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Monday, November 7, 2011

My favorite photos from our trip to Japan

We arrived at LAX and were ready to fly to Japan.


Just a quick 12 hour flight.

Nothing to see but ocean all the way to the horizon

Waiting for the bus that will take us to the Disney Resort


In Ikspiari, the Tokyo version of Downtown Disney, trying to find the Disney Store.


Lining up to get into Disneyland
 

This was the line to get in on a Monday. And there were 8 other gates just like this one. Pretty crazy.

Running into the park

Our first ride of the day, Winnie the Pooh's Hunny Hunt



There was some cute merchandise to buy


The sky was really cool.


Lots of Halloween decorations


A cool optical illusion.viewed from the front.


And from the side.


Some tasty treats. A dog bone pasty with bean paste, Mike Wazowski Melon bread, "Corn" bread, a Mickey brownie, and cherry water.


Halloween parade




A chicken sandwich in a Mickey Glove bun

Mike Wazowski's car

Visiting Monsters Inc. Luckily they're after laughter instead of screams


They had a ton of popcorn carts all over the park with lots of different flavors. 
Here they have Honey popcorn right outside of Winnie the Pooh.


Over the whole visit we tried lots of different flavors including: Honey, Chocolate, Strawberry, Caramel, Curry, Black Pepper, Soy Sauce and Butter, Milk Tea, and plain.


We saw lots of cool shows

Even the rain didn't completely stop the parades.  It was smaller yes, but the characters just wore rain jackets


Some awesome pictures in front of the castle





My friend Ruston got a 360 degree view


Views from inside the castle looking into Fantasyland




From one of the balconies on the castle


Sitting down waiting for the Electric Parade








The Haunted Mansion is decorated as Nightmare Before Christmas






And yes, it was rainy


The rain rain rain came down down down, in rushing, rising riv'lets




Main Street is covered here to protect against the weather






We also spent some time at Disney Sea






One of the many shows they had that made use of the huge lagoon




Entering Triton's Kingdom


The inner building was huge and very well decorated




Theresa enjoying some of Ariel's treasures
 

Playing on the nets


Enjoying some gelato





And Theresa even found a purple sweet potato dessert






Trying to get one of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machines off the ground


On a gondola in the lagoon

The view at night

Exploring Tokyo.  Theresa got a hot sweet potato from a street vendor.


Some cool architecture in downtown Tokyo


The view from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building






At a local product fair with a demonstration of weaving fabric.  The lady invited me to give it a try!
I did and as soon as I threw the shuttle through, I broke the thread! Yikes!!!
Luckily she just tied it back together, but we all had a good laugh.






At the fish market in Tokyo



Excited cause they found fresh fruit


We stopped off at a department store.  In the basement was a specialty food market.
Have you ever seen a $178/lb (3000 yen/100g) rib eye?  We did.
And right above it was a $292/lb Filet Mignon

A special Halloween pastry

Lunch at a curry house.




At the Imperial Palace Gardens


On the expansive lawn




Enjoying a train ride to Hakone


Taking an aerial gondola over the mountains.

  
Our pirate ship transportation across the lake


Though the ceiling wasn't quite tall enough for a couple people


Enjoying the beauty of Hakone


We showed our bus driver where we wanted to get off.  After driving for a while, we went up and asked him if we were there yet.  He had driven by it a few miles and told us to get off and transfer.


Finally made it to the hotel


Mt Fuji peeked out from behind the clouds
 

The next morning


The train to Kyoto





Exploring the temples









Some beautiful gardens


A 5 story pagoda
 









We couldn't believe how many Torii gates there were.
They just kept going


and going
 

Then splitting




and going again




up stairs


with stops at shrines

  
And even friendly wildlife all along the path.


And finally we made it to the top and could look out over cloudy Kyoto


then it was back down down down




After that, we made a fabulous discovery of a chain electronic store with foot massagers and massage chairs to try out.



The Niji palace.


and gardens










McDonalds had some interesting food.  For breakfast I had a McDog and a Mega Muffin, which was 2 sausage patties, cheese, egg, bacon and ketchup.  Wonder how many calories that had.












Would you like to try an octopus on a stick?


At another temple.  This is what Theresa looked like when I had the camera on her.


And what she was really feeling like


See off in the distance.  That's the Kyoto Tower standing at 430 feet.  Our hotel was right by there.  We laughed at how crazy we were the day before walking from here to there when there was a bus.

And then we ended up walking all the way back to our hotel.  Ruston reminded us along the way how we had just mentioned how crazy it was that we had walked to far.

I obviously made some clever remark

Lots of people dressed up. 

After Kyoto, Theresa and I split from Jacob and Ruston and went back to Disneyland

Someone is happy to be back here


A fun drum band


 In front of Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull


Giving Rajah a hug


Enjoying a delicious strawberry soft serve


In front of one of my favorite rides at the park.  Sindbad's Storybook Voyages




The double decker carrousel


Those who doubted the Curry popcorn, here's proof






Trying on some hats at the stores






Fantasmic was done really well on the lagoon
 

Look out for the dragon Mickey!!!


The Disneyland band welcomes us to Disneyland


Meeting Robin Hood


Sad because Pooh was closed and would be for the next 2.5 months.  Good thing we rode it like 12 times the week before.  And did it 7 times in one day when it was raining.


We saw a fun show for kids called Super-Duper Jumping Time.  The characters all had puppets of themselves to play with.



Getting into the spirit


We took a raft to Tom Sawyer's Island



Getting to go inside the fort.


Where they had a snack bar.  Theresa got their equivalent of Bugles.





















A mini version of the electric parade because of the rain.  It made some cool reflections on the ground though.




And with that, we were done with our trip. 



Coming in to Los Angeles
 

We had an absolutely fantastic time in Japan.  Everyone there was so polite and friendly.  


Eventually I will be posting a more detailed day by day trip report.  You can check the main page of this blog for updates.

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