Japan Touring 2023 – Part 2/3
This is the second review of a three-part series covering Carol’s and my trip to Japan. Ever seen Japanese sumo wrestling or been to the theatre in Japan or maybe Tokyo Disneyland? Check out our visit. I hope you find a tip or two that might make your trip to Japan even more rewarding.
MONDAY
Today is Monday but the day of the week really has no relevance to our trip. What does have some importance is that Sunday is for baseball and now, today, Monday is for sumo wrestling.
Sumo wrestling is the national sport of Japan. They have large sumo tournaments in Tokyo three times a year. One of those times is during May and that’s why we are here in Tokyo right now.
Once again, I bought our sumo wrestling tickets using getyourguide.com. I entertained the idea of getting the tickets myself. However, going through GYG was so much easier. I don’t believe using GYG was much more expensive. I just hope we have good seats. My thinking on seats is that I would rather pay $100 once and have a good seat than $50 twice and have bad seats. It’s funny. I have exactly the opposite feeling with it comes to coach first-class seats.
On my morning walk, I noticed a huge bus with the words “Airport Limousine” on its side parked in front of the hotel. On Friday afternoon we would be flying from the Narita airport in Tokyo to Fukuoka, Japan. We’ll spend three days of our vacation in the Southwestern portion of Japan. We would need a ride from the hotel to the Narita Airport on Friday.
I checked the rates to use Uber for a ride to the airport. Uber’s fee was $230. I figured that a taxi would be even more expensive. The travel distance was 36 miles.
The Narita Express bus would be an excellent alternative. I’ve ridden these buses in the past. They are modern, punctual and the luggage service is fantastic. With the assistance of the hotel concierge, I was soon making a reservation for both Carol and me for a total bus fee for the two of us of just $47. If you’re going to go to and from the airport I highly recommend these types of buses.
Carol and I are both very punctual. We seem to fear being late for the activities we’ve scheduled. Google Maps recommended that we take the subway for part of this morning’s trip to the sumo wrestling venue. We would then switch to the JR train. In Tokyo, the subway and the train are different modes of transportation. We had our three-day subway passes. We would need to buy train tickets separately. Not to worry. A one-way train ticket was about two bucks for each ride.
During the walk to our touring location, we spotted a pachinko parlor. This is how Wikipedia describes pachinko parlors.
Pachinko parlors are widespread in Japan, and usually also feature a number of slot machines so these venues look and operate similarly to casinos. Modern pachinko machines have both mechanical and electrical components.
Gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, but the widespread popularity of low-stakes pachinko in Japanese society has enabled a specific legal loophole allowing it to exist. Pachinko balls won from games cannot be exchanged directly for money in the parlor, nor can they be removed from the premises or exchanged with other parlors. However, they can be legally traded to the parlor for so-called “special prize” tokens, which can in turn be “sold” for cash to a separate vendor off-premises. These vendors (ostensibly independent from, but often owned by the parlor owner) then sell the tokens back to the parlor at the same price paid for them—plus a small commission, creating a cash profit—without technically violating the law.
We arrived early at the tour’s meeting point. We had time for lunch. Of course, we had lots of choices on where to eat, At the end of the street, we could see the bright red and yellow sign, signifying McDonald’s. However, all up and down the street were a series of authentic (we WERE in Tokyo for gosh sake) type Japanese eateries. Where should we eat?
It is my very strong belief, except in exceptional circumstances, that eating at McDonald’s should be reserved for when you are in the United States. Some people think one should never eat at McDonald’s! I think it is the height of poor judgment to eat at McDonald’s on an international adventure.
As we pondered our choices we noticed a small restaurant with lots of colorful food photos in the window. That’s common in Japan. In America, this type of place would be considered a diner. We walked in and soon found ourselves ordering our meal at an electronic kiosk. We were much more successful with this effort after we noticed we could see the menu in English!
We ordered a steak, fried egg, garlic chips, and bean sprouts entree. I was more than surprised we had actually been able to place an order at all in this 100% Japanese-speaking environment. Then we tapped our credit card on the kiosk and the machine spit out a receipt.
I pay for most things anywhere I go and as well as in Japan with a tap of my AppleWatch using ApplePay. I even get admiring stares and comments from young people in awe of the technology I’m using. That’s probably more of a comment about the economic demographic than my use of technology.
Soon we found ourselves seated in a row of luncheon counter-type seats. Very quickly our meal was delivered in a sizzling hot skillet. Our steak was ruby red rare. That wouldn’t work for me. Carol soon noticed that if we left our steak in the skillet for just a bit longer it would cook itself. That’s what happened. What would I do without her? We were most pleased we had passed up MickeyD’s for a truly memorable Japanese eating adventure.
