ダニエルの冒険

I woke up on Saturday morning, got to the station, and got the 10am train to Tokyo via Nagoya. I had an hour to spare and I was told that the train from Tokyo to Jimbocho takes 14 minutes, so I thought I’d check in at the hotel (Sakura hotel again) and leave my bag there for the day. Well, I ended up taking a very inefficient route, and got on the express train instead of the normal train, which meant that I missed my stop and had to go back on the express on the same line but opposite direction, then change from the express and go back onto the normal again so I arrived at Suidobashi, where I changed to the Mita line which got me there. I ended up being 30 minutes late. I met up with Yukine at 2pm and we left for Disneyland on the train. She was really excited about the trip as had been going to Disneyland every year when she was a kid. I’ve only been to Disneyland the once and that was EuroDisney a long time ago, so I was pretty excited too.

Neither of us had eaten lunch so we went to Buzz Lightyear’s and had some pizza. Then we went to Space Mountain which even though it had a 70 minute wait, it didn’t feel long at all because it was broken into three separate sections, the latter two being inside. I rode Space Mountain with my dad in Paris but I kept my eyes closed for most of it because it was so fast. Having experienced Six Flags Magic Mountain in California in 2003 roller coasters are no problem for me and I usually just grin through the whole thing, enjoying the feeling of flight. As such, I enjoyed seeing how it was made up inside. It’s very dark inside but the whole thing is inside a big sphere-like structure and you just spin around inside it. It’s all right turns really as you go around and around, gradually working your way down until you leave.

Some of the attractions we wanted to go on weren’t possible: the Haunted Mansion was closed for renovations and Splash Mountain had a queue of 100 minutes, which was changed to 110 minutes as soon as we started lining up, so we decided to give that one a miss. We went on a small Chip ‘n’ Dale roller coaster in Toon Town but my big foreigner legs proved incompatible with the seating, and I hit my knees going in and had to push my knees under the front-cover so they wouldn’t smash into the forward hand-rail when braking at the end.

We ate at the Alice in Wonderland place for dinner which was really great. I had some ok steak and the atmosphere was really good. They were playing the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack and we tried to get through as much of the lyrics as possible. She knew everything about the movie and even when conversation got into more and more obscure areas such as Lewis Carroll’s personal history she still knew it all. When we were outside she pointed out that the stars were visible from Disneyland even though it’s so close to Tokyo. She was able to identify constellations with ease and could even show me Venus and tell me that it doesn’t move in the sky like the rest of the stars do. I was impressed.

After dinner we went on the Peter Pan ride, which only had a 20 minute queue but it felt like a much longer time than Space Mountain since it was just one big queue outside in the freezing cold. A little kid was looking up at us as we spoke in English and shouted up 「何話してんの？」 (“what are you saying?”). 「エイゴ！英語勉強したい？」 (“English! Do you want to study English?”), I replied. 「きっと出来るよ！」 (“you can definitely do it!”) Yukine chimed in. 「どこの国から来たと思う？」 (“what country do you think I’m from?”) I asked. He started trying to think of the name of a country but didn’t come up with any. 「ヨーロッパの西の国だよ」 (“it’s a country in the west of Europe”) I hinted, not really expecting him to understand East from West anyway. 「イギリス」 (“England”) his father suggested to him. 「近い！イギリスの隣の国！」 (“close! The country next to England!”) I said. 「アイルランド」 (“Ireland”), his father said trying to help him out again. 「アイスランド！！！」 (“ICELAND!!”) the kid exclaimed. 「アイスクリームランド！！」 (“ICECREAMLAND!!”)

We continued in the queue and later we passed the family again. 「またあの外人さんだよ！」 (“hey it’s that foreigner again!”). His father started to correct him but I told him not to worry about it and I said 「またあの日本人だよ！」 (“hey it’s that Japanese again!”). He looked up at Yukine and said 「キレイ〜」 (“beautiful…”) and whispered something to his sister. Yukine didn’t hear him say that nor what he said to his sister so she asked him a few times 「何言ったの？」 (“what did you say?”). Eventually he looked up at her and said 「愛してる」 (“I love you”). His father told us that he wasn’t yet in school, which puts him at about 4 years old here. Cute kid.

It started getting dark so we headed toward the seating area for the “Cinderellabration 2008″ show, which I had trouble saying. Don’t know how the poor Japanese deal with it. When we saw that the seating was entirely outdoors we got some hot drinks from a nearby cafe and went back to the seats to watch the fireworks and the show. All the characters came out in pairs — Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Daisy, Belle and the Beast (I pointed out the anachronicity of Belle wearing her yellow dress while the Beast was still in Beast form), Sleeping Beauty and respective Prince Charming, Aladdin and Jasmin, Cinderella and her own Prince Charming (what a player, that guy. Or maybe they’re all brothers. How many kingdoms are there anyway?). I felt bad for Pluto when he came out with… a second Pluto.

After the show it was getting close to 10pm, closing time, so we did some brief souvenir shopping while leaving. We agreed to go to Disney Sea next time. I got back to the hotel about 11pm and my legs thanked me for lying down. The queuing really does get to you after a while.

Up next, day two…