Tokyo Disneyland

Not a week went by since moving to Japan 5 months ago that we didn't hear the kids ask us when we were going to go to Disneyland. This was one of the first places we told the kids about when we broke the news to them that we were moving here. We knew it would automatically mean that Japan was a cool place to live. The funnest part of this trip was how secret we kept it all the way until we walked off the train at Disneyland. We drove to our hotel at the Disney Resort and boarded the Disney train. We had somehow managed to convince the kids that we couldn't go that day but that we had something else fun planned. We knew the train was a dead giveaway so we just tried to play it out as long as we could. They totally believed us and when we got to the Disneyland exit we told them that we could get off to take a look. As we walked to the entrance we finally broke the news and they were surprisingly surprised. It was so fun to see their faces. After getting our 2 day tickets we headed inside and went immediately to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain. Little did we know that you literally have to be in the park when it opens and not 30 minutes later because we were only able to get 2 fast passes for the entire day. There were so many people there it was unreal. I guess that is how it always is at Tokyo Disneyland. We were able to ride on Space Mountain twice that morning and swapped so the girls could ride on some smaller rides. From there we carefully planned to ride the big rides whenever there was a parade because the Japanese are all crazy for the parades. Since there seemed to be a parade every 2 hours we were good to go. I was so happy for Peter because he was tall enough to ride ALL of the rides this time. Even Emma was tall enough to ride everything. She rode on Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain for the first time and loved them both. It was fun to see her excitement/scared face as we rode on Thunder Mountain together. She felt proud to have the wristband that meant she was tall enough to ride. It was a a little surprising to hear all of the kids ask when we could go to the Hanuted Mansion. Even Emma was excited about that one. Luckily everything was decked out with the Nightmare Before Christmas theme and so it really wasn't that scarry (good for the kids but disappointing for me because I like the original so much better). We didn't spend anytime at Toon Town this time and so we really didn't see too many of the characters but we were ok with that. Our mission was to ride as many rides as we could before it closed. We got through all the main rides and only skipped a few of the smaller ones like Dumbo. We made it to 9:00pm and decided to get our traditional ice-cream at the Parlor before heading back to our hotel. I always used to get chocolate when I came here as a kid so naturally I picked chocolate. We watched the fireworks while we eate our ice-cream and then made our way out of the park. It was fun to ride the Disney train only one stop back to our hotel. The kids were so tired that it was not hard to get everyone to sleep that night.

Tokyo Tower

While we were in Tokyo this trip we headed over to Tokyo Tower to ride the elevator to the observatory to see the great views of Tokyo. Luckily it was a pretty clear day with some minor fog so our view was pretty good. Of course we waited in line to buy our tickets and then to ride the elevator. We all seem to have more patience after waiting in extremely long lines at Disneyland so we were thrilled when we reached the elevator without too much of a wait. It is always interesting seeing how the greeters are decked out to the nine in their uniforms. We loved the lady handing out Tokyo Tower buttons to all the kids. She looked like she belonged at Disneyland. The elevator ride was short but fun. Emma had a big smile the entire ride. Up at the observatory we walked around and enjoyed each of the different views of the city. It was fun to spot different things we saw like a soccer game being played and so forth. After seeing enough of tall buildings we headed back down the elevator and were surprised when it did not drop us off on the first level. Instead we stopped at the 4th floor and had to get off on this terrace level full of kid games (those sneaky Japanese people are always trying to get us to spend more money). We let each of the kids ride one ride before finally making our way to the bottom. After reaching the bottom we saw that it still wasn't quite dark so we all shared some yummy crepes and let the kids run around the Christmas trains that were set up for the holidays. We even got to see the most bizarre show with trained monkeys doing tricks. It was pretty hilarious actually. Right when the show was ending it was finally dark enough outside and Tokyo Tower lit up. We enjoyed our close up view of the tower, took some pictures, and headed back to our hotel. In the day Tokyo Tower is impressive but at night it is just spectacular.

Kannonzaki Park

Today we took the kids to Kannonzaki Park. The entire park area is just beautiful as it sits up on a hill and overlooks the water. We parked on one end and walked the trails up to the top. Once me made it to the top there was a paved trail that spanned the entire upper level of the park. We first stopped at a memorial and then at the first roller slide park. To get to the small roller slide park we went through a series of small playgrounds and some fun little obstacles. The roller slide at this area was small but the kids enjoyed it still. There was also a small climbing wall and a ropped play structure. We were glad we took the advice of friends and brought our own slides to sit on. It was hard to get the kids to continue to the next park but we knew that the main roller slide would be so much fun. We took the trail through yet more beautiful trees and a giant field. We finally made it to the main roller slide and at the top there was this amazing pirate ship play structure. I couldn't believe how FAST we went down the slide. It made me a little nervous to let Emma go by herself but she was just fine. Mike and I took turns taking Abby on our laps and with her we went super fast. We were going so fast that I ended up digging my heals into the rollers to slow down not wanting to go too fast with Abby on my lap. On the way back up to the top I noticed that I had actually rubbed off some of the rubber from my shoes. Yikes. I learned to pick up my heels from then on. It was so much fun to let the kids ride the slides as many times as they wanted. It wasn't crowded at all and the hike back up was super quick. There were actually two ways to get back up to the top: the normal trail with some stairs and the obstacle course way. We all headed up the obstacle course the first time and then took the normal and faster way back up to the top the rest of the time. We will definitely be coming back here really soon because we had a blast.