From there we made our way to the tour meeting point. Our name was on a list of about 15 other tour members who had signed up with the Japan Wonder Travel company. I don’t think everyone on the tour went with GetYoutGuide to get here.
As we hung around waiting for folks to join the tour we began to see these generally huge guys either entering or leaving the sumo arena. They were easy to spot. They were wearing robes with a kitchen wallpaper pattern that you would rip out if you had just bought a new house. They also, without exception, wore flip-flops. There’s something about seeing a 400-pound man wearing dainty flip-flops that makes me feel uneasy. Just imagine a convention for offensive linemen in football and you’re pretty close to seeing a sumo wrestler.
The sumo wrestlers walked past with little expression. No one stopped to ask them for an autograph or a photo. There were a couple of fanboys in the audience who generated some applause when their favorites walked by.
Baseball and now sumo wrestling were two of the three main reasons we made this trip to Japan in the month of May. Am I going out on a limb here to think that not a single person reading this ever flew 12 hours one way to see a baseball game followed by a sumo wrestling tournament? Yes, I have a lot of time on my hands. We would wait nearly another week, for the third activity which made May the best time for us to come to Japan.
I have wanted to see live sumo wrestling for the longest time. Why? I guess you could say it was because seeing sumo wrestling on a professional basis is a very rare occurrence. Sumo wrestling, for the most part, only happens in Japan. I’m all about seeing and doing unusual things that most other folks haven’t taken the time to search out.
Once we were inside a very modern and upscale arena it was time for sumo. We would watch two seemingly very overweight men “wrestle” each other inside a flat dirt ring. The ring might have been 15 feet across. The rules were simple. If you were the first to touch anything outside of the ring with any part of your body you were the loser. If any part of your body, other than your feet touched the ground inside the ring you were the loser. Understand the rules?
Sumo wrestling is only done by men on a professional basis. In doing some Google research about sumo I found out that virtually every sumo wrestler lives in a sumo wrestling commune. They practice their art every day. The commune provides their food and apparently lots of it. As I watched these people for the rest of the afternoon I felt sorry for them. They seemed to exist only in a “sumo prison” like lifestyle. Maybe that’s not accurate.
Please take a look at my photos and video of the sumo wrestling. Most of the matches were over quickly. Many of the contests took only five or ten seconds. The matches began in a stance somewhat similar to a football stance. For such big guys, these people were incredibly quick out of the blocks. The first move was usually several slaps to the head and face. I wondered how a very fit six-foot-tall 200-pound guy could do in a sumo wrestling match. Since just about every wrestler today started at 300 pounds and up I’m guessing the quick smaller guy idea had been tried and rejected. I think a good “man bra” salesman could do pretty well in the sumo wrestling community.
Each wrestler has up to four minutes to knock their opponent out of the ring or off their feet. Once in a while, it was difficult to judge which wrestler left their feet or the ring first. That’s when six judges entered the ring and did sort of an “instant replay analysis”. Their decision would determine the winner. If they couldn’t come to a conclusion the match started over. The beginning of each match was a lot like a face-off in hockey or two football linemen trying to head slap each other’s brains out.
Today’s arena was sold out. I was glad to have purchased tickets in advance. I was very satisfied that I went the travel agent route with GetYourGuide. Tickets were about $100 per person.
We were seated next to an Australian by the name of Tony. Tony was from Brisbane and a very nice fellow to talk to. He had lived in the United States for a couple of years as a young man installing printing presses. Tony remarked that he was taken by how hard Americans worked. According to Tony, Americans worked much harder and longer than anyone in Australia from his personal experiences.
I don’t have a bucket list but if I did sumo wrestling would have been on it. Now sumo wrestling had been “checked”. Would I need to rush back quickly next year or anytime in the future to see sumo wrestling again? Probably not. For me, it’s common to really want to see something or experience something for the first time. I guess that is why I am attracted to the hobby of trackchasing. Then after I’ve seen or done that I don’t need to go back a second time. Nevertheless, I never wanna pass up those “first” experiences. Do you feel me?
We capped off our evening with a nice walk and a subway ride. We always get a lot of walking in when we use public transportation. Ultimately we stopped at a Thai restaurant for dinner. Then we were back to our hotel and getting ready with anticipation for tomorrow morning’s early wake-up call. Tomorrow will generate another “touring first” which this trip is quickly becoming famous for.
