit. Their new print, Ice Queen or something, had just come out and the ice blue version was absolutely to die for! I received a piece of paper showing the new upcoming print (the one with the fairies and the music stuff) from one of the shop girls. ^^


A part of the beautiful Baby, the Stars Shine Bright shop at MaruiOne.
Then we entered Angelic Pretty, where I browsed around for a while. They had nice things, but not really stuff I desperately wanted. I did discover a super cute black cutsew one piece dress, but I wasn’t allowed to try it on (probably because it could stretch or something). It was a shame, because I really liked it, but I didn’t want to buy something that might look not good after all. I browsed the umbrellas for a bit and found a beautiful white umbrella with pink bows along the border. My mom and I loved it immediately and I decided to buy it!


Me with my purchase. I’m disappearing into the pink!
We walked around the floor for a bit and I showed my mom some Moi-Même-Moitié dresses and told her about their prices. We walked around the floor, passed Angelic Pretty again and then went down.


Angelic Pretty MaruiOne in Halloween sphere!
On one of the floors I bought a cute box that looked like a book from the outside and my mom and I took an ‘obligatory’ MaruiOne mirror picture. ^^


Lots of Lolitas visiting MaruiOne take a picture in a mirror, so we did too!
We left MaruiOne again and walked through the enlightened streets of Shinjuku. Suddenly I saw an arcade and I hoped they would have purikura, which was the case! After exchanging some money with a funny machine, my mom chose the pink and green booth Bambi-na to take pictures in! We took some really nice ones and decorating was a lot of fun again! When we were done, we could also choose an option to receive a present. How nice!


My mom waiting for our pictures next to the cute purikura booth.
We received our pictures and present (a little box of pink cotton swabs) and then left the loud arcade again. ^^
We went back to our hotel, where we joined my dad. Instead of buying something for himself he had bought me a pair of cute purple head phones! ♥ They are so nice and comfortable.
We discussed the plans for the next day a bit, Skyped, uploaded pictures and I took some pictures of my purchases. Then we finally went to sleep.


Purchases of the day

Tokyo ’12, Day 8 – Tokyo Disneyland

On Monday morning we woke up on time, for we were going to Disneyland! We were all very excited, especially my mom who was of course very curious about what the park would be like!
My mom and I got dressed into our Disney outfits (my dad went as himself, huhu): my mom in her Dalmatians-like dress with Minnie Disney ears and me in my Minnie Mouse inspired outfit with Angelic Pretty dress and Disney ears.
Before we went on our way, we went to get breakfast at the restaurant on the 25th floor first. It was so funny: the man behind the counter had to ask how old I was to see if I counted as an adult or as a child! I’m still not sure if I should feel offended or flattered. XD I guess it was the ears that did it.
After breakfast we went back to our room to get all of our things. My mom redid my hair, since I suck at making pretty ponytails. Then it was time to go to Disneyland! The weather was great, so we were even more happy!
We took the metro to Tokyo station, where we had to walk a long way to get to the Disney Maihama line. It was so crowded at the station! So many people were heading towards Disneyland!
We arrived at the Disneyland station around 9:50 am. Riiight on time! ^^

Welcome to Tokyo Disney Resort! ^^
We left the station and followed the crowd. We arrived at the big round gate that says: ‘Dreams & Magic - Tokyo Disney Resort – Imagination’, where we asked someone to take a picture of the three of us.

Ready for Disneyland! You can see our outfits pretty well here.
My mom and I also took a super cute picture of the two of us in front of the spacy Disneyland gate and my dad took a picture of us doing it!

I love these two pictures so much together! They really are like a set to me.
We walked down the path towards the entrance. My dad and I noticed it was more crowded than last year. We got our bags checked and then we could pass the ticket gates, into Disneyland! The square behind the ticket gates was very crowded, which wasn’t surprising: there were so many Disney characters walking around! My mom and I got so excited! We immediately bumped into Cinderella’s fairy godmother, so we quickly asked for a picture. Almost immediately after that we saw Donald Duck walking by, surrounded by a group of people! We love Donald, so we wanted to try to get a picture with him. We waited a while until an opportunity came up, which was a lot of fun because it was incredibly interesting to see the smallest kids pose like professionals with Donald! Peace signs everywhere! So cute! Then an opportunity came up and I got some pictures with Donald! I love him so much! He also hugged me, hihi! ♥

I’m in a picture with Donald Duck! *fangirl*
My mom was incredibly excited to see all the wonderfully dressed people walking around. Little kids dressed as a Disney character, teens in Disney-themed character outfits and even adults (men!) looking their best!
We passed another character: Bert from Mary Poppins (I think), who spoke English and was quite the charmer! My mom and I liked him a lot! ;)
Like last year, the park was decorated in a Halloween theme. I noticed they had used decorations from last year, but also new ones! Although Halloween is not a holiday we celebrate in my country it was so nice to see all those creepy-yet-cute decorations everywhere!

