Week 22 & 23 in Japan: Disney, Ghibli, and Harajuku

Hey everybody it's been a while so I'm about to right a book.. this will be long! I left for Tokyo on Saturday the 22nd and got back on the 27th so it was about 6 days in Tokyo if you count travel. I went by bus on Saturday and the bus rie was about 9 hours long. The bus is the cheapest way to travel to Tokyo but it is also the least comforatable and takes the longest. Your other options are the regular train which is maybe 7 hours, the Shinkansen which is about 4 hours (and really comfortable) or by plane which is about an hour. Round trip for the bus only cost about 80 dollars. We arrived in Tokyo early Sunday morning. We went to find a McDonalds to eat and charge phones. We ended up going to every Mcdonalds in the Shinjuku area which was a total of 5 but they were all full with nowhere for all four of us to sit together. That reminds me this trip was with Teppei, Kaori, Yunseok, and Palguem but Palguem was in Tokyo already so at this point it was just 4 of us. Anyways some of the McDonalds were really impressive. One was 5 stories high :). The reason they were so full was because that morning there was the Tokyo Marathon so there were lots of people. We didn't realize it was going on until we saw volunteers etc setting up and runners everywhere. We stayed at a hotel called Sakura Hotel, it was a small room with 5 beds and was only about 80 dollars for 3 nights. Part of the Tokyo Marathon went by very close to the hotel so I went and watched for a while. There were lots and lots of runners and a lot of funny costumes too. That day I went with Teppei to Harajuku to shop. Harajuku is one of the big fashion parts of Tokyo and probably even the world. It's known for its crazy fashion. It has variety from the highest quality brands like Gucchi outlets to second hand ones too. It was fun being in Tokyo seeing Ferraris and all people but it was overwhelming too. Really a sea of people as far as you could see in Harajuku. Being in Tokyo was my first really big city experience. Other than Tokyo I've been in Minneapolis and Kansas City but it's not quite the same. The weather when we were in Tokyo was really great and three of the days were even basically cloud free. One of my favorite shops was called "The Circus" and they mainly sold socks, leggings, and some other knick nacks. One of the two employees there could actually speak English really well. She grew up for 8 years in Singapore so she could speak Englsih almost fluently. She was a little bit of a fashion designer etc. She told me she started doing some Youtube blogs lately so she showed me how I could check it out later. You can learn some about Harajuku if you want from her, just type "Elleanor". Elleanor was the girls name. She made a good impression on me because she was really easy and fun to talk to. That's a lot of times not so common with meeting new people in Japan at least with my experience. I accidently only packed one pair of socks so I bought some socks there. We ended up going back to Harajuku on the last day in Tokyo and I went back to the shop for more socks and to see if Elleanor was working again. She wasn't but another suprisingly nice girl was working and we chatted some too. This time in Japanese though. I was also wearing the socks I had worn the prvious time I had went so the girl (minami was her name) asked to get a picture. They took a couple pictures to put in a photo book they had of some of the socks they sold being worn. Also the put it on their shop's blog. As payment they let me have a candy sucker they were selling for free (^-^). Anyways on Monday we went to Disney Land. We got there early in the morning and were there until it closed at 9pm if I remember right. Lots of fun things at Disney but I'll just go over some of my favorite rides and move on. Otherwise it'll get too long. The best ride that I went on was number 1. Star Tours a Star Wars ride 2. Pirates ride was based loosely on Pirates of the Caribbean and 3. Peter Pan ride where you fly in a ship. The next day we went to Disney Sea which has a little bit of a more adult feel and rides but of course is great for anybody. My favorite things there were 1. Indiana Jones ride 2. A roller coaster that I can't remember then name of and 3. A live performance by dancers/actors. It was jungle themed and it had fire coming out of the stage and great costumes and live music it was so intense it was the biggest suprise as far as being entertaining when I thought it was going to be lame. Seeing the show actually made me want to work at Disney haha. On the final day we went to the Ghibli Museum. If you don't know Ghibli is a film studio that is very famous in Japan. They make animations so it was full of cool animation stuff. I wouldn't really recommend going there to an average person though, kind of boring unless you are very into the movies or film/animation/drawing or both. You couldn't take pictures inside the building so there won't be any. After the museum as I said earlier we went back to Harajuku. We shopped some and then we ate at a buffet so that was nice. I ate so much. At that point we made our way back to Shinjuku where the bus brought us back to Akita City. Thanks for reading and I have 5 pictures you can check out of me at Disney. Bye Bye

 I think this was the back side of the castle but still pretty cool. There were two parades and a firework show too, all at Disney Land.

 Here's a pic from right when we got to Disney Sea. I was sporting Dumbo ears that I bought the night before at Disney Land.

 Posing with Rajah from Aladdin. I was doing my best cat pose but I'm an elephant so it was difficult.

 The Indiana Jones ride actually made you feel like you were in a jeep driving like crazy through the Crystal Skull movie. This was the best part where there was a boulder that was rolling towards us and at the last second the car drove downwards out of the way. My two favorite rides were the Star Wars one and the Indiana Jones ones but my friends had never seen any of either film series *facepalm*. Much more enjoyment from it if besides being a great ride it is also what you   alsways wanted to do as a kid (fly at lightspeed through the galaxy and be indiana jones).

 These girls were posing for a picture so I asked if I could get a picture with them too. So many girls where matching outfits at Disney it was crazy. Not always to the extent of this picture but at least a shirt or headpiece or something. Same thing with couples. Also tons of girls just where their school uniforms. Crazyness.

 Here's a little bit of footage of when I was walking around Disney Sea. I have a video of the night time parade and the Tokyo Marathon too, they are on the same youtube channel. The Tokyo marathon was cool, around 36,000 runners I heard. It is one of the six World Marathon Majors which means its real important similar to the Boston marathon etc. but less explosions.