TUESDAY
For each day of these trips, we try to plan one or maybe two major tourist activities. Over the years we found this is a good way to pace ourselves. With this approach, we always have something to look forward to each day during a foreign trip.
Today we would meet our guide at 7:15 in the morning to begin a Tokyo fish market tour. The Tokyo fish market is the largest market of its kind in the world.
I was under the mistaken impression that we were going to be at the docks when the fish came in early in the morning from the fishing boats. I’ve heard that and the corresponding fish auction is really a highlight of touring in Tokyo.
I thought I had booked that experience, but I was wrong. In point of fact, we WERE visiting the Toyota fish market. But our tour only included the outside market and not where the fish auctions take place. That was a separate tour and reservation. The Tokyo fish auction tours book out more than a month in advance. Today, with a private guide, Carol and I would sample the delicacies being offered in the fish market itself.
Our Japanese tour guide was the mother of three sons. She had lived with her family for two years back in the 1990s in New Jersey. She, like all of the Japanese people that we met, was more than willing to help us and answer all of our questions. The best thing about having a private guide is you can go in any direction that you desire. All you have to do is ask and direct.
During the tour, we actually stopped to eat and drink at five or six different establishments. We ate corn, fish, octopus, and eel and drank beer. It was all good.
We weren’t exactly sure why the tour needed to start at 7:15 in the morning when all we were doing was walking through the fish market and sampling the various foods that were available. I could see such an early tour beginning if we were going to the fish auction, which actually begins at four or five o’clock in the morning.
When we were finished, our guide was showing us where we could catch the subway for the rest of the day’s touring. As we were doing that we passed by a cultural theater center. The theatre hosted Japanese cultural theatrical productions during the day and in the evening. I had seen the Kabukiza Theater location during some of my walks over the past few days.
All of a sudden I got enthused about attending one of these shows. I can be impulsive when needed! The matinee productions were sold out for today. But, they did have the evening performance available.
Our guide took us inside the building, which originated in 1938. Then somewhere along the line the theatre closed but has been open for the past 10 years. It would have been nearly impossible for us to navigate the maze that is required to buy a ticket for tonight’s show or any show.
Our guide spoke to several different people in Japanese. We kept getting closer and closer to the opportunity to get tickets. When we got to the location where they actually sold tickets I thought it might be a good idea to invite our guide to join us tonight.
She was both surprised and amazed at the invitation and accepted. Since Japanese people do not typically take tips for their services this would be a nice way to reward her for the job she did as we navigated the fish market for three hours.
A couple of weeks ago I ended up having dinner with my Uber driver in Mexico. Now today we would be going to the theatre with our tour guide in Japan. People do stuff like that, right?
Given the fact that tomorrow was an open day for touring, and that we had done a lot of walking at the fish market and that we now had an evening performance at the theater we changed our plan for today. We canceled this afternoon’s activities and will do them tomorrow.
Our theater experiences this evening, which included our tour guide Noriko Kato, went exactly as planned. What was “exactly as planned”? We simply wanted to have an unusual experience. I think we got one.
Noriko told us in advance that the play would begin at 4 p.m. She expected the play to finish up a little after 8 p.m. She also added that because the performance might be too “boring” we could arrive whenever we wanted and stay for as long as we wanted. How could we go wrong with a plan like that?
We agreed to meet Noriko at 5 p.m. outside the theater. When we arrived, she was waiting there with an umbrella over her head even though we were in bright sunshine. Japanese women try to avoid direct sunlight as much as possible. Many use umbrellas for this situation.
There was absolutely no activity outside the theater when we arrived. I guess that was to be expected. Imagine if you showed up at 8 p.m. outside a Broadway theater in New York City for a show that started at 7 p.m. That’s what things were like tonight.
Nevertheless, we were admitted with our tickets, and shown to our balcony seats. When we entered, the play was in progress. The theater was nearly 100% dark. Finding our seats, even with the help of our usher was a major challenge.
The darkness reminded me of a restaurant visit that Carol and I made on Sunset Strip in Hollywood many years ago. The kids gave us a gift of dinner at a restaurant where EVERYTHING and I do mean everything was done in the dark. 100% dark. This was an effort to promote what being blind might be like.
I am always up for an adventure for the very first time. Carol and I entered the restaurant by placing our hands on the shoulder of our server and being seated at our table. We then proceeded to have a complete restaurant meal in 100% darkness. I must tell you. I nearly freaked out and called it quits. I can sometimes get claustrophobic and the darkness seemed to simulate claustrophobia. I hung in there but it wasn’t easy.