Disneyland in Halloween style!
We bumped into another character: Robin Hood! Even though we’re not very familiar with this movie, my mom wanted a picture with him. ^^

My mom with Robin Hood! ^^
We left the square and walked into the big roofed shopping part that led us into Disneyland. My mom loved looking at the shop windows!
We walked out of the shopping part into the sun. The park was obviously quite crowded already (uh-oh! XD), but it didn’t make things any less fun! We took some pictures with Walt Disney and then walked on. An in orange dressed brass band walked by and we looked around us, trying to absorb everything. My mom just couldn’t stop talking about all the cute outfits!
We heard music and followed the sound. Apparently a little dance show was going on, because staff members were dancing with a big group of children. Unfortunately it ended just as we arrived, the little children looked so happy and cute!
My dad took a picture of the big castle and we walked on.

I really like Disney’s castles!
We walked around a bit aimlessly. It was much more crowded than last year and we quickly discovered two of our favourite rides were closed! Big Thunder Mountain and It’s a small world! I was quite sad about that…
After a while, we passed the entrance to the big Mark Twain boat. As it was just arriving, we decided to board! ^^
The boat made its round past a fort, Indians and canoes regularly passed us by.
The boat arrived back at its destination and we left the exit. A very tall man with his two tiny daughters both dressed as Snow White walked past us. Too adorable! *^^*
We walked towards the restaurant with the big Alice labyrinth on top of it to get some drinks from the giant pastel tea pot vending machines (yay for Tea pot coke on a warm day)!
We passed a hats and head-related goods stall and my mom and I took a little look. Then we walked on towards Toon Town. We noticed a cute yellow shop with tons of strollers outside which we entered. It turned out to be a shop entirely dedicated to Winnie the Pooh! Oh my God the items were just too cute! My mom and I both don’t like Pooh very much, but this shop was just to die for!

This shop was just over the top cute! The walls all had quotes
and oh my God the merchandise..!
We left the shop again and wanted to enter Toon Town, which was quite difficult because some staff members were directing everyone around a certain point because there was a parade coming. We somehow managed to get in and sat down on a bench. We had decided in advance to take enough rest during the day, since on our previous day we hadn’t done that and we wanted to enjoy Disneyland at its maximum. People watching was a lot of fun. A boy came by in a Disney-themed wheel chair, so cool!
After a little while we walked further into Toon Town, where we entered a shop with a lot of cute goodies and where my parents tried on interesting hats. XD The shop itself was very Toony: there was a machine placed in the middle of the shop where Disney-ish hands put stuff in that turned then into new items. The shop itself sold many different things, a lot of them being quite inventive themselves.
We left the shop and walked around Toon Town. We decided to try a ride we had never heard of: Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. I don’t think they have that one in Disneyland Paris and the line didn’t seem that long, so we tried it. Well, the line was long after all. Very long. Ugh it was terrible, lots of curves and small rooms you had to get through, but finally after ages we could enter our cars!
If you ask me what the ride was about and how it was, I couldn’t tell you. It was the trippiest ride I have ever done, but it was so much fun! You could literally spin your car around while passing all kinds of super weird moving and spinning and jumping things and characters. It was sooo weird but sooo much fun! XD
The ride was over and we left the building. The square of Toon Town was crowded and the sun was quite warm, so we decided to walk up to the fountain to freshen up a little.

Colourful Toon Town.You can see Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spins behind us.
We walked around Toon Town for a little more and then we decided to go wait for the next parade! Even though it was only 12:45 pm and the parade wouldn’t start until 1:45 pm, we didn’t mind. We left Toon Town and walked towards the parade route. Almost all of the benches were already occupied, but luckily we found a free one. My dad went to get some drinks, while my mom and I protected ourselves from the hot sun. Suddenly I saw a free bench in the shade and I ran across the road to catch it. Lucky us! The bench was next to a speaker on a lantern pole, but we didn’t mind. Long live the shade! Funny thing was: I think the bench was the same one my dad and I had watched the Halloween parade from last year! At least it must have been really close, since we almost had the same view!
My dad returned (after he saw me waving, huhu), we took some pictures, ate some candy and we did a lot of people watching. I can’t tell you how cute (almost) everyone’s outfits were! *_* My mom couldn’t stop pointing out cute ones. ^^ We were also passed by some Lolitas!

