Tokyo Disneyland!!

I finally made my first trip to Tokyo Disneyland last week. Two friends and I went on a weekday in spite of a forecast of rain. I imagined we'd have a pretty easy time getting on rides, but oh how wrong I was. Who would have thought there would be a three hour wait each for Space Mountain, the Haunted House, and Big Thunder Mountain on a day like that? I couldn't fathom how anyone would want to wait that long for anything until one of my students summed it up rather simply for me. "I'm Japanese. Japanese people like to make lines," she said. I'm not that patient, though. The longest we stood in line was 90 minutes for Pirates of the Caribbean. But anyways, here are a few pics from the adventure:






Photos:

• 1st row left: the castle. You may not have noticed right away, but a large portion of it is under construction. Those clever Disney people had the good sense to put a picture of the castle over the scaffolding. At the bottom of the photo you can get a pretty good idea of how crowded it was and nearby, you can see one of what I'm sure is actually thousands of pumpkins that are currently spread everywhere at Disneyland. Happy Halloween.
  
• 1st row right: This is Kim in the line for Small World. It was our shortest wait of the day: just over 20 mins. And for the record, yes all the rides at Tokyo Disneyland are EXACTLY like their counterparts in Anaheim.
  
• 2nd row left: We got to see the Halloween parade.
  
• 2nd row right: this is the Disney version of torture: a gigantic Pinocchio fountain right next to the world's longest line for the bathroom.
  
• 3rd row left: this is not only a picture of me eating food, it's a photo of me enjoying my first bite of turkey in over a year. It was amazing, just in case you wanted to know.
  
• 3rd row right: Laura and Kim also enjoyed the turkey.
  
• 4th row left: Furthermore, Japanese people enjoy turkey as well. This is a photo of the line for the street vendor whose only product was roasted turkey. Yet another brilliant example of Japanese people and their skillful Art of Line-Making. I think we waited about 15-20 minutes for ours.
  
• 4th row right: quite possibly my favorite picture of the day. Some kids just don't last as long as others, even in the "happiest place on earth". I had been watching his family and all of the sudden he just dropped and wouldn't get up. I also love how instead of helping him, his grandmother just took out the camera and started taking pictures of him.