Oops. Digressed, didn’t I? Tonight, at the Tokyo theatre we sat down and simply enjoyed the ambiance of a foreign theatrical production. Of course, the dialogue was 100% Japanese. Many (most?) of the dialog was spoken as if someone were moaning. Since we didn’t know what to expect, we simply observed.
Noriko used a handheld electronic translator. She told us the play was being spoken in “old Japanese”. There were no English translators available for us.
Noriko also explained that even though the characters in the play seemed to be both men and women every role was being played by a man. I don’t know why that was. Had she not told us we never would have known.
After being seated for about 40 minutes the play went to a 30-minute intermission. At intermission, Noriko told us that we had bought a ticket to see THREE plays, not ONE. The first play, which we didn’t see because we entered an hour late, lasted 30 minutes. The second play performed for about an hour was the production in progress when we came into the theatre. We saw about half of that play.
Now, following the half-hour intermission, the third play commenced with a 2 1/2-hour run time. We had never seen a format like this. This “unusual” theatre experience didn’t bother us in the least. We couldn’t understand a word they were saying anyway. Did it really matter if we saw an hour-and-a-half production or a four-hour production? We were there for the ambiance.
Refreshments were being sold including “bento” boxes which are a cute little Japanese display of fish and rice items and more served in a small box. We went with some sparkling wine and mixed nuts.
I had told Noriko in advance that we intended to leave whenever we felt the time might be right. I liked that option. I am a big one for taking photos and videos in darkened theaters just to try to get a long-term memory experience.
However, both Noriko and the ushering staff had expressly mentioned that photos were not allowed. Cell phones were expected to be turned off. To top things off, a “proctor” woman was seated not far from us. She stared directly into the crowd during the entire performance. Even I, the boldest of photographic theatrical goers, didn’t have the gumption to take a photo under these circumstances. I truly wanted to. I just couldn’t pull the trigger.
About an hour into this last projected 2 1/2-hour production, they closed the curtain for a scenery change. This was our opportunity to bolt and bid a fond farewell to Noriko. She was enjoying the performance and stayed on. We headed for the exit and were soon out on Tokyo’s darkened city streets with dinner on our minds.
What I’m about to tell you next is something I’m not proud of. However, when you signed up for these newsletters I told you I would never let you down and would always tell you the truth. Here goes.
In downtown Tokyo, most restaurants don’t just “jump out at you” like they might in the United States. A lot of restaurants are located one floor below street level or on the second or third floor of commercial retail buildings. Almost all of the signs are in Japanese. Therefore, it’s just difficult to figure out what is what.
It was getting later. We were hungry, but not starving. We ended up having dinner at a place called “Lawson”. Let’s not try to put lipstick on a pig. Lawson is a convenience store…but a very cool convenience store. There I said it. We came all the way to Tokyo and ended up having dinner in a convenience store.
The good thing about Lawson is with self-service we would be eating quicker. The expense would be cheap and the food would be good. Often times when it’s later at night and I don’t want to eat too much I think of quick, cheap, and good as high qualities in my restaurant choices.
Even though these Japanese convenience stores are small in footprint, they offer a wide range of dinner entrées, pastries, and drinks. I went with the heavily garlicked spaghetti and sausage choice. Carol had some kind of rice bowl soup.
Lawson comes with a huge wall of industrial-sized microwave ovens. They also have a convenient yet austere seating area. Carol and I took our selections, heated them up, and ate them on the premises. They certainly did not skimp on the garlic for my spaghetti choice.
We topped it all off with a Japanese dessert of a chocolate cake donut. “Our” Lawson location was only 100 yards from the front door of our AC Hotel by Marriott. We were back in our room at a reasonable hour after a night of Tokyo old school theater and a delicious Italian meal. Remember, I didn’t have to tell you where we had dinner but maybe both of us are better off than I did.
Tomorrow we have big plans to visit the Yodobashi Camera electronics store. Yodabashi is the largest electronic outlet in all of Japan. I do mean large. I visited this place during my last trip. We’ll also visit the most famous temple in all of Tokyo…PLUS, I’ve got a special surprise in line for Carol tomorrow. She’s never had this experience.
WEDNESDAY
A few weeks ago, we switched from Direct TV to YouTubeTV. Why mention that now in a review of our trip to Japan? Because with YouTubeTV, I can watch all of the programs that I have recorded as well as all of the live TV channels on YouTubeTV anywhere in the world.