I really, really like this picture my mom took of me. Polkadots everywhere!
While waiting my dad fell asleep, sitting straight up. Every several minutes the speakers announced the coming of the parade. Although I had thought it was the Halloween parade, the announcer spoke of a differently titled one. I was very curious!
Then it was finally time! The music started playing and I could see the first cars coming! I wish I could describe the entire parade for you, but it wouldn’t come anywhere near its true beauty. I cannot tell you how amazing this parade was, thinking back makes tears come up in my eyes. The music, the featured films, the costumes… Everything was amazing!

Some of the many things that passed us by. I especially loved the car with Pocahontas!
We saw Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, Lilo and Stitch, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Monsters Inc., Toy Story, the Incredibles and even Pocahontas and the Lion King (and more, can you believe it?)!

More pictures! Can you believe this isn’t even everything that passed us?
The last car (featuring the sponsor of the parade) passed us by, indicating the parade was over (my mom and I both cried during) and we left our bench. My mom really wanted to do some shopping now, so we walked back to the roofed shopping part. We browsed several shops and oh my God, I will forever love Disney’s merchandise! They have such amazing things!
After walking via several shops we ended up outside again on the big character square in front of the entrance. My parents noticed two sweet girls both wearing a comparable outfit to mine, so we asked them if they wanted to take a picture together with me. They were so happy! My dad took a picture with their camera too! ^^

Polkadots everywhere!
Suddenly we saw Scrooge McDuck walking and we thought it was the perfect character for my dad to take a picture with (not that my dad is cheap, but he likes that character a lot). Before we got the chance, my dad first offered to take some take some pictures for some other girls with their camera first. ^^

Yay, my dad in a picture with a Disney character!
Then we saw two adorable girly mice from Cinderella and my mom and I wanted to take pictures with them. They were so cute!
We walked on and entered a huge and quite crowded shop. We walked around a little (my mom and I squealed at everything) and finally I found what I was looking for! I had seen pictures of adorable macaron-/Mickey-shaped merchandise, but I didn’t see any of it in the shops we had passed. They had a whole department of it here!
I wish I could describe all the amazing things we saw, but it’s just too much! I bought two macaron-/Mickey-shaped necklaces, a pearl ring, some fluffy phone key chains, stickers and more, but my mom managed to spend even more! She bought the most amazing things, including a wonderful Minnie bag!

Another photo collage! A little impression of shopping at Tokyo Disneyland. ♥
We continued to the next shop, where they had the cutest head wear. My dad tried on a Mike Wazowski hat, so cool! XD My mom bought a wonderful Mickey vest there. She also bought a beautiful hand mirror in the next shop.

My dad tried on the cutest headwear! I really think he should have bought this one! XD
While my mom and I were shopping, my dad had left the shop for a while, snapping a picture of more Disney characters: Friar Tuck and Prince John.. It’s really amazing how many different characters walk around in the park!
We had gotten quite hungry (it was 4:30 pm after all) and we passed a cute café with people sitting outside eating Mickey-shaped waffles. We immediately decided to try that! My mom waited outside while we went to get food. There were three choices of waffles: I chose strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream for my mom and me and I believe my dad chose something with syrup. One of the things that fascinates me about Japan and in this case Disneyland in particular is that they often don’t sell the ‘standard’ stuff. Not every restaurant serves fries and hamburgers, but things like rice and curry. This café didn’t have waffles with ‘standard’ cherries or chocolate sauce. They also didn’t sell coke etc., but they had coffee and milk! It really fascinated me a lot.
The waffles were served in cute paper holders so you could easily take them outside. After taking some pictures of our awesome food, it was time to eat!

Waffles~!
My waffle was so good! Ugh, I can still remember the taste. Delicious!
After we were done and had cleaned our stuff up, my dad pointed at a fancy-looking house, suggesting to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. I hadn’t even noticed the house was an actual ride! I thought it was a shop or just decoration! The line wasn’t long and after visiting the toilet, we quickly went inside.
The building or house, whatever it was, was just as fancy from the inside as it was from the outside. We passed several nice paintings (with Dutch ships on them) and it didn’t take long before we could board our ‘ship’.
I love Pirates in Disneyland Paris, but I think I loved this ride even more! It was longer, bigger and… it actually featured Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and the Flying Dutchman! Oh my God, it was so exciting! And the animatronic Jack was a perfect copy of Johnny Depp! God you should have heard me squeal! XD
When we left Pirates of the Caribbean it was getting dark already. We walked towards the Disney castle and tried to take some nice pictures (although it’s quite hard in the dark).

