Disney Sea

Max starts to realize that he might be somewhere good...
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Our Disney day had come! We got going relatively early in the morning, all pretty excited to get out and see what Disney Sea was like. Tokyo Disneyland was built first, and is basically a clone of the other Disneyland parks, but Disney Sea is a Tokyo-only park, and we were quite impressed with it. We got there via the JR, and were slightly worried that we were not on the correct train (no English in sight), but there were enough kids and little Minnie-Mouse keychains hanging off of purses that we figured we were going to be OK.

Globe!
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Max's first wow-wee was the big globe at the entrance to the park, which he was quite enamoured with. Only the promise of something really exciting 'this way' could pry him away from it.

yes, we snuck a 2-year-old on the kiddie coaster

Now we thought we might be copping out or missing out on a chance to see Japanese culture by visiting a Disney park, but boy were we wrong! This was definitely our most interesting day of people watching. This was a very different crowd from and American Disney park. Instead of 80% families with kids, it was 80% teens and 20-somethings, with only 20% families. Girls far outnumbered the boys, and most of them had Minnie ears on, or these other floppy hats that came in Tigger, Stitch and many other varieties. Tonya had her heart set on one of the hats, but despite our best efforts, we couldn't find where they were being sold.

Again, again!
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Disney culture seems to mesh with Japanese culture in some weird symbiotic way. I've never seen ride attendants be so unbelievably enthusiastic, hopping around and waving the signature Disney wave, and then having all the people on the ride wave back! Cynicism doesn't seem to exist here! At the very least, their idea of 'cool' is utterly different from ours.

Max had an absolute ball, from the carousel where he got to ride the Genie, to the Mermaid show, to the 'submarine' ride, to the roller coaster (yes, we snuck a 2-year-old on the kiddie coaster), to the teacups - it was "again, again" every time at the end of the ride, and often tears were shed as we made way for the next wave of riders. The kiddie coaster had a minimum age of 3, but we just played dumb, held up three fingers and walked on with Max, three times in all - this was definitely Max's favorite ride - the kid likes being scared. It was actually a pretty good kiddie coaster, we really held on to Max to make sure he didn't go flying...

Again, again, again!
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The best part about this day, is that we managed to time Max's nap perfectly so that we could enjoy our lunch in peace (Max has not been doing well at mealtimes). Tonya had sushi and udon noodles, while Daniel decided to risk the 'seasonal selection'. Tonya's meal was very good, and Daniel's was, well, interesting. Lots of different little pickled things on the side, a couple sculpted piles of salty rice and udon noodles, with a wide variety of things swimming in the broth - some quite yummy, some not so much. In any case, Daniel feels happy that he tried something different, and we now have increased impetus to do a little more food research before a return visit to Japan.

The hotel staff were so nice, they even made up Max's cot!
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More sushi from the AM/PM was on the docket for dinnertime (hey, you find something that works...), so that we could get Sir Max to bed before the witching hour really set in.

On our last morning we packed and did a little last-minute shopping in Shinjuku, then caught the 'limousine' bus to Narita. Daniel forgot a package with some of our Balinese art on the bus, so our first few moments at the airport were a tad stressful, sprinting to the other end of the terminal to the bus counter to see if they could track down the bus and pull our package off before it headed back to Tokyo. Thankfully, they did manage to find it!

We spent over a half hour at the check-in desk having 'discussions' about our car seat, which we have been taking on the planes for Max to sit in. Our thoroughly useless travel agent booked us in bulkhead rows for every flight, even though he knew we had a car seat for Max and would not be using the bassinets. We found out on our first flight that the car seat does not fit in the bulkhead rows, but any other seat in the plane is fine. For our other flights, we told them this at check-in, and they moved us to another row - no issue. This lady figured she knew better than us I guess, and phoned lots of people, with the end result that she told us we would be just fine in the bulkhead row. Of course, we get on the plane, and the seat doesn't fit. Daniel starts to tear a strip out of the stewardess when she starts saying that they can't accommodate us, but then a nice family from Abbotsford with four kids seated behind us volunteered to move forward a row so we could use Max's seat.

All's well that ends well I suppose, but it sure was nice to get back to Canada where our communication is not quite so tortured! Daniel's parents happened to be flying to Hawaii via Vancouver at the same time as our layover there, so we had a quick chat in the terminal, and they got to see our non-tans. Tonya browned a little in Bali, but Daniel and Max were very careful about the sun (remembering the crisping we got in Fiji after our wedding) so they were only a shade darker than winter's pasty white.

Once we landed in Edmonton, we started hearing the 'legends' about the cold snap we had missed. Turns out it did actually hit -44C and -53C wind-chill while we were away. Our names were indeed mud while we were gone! :)