We Found Our Way To Tokyo !

After a solid sleep but another early morning – we headed out on the streets of Kabukicho which were much quieter on this Sunday morning before 7. It was such a contrast from the rest of the day and night.

And went into Don Quijote for Ellie to do some shopping while it was still pretty much deserted. She was pretty happy about it.

The hotel had a Christmas display up in the lobby.

After breakfast, we headed back over to Ginza where we’ll catch the bus to our next activity this morning. The streets here are very quiet too – and the Sony building facing Sukiyabashi Crossing was presenting a rotating display of endangered species (I’m sure it was something different the night before). We caught the African Penguin while we waited for the bus. So cute!

Also saw 2 Shinkansen passing each other… which happened every couple of minutes.

Thankfully we managed to get 2 seats on the bus.

It was packed, as basically everyone was going to the same place at this time of morning on a Sunday.

We got off and waited in an imposing line, that started moving shortly after we joined it…

Here we are – teamLab Planets!

teamLab is a modern art museum and they have a few different instances in different cities. Having never been to one, we thought it was pretty cool to be part of the art that used both visual, audible, and physical effects to immerse you in the experience.

One of the first things you do is walk up a ramp that has water – actually disinfection – flowing downhill to wash off your bare feet.

Then into the lighting….it was hard not to take too many pictures, and the videos are even cooler!

Next room was a water world with digital fish swimming around your feet. Notice that Ellie has shorts – these were available for loan free of charge at the entry. I just rolled up my pants to my knees but I’d probably borrow the shorts next time.

And then a room full of these huge spheres illuminated in different colours that were constantly moving.

And the last indoor spot, a room where you laid on the floor and looked up at a spherical projection ceiling that showed flower petals blowing across the sky. There was no point in taking a photo of it since it wouldn’t be possible to replicate the experience, so here’s an enthusiastic Ellie in that room.

The final area was outdoors in a garden – a humid moss garden filled with mirrored ovoids which led you to a floating flower garden with mirrored floor. It was really cool!

Again, the pics don’t really do it justice as the flowers were suspended from the ceiling and moved up and down all on their own rhythm.

We liked it so much that we did two laps. Not sure if you’re allowed to do that but the ticket checkpoint is before you get to the changing area so….here’s round two.

I tried to get a pic in the falling flower petal room, didn’t work out so great but there’s Ellie enthralled in the middle.

After spending a fun couple of hours at teamLab Planets, we got back on the bus to the city. No luck with a seat this time, we could barely squeeze on.

We went to Omotesando to check out some shopping and a donut shop that I was interested in trying. Here was a typical street in this area of Shibuya.

There were many different kinds of cuisines available in Tokyo which was a bit surprising seeing as Japan doesn’t have a large immigrant community.

But we went to McDonald’s… For one of the local special burgers.

And Ellie’s prize – Grimace Shake!!!

The side streets in this area were so interesting. We just happened to walk by the Aoyama St. Grace Cathedral, which looks like a stately church but is actually “just” a wedding chapel.

Next stop was Omotesando Hills shopping mall. The floor layout was really cool as you could spiral your way all the way from the bottom to the top without ever using stairs or an escalator as it was a continuously inclining ramp system.

It was a bit too fancy for us – Ellie still had Donki in her eyes – so we headed over to my donut shop, Higuma Doughnuts.

The freshly made donuts and coffee were absolutely excellent. And a completely reasonable price, too.

Did I mention yet how helpful the digital signage inside the modern metro cars is? The display above the door produces information about the next stop, not only what services you can transfer to there, but the location of the exits and where you are in relation to them!

Ellie was ready for a little break in the room back in Shinjuku, so I headed out solo for about an hour to nerd out on watching some of the incredible rail transit system in central Tokyo. First was a ride on the Yamanote Line which runs in a ring around the central city. It is an elevated railway, and carries almost as many passengers per day as the entire New York City Subway system!

Japan is a good place to be a railfan, as most of the services we were on had full view out the front through the operator’s cabin. In North America the workers have complained about “being watched” so most newer rail cars simply have the entire front blocked off by a wall and maybe a tiny tinted window.

There were railfans for sure – on all of our rides in the front car, there was always someone looking out the windows – young, old, male, female. Everyone!

My main point of the short outing was the “Train Museum” – a bridge on the north end of Nippori Station where you can watch all sorts of different lines coming and going, such as the Tohoku Shinkansen.

After relaxing with Ellie in the room, we went for our next fancy meal to make up for the McDonald’s at lunchtime. It was at a restaurant called Ushigoro on top of an office building close to the hotel. It had an amazing view of the surrounding area and the food was magnificent!

The Wagyu was so good that even Ellie wanted seconds.

It was very dark out after dinner, and just so lively.

Ellie wanted to go back to Donki again. How could I say no?

The Godzilla statue was something we saw multiple times a day but was most cool at night…the end of our second awesome day in Tokyo !!