Disneyland in the dark is so enchanting!
In front of the castle there were light decorations on the floor. Somehow my mom managed to capture them perfectly with my camera! We walked into the castle and entered the traditional ‘glass- and glitter shop’, where we looked around for a bit. We left the castle and browsed some more shops. It was getting chilly and I got quite cold, but luckily my mom had brought an extra cardigan. ^^
We walked around the park for a bit, passing It’s a small world (wonderfully enlightened but still closed), in the direction of the space part of the park. We passed a stall where they sold popcorn buckets and we decided to buy one for the daughter of our friend at home. The popcorn buckets you can buy at Disney always match the theme of the moment and are refillable! We bought a wonderful ‘ghost Mickey’ shaped bucket! ^^
We walked on with our newest purchase and passed Space Mountain, which was incredibly crowded, but I didn’t really want to ride it anyway. Suddenly I saw a stall with lighting up accessories. We were planning to go see the Electrical parade and I was wearing my light necklace from last year, but my parents didn’t have anything lighting up. So I decided they could both choose a light accessory that I would buy for them as a present. ^^ I felt like a parent treating her kids. XD My mom chose the same necklace as me but in red and my dad chose a supercool blue Mickey with lighting up stars. Now they were ready for the parade! ^^
We walked past a Cars ride, where a life sized Lightning McQueen stood. Perfect for a picture of course! We also took some pictures with the little green Toy Story spacemen.
We followed the crowd a bit and ended up in the adventure part, where we entered an African-ish shop. My dad bought a beautiful elephant-shaped statue there (which was super heavy)! They also had a lot of adorable capybara plushies. I really fell in love with them!
We decided to go find a nice spot to watch the parade from, but all the benches were full! After walking for a while, we found a place to sit on the ground.
We saw some people around us eat pizza and after some vague directions I understood where to get them. My parents stayed behind while I went to get some for my mom and me and somehow I quickly found the right shop. They had two, quite unique choices, but I can’t remember which I chose. It smelled nice though.
When I returned, it turned out I had misunderstood my dad: he wanted some pizza too! Oops… -_- Oh well.
After some time, the music started and so did the parade! We could see the lights in the distance! The parade was the same as last year, but not any less beautiful!

The wonderful Electrical Parade!
The parade ended and we decided to go to Philharmagic, the 3D movie. My dad and I had seen it last year, just after the parade, because it wasn’t very crowded around that time. There were more people now, so we had to wait a little, but not too long. In the meantime we took some cool pictures wearing our 3D glasses!

Ready for Philharmagic!
The doors opened and we got seated. I know I already described what the movie is like last year, but I’ll just do it again. Although the movie is in Japanese, it’s very Disney and easy to understand the story. Donald Duck as to set up the music instruments for a performance, but accidentally makes them mad and he gets sucked into a magical black hole. While running, jumping and flying through all kinds of Disney movies he has to retrieve Mickey’s magic hat, which constantly slips through his fingers of course. XD Imagine musical film scenes where Donald is running around, like Beauty and the Beast’s ‘Be our guest’, the Lion King’s ‘I just can’t wait to be king’ and the Little Mermaid’s ‘Part of your world’!
The movie is incredibly funny and the 3D effects are amazing! The singing is also really great in Japanese! I just loved it so, so, so much!
The movie was over and we returned to the African shop, because I really wanted a capybara for myself after all. XD I chose a cute brown one and called it Cappi-chan (oh yes, I am a naming champion)!
We decided it was time to back to the shopping part to get the last things and then leave. We had gotten really tired, so we quickly browsed the last shops and then went back to the big square, which was now crowded with people returning home. We left the park 10:25 pm (which means we spent almost twelve hours at Disneyland)! We took the train back to Tokyo station, joined by a group of loud and energetic school kids from Australia (yes I am sure, they even carried a flag with them) who jumped into the train at the last second, causing their group to split up.
We took the metro from Tokyo station back to Shinjuku, passing the clock at 10:30 pm. Back at the hotel we fell down on our beds. Despite the fact we didn’t do many rides, we had had an incredibly awesome day. Back home my mom often says: ‘I wish I could go back to Tokyo Disneyland, just for the shopping!’ ^^

Purchases of the day