Thanksgiving in Tokyo!
It was a very kid vacation in Tokyo with highlights being Kidzania, Disneyland and Disney Sea! We flew in on Wednesday and went straight via trains to Kidzania because Wednesdays are English days at the park. It's an indoor mini-city with 60+ jobs/areas for the kids to either work and earn Kidzania dollars or spend their dollars as a client. All jobs were actual Japanese companies with the actual logo and uniforms. It was very cute! The girls were clients at Shiseido beauty salon, worked as airline pilots, delivered packages at Black Cat and worked at an ice cream shop.
Thanksgiving day was snowing - very unusual for Tokyo breaking a 54-year record. Yippee - even less people at Disneyland. Hoping to have the park to ourselves we bundled up and headed out.... only it was freezing and not the happiest place on earth. Morgan even asked if she could go hang out in the bathroom with her tush on the heated seat. Oh my! An hour in - feet soaked and miserable - Jeff set us up with hot drinks, took our socks to the hand dryer and rung us out, and after eating the pizza we brought in individual zip lock baggies - we shoved our feet in bags and headed out again. This time much more insulated and ended up having a great time. Got to hit all the rides no lines and the girls favorite ride twice.
Friday was better weather and we hit Disneysea - the only one in the world which is adjacent to the ocean and has an inlet. It was very neat with an old-time East Coast America feel, to a European village. Very well done and great shows. We won the lottery for both shows - our favorite being the Big Band Show all in English with characters and great music. We were at the park early and out late getting back to hotel after 9 PM. Big day!
Saturday and Sunday were spent doing our activities with sightseeing and exploring. Saturday we hit the famous fish market, then went to the Ueno Park and rented a little paddle boat, and off to the Asakusa Shinto shrine which was constructed in 1730. It was a neat and very busy complex with lot of ladies dressed in kimonos. On the way back to the hotel we stopped in the electronics district Akihabara hoping to see some neat robots and anime, but most items were inside various stores (Sega and Sony) and not much to see from the street.
Sunday morning we metro-ed to the Meiji Shrine with huge torii gates. The whole area is surrounded by 100,000 trees in a forest. From there we went shopping at the 100 yen store in Harajuku (Winnie the Elf found us as usual the day after Thanksgiving and brought the girls each 500 yen!). We walked to the Shibuya Crossing which is considered the world's busiest intersection outside of a train and subway entrance. It was busy even for a Sunday afternoon. We went up to the Starbucks on the 2nd floor and watched the crowds.
Monday morning we flew out, but not before the girls again enjoyed the fabulous pool at the New Sanno hotel. I was amazed by all the walking we did each day and up and down stairs that they always saved enough enjoy to swim (the pool was open 7 AM to 10 PM!).
posted by trekking_barris @ 1:36 PM
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