Another early morning and a purpose… here’s Shinjuku Station at 4:45 AM. I always intended to take another pic in the same spot during the day when it’s so busy that you can hardly see the floor.

The quiet but brightly lit streets were gorgeous at this hour.

My first destination was the bus terminal at the south end of Shinjuku Station. I needed to buy bus tickets for our big outing today to ensure that we got the time that we wanted and seats together. Curiously, the ticket machines weren’t functional until 5 AM so I had to wait about 10 minutes.

I decided to seek out a real coffee since I was already out and about and found this 24 hour cafe a few blocks away.

It was very old school. The Viennese coffee that I got was very good, but it wasn’t cheap (about 1000 yen).

Back to the room to collect Ellie and a quick bite; and tucked in the cuddle crew while we went out for the day.

We’re now on the bus….

… To Tokyo DisneySea! It is one of two Tokyo Disney resorts, and as its name suggests bears a nautical exploration theme.

Despite the huge lines, we were inside the gates in about 40 minutes.

The entry part of the park “Mediterranean Harbor” was themed like an Italian port city. Not quite Venice but there were definitely some resemblances.

We stopped at a souvenir shop to get “something”. Ellie really liked Baymax. (But we didn’t get this giant plushie)

I managed to get us Disney Premier Access (DPA aka Fast Pass) for Soaring: Fantastic Flight but it wasn’t for an hour so we walked around and then took the elevated trolley back to the American Waterfront.

It was a little bit like New York, but again, not really. The Christmas decorations were up on the “Main Street”.

On Mysterious Island, the volcano Mount Prometheus that hosts the attraction Journey to the Center of the Earth was unfortunately closed for maintenance during our visit. I knew this in advance but was still a little sad as it was supposed to be awesome. The Nautilus in the lake is part of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

We went over to the Arabian Coast area since there were a few rides (this was all visible on the app) that had short lines.

Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage did have a short line. We only had to wait about 5 minutes.

Oh yeah, we decided on Baymax headbands at the souvenir shop.

It wasn’t a thrill category ride but the music was really cool and so were some of the moving characters.

We next did the Soaring: Fantastic Flight which was super fun, but is basically VR with mechanical assistance so there was no point in taking any pictures.

And then we each got some snacks. Eclectic popcorn flavors were the theme for snack stands at DisneySea.

We wanted to do this ride Aquatopia but ran out of time.

We pre-ordered lunch for a specific time, again through the app. The prices were completely reasonable and the food good.

I had some kind of a pulled pork burger.

And Ellie had Mickey shaped chicken nuggets.

Here’s a screenshot of the DPA page on the app. It was really hard to get DPA for many of the rides. I really lucked out in being able to get us DPA for 3 rides especially Soaring Tower of Terror was the only one that was consistently available. DPA cost 1500-2000 JPY per person, about $15-19 Canadian.

We waited in line for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as the app was showing a 45 minute wait and it was a bit less than that. We hopped into this bathyscaphe with a few other people and went… under the sea.

When we came out of the underground/undersea adventure, the sun was out and it was gorgeous. This is the spiral walkway down to 20,000 Leagues.

And Ellie with Mount Prometheus from the American Port.

Here’s Tower of Terror – a drop style of ride. I really wanted to try it but Ellie refused.

Some of the buildings were pretty elaborate.

Next DPA attraction: Toy Story Mania!

We donned our 3D glasses, hopped into this cart which moved on a track, rotated, and we had to shoot at things to get points.

It was a lot of fun. Manic, in fact!!

The penguin showed us the high scores. I got pretty close to the high score for the hour.

We’d done a lot of walking already and needed to go back towards the far end of the park so we climbed the stairs to the elevated trolley and enjoyed this Main Street America view while we waited.

And ended up back at Arabian Coast. We were here to find a power bank rental machine as my phone was being drained and I’d forgotten to charge ours yesterday.

The evening in Mermaid Lagoon was stunning. And warm.

We popped under the lagoon to try a couple of the rides down there.

Like Jumpin’ Jellyfish.

And The Whirlpool, a spinning ride like tea cups.

The sun was starting to set as we entered the new and super popular Fantasy Springs area. All of the rides in here require DPA or a Standby ticket. No walk ups allowed. I managed to get us a DPA for Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure.

We enjoyed the lagoon while waiting for our entry time.

And made it in… more 3D glasses!

This was the cart that we rode in. This ride was so much fun, almost as good as Soaring.

I tried unsuccessfully to get a pass to Frozen but gave up after a while so we just walked around the area which was absolutely beautiful now that it was dark, and we got some more food before heading back to the bus stop.

The entry area under the monorail looks a lot different now!

Ellie passed out on the bus not long after we got on the highway.

That was an amazing day. And not expensive either. Everything that we did that day: express bus, park tickets, DPA passes, food, souvenirs all came to about $300 Canadian. Less than a single person ticket to Disneyland in California. Time for some rest now with the cuddle crew who were patiently waiting back at the room in Shinjuku.