“Wait!”, you might be yelling at your computer screen at this very moment. “I know for a fact that you can’t watch YouTubeTV when you’re outside the United States”, you continue to yell. Really?
If you were to go somewhere outside the United States and try that you might have some difficulty. However, if you have a VPN which means “virtual private network”, you can watch your YouTubeTV programs anytime you want anywhere in the world. Don’t believe me? Have I ever led you down the wrong path?
I also have a subscription to mlb.com. Mlb.com allows me to watch every major league baseball game played in the United States, whenever any game is being played…live. However, if mlb.com notices that you are outside of the United States, by looking at your IP address, you won’t be able to use the service at all.
I can’t be restricted by senseless consumer rules that prevent me from doing what I want to do when I want to do it. All I have to do is connect my VPN to a location in Dallas or Denver or wherever in the U.S. and mlb.com thinks that I am in one of those locations and not in downtown Tokyo, Japan. Each morning the Angels games were on at about 7:30 a.m. local time. I watched the games, as we got ready for our day of touring. It’s nice to have rules, but not when the rules restrict your freedom of access and choice for no good reason.
There’s a concept, called the “learning curve”. I know you’ve heard of it. Loosely defined that simply means that the more you do something the better you are likely to get at doing that…whatever “that” is.
Today’s touring attractions would be new for Carol but I had done these things just six months ago. This made the logistics of pulling these things off for us today much easier.
We’ve been riding the subway everywhere. When you use public transportation just getting into the system and getting out of the system is going to require quite a bit of walking. We’ve now been in Tokyo for about a week. I’ve averaged more than 11,500 steps every day.
We had three major items on the Tokyo touring agenda today. Let’s get to them.
The first stop would be the famous Sensoji Temple. On this trip, I learned from our guide Noriko that a temple is where Buddhists worship and a shrine is where Shinto people practice their religion. I never knew that.
The Sensoji Temple in historic Asakusa is the oldest temple in Tokyo as well as one of the most visited, with unique architecture and surrounded by shops and stalls. The temple is very popular amongst the Japanese populace. There’s no charge to visit the temple. Both times I’ve been here the place has been packed. You can get right up front and personal with everyone who came here on a more serious note to pray to their Gods.
Within shouting distance of the temple is what I had billed to Carol all week as her “surprise”. What was that? A rickshaw ride! I had taken a rickshaw ride six months ago. Riding a rickshaw was sort of a bucket list item for me.
When I rode in a rickshaw six months ago my driver was a fellow by the name of Mitsu. I had never seen a more friendly guy in my life. When we finished our ride I took a picture of the two of us.
Today there had to be tens of rickshaw drivers roaming around. They were taking tourists on rides around the temple and with the Tokyo Tower as a photo background.
Who was the first guy I ran into today? Mitsu! I quickly pulled up our photo from my iPhone six months ago. Mitsu loved it. He was acting in a manager’s role today. Nevertheless, he made sure we got one of his favorite drivers whose name was Jimmy.
Mitsu even gave us a 10% discount on the price of our ride because we were “returning” riders. He didn’t have to do that. I never would have imagined I would be getting frequent rickshaw rider points!
The cost of a rickshaw ride varies by how long you want to ride and whether there are one or two passengers. Today we selected the two-passenger 20-minute ride for ¥8000 before our 10% discount. That comes out to about 50 bucks. Where did I get those 50 bucks? From our breakfast savings of not spending $60 each morning at the Marriott!
Our driver Jimmy was a weightlifter. He loved working out and most of his heroes are bodybuilders. He told us he had been a rickshaw driver for four years. He also mentioned he had no interest whatsoever in being a manager because he likes to talk to people while working.
Riding in a rickshaw is simply a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction that needs to be checked off. Now I’ve checked it off a couple of times. Most importantly, it was a first for Carol and she had a good time. When I really enjoy something that I’ve done by myself I immediately want to get Carol to have that same experience. Sometimes she loves it as much as I do and sometimes not. She got a kick out of her rickshaw ride.
When we travel, even in foreign countries, we will commonly use Yelp to select a restaurant. Today for lunch we were in the mood for a burger. Yelp recommended the “Suke6 Diner”. The place was excellent.
I am addicted to Coca-Cola Zero and Pepsi Zero. In most foreign countries, Coca-Cola dominates. It is often difficult to even find Pepsi-Cola on the shelves. However, in restaurants and public venues oftentimes there is no diet cola alternative at all. Today’s restaurant didn’t serve any diet colas. I am so addicted to diet soda if a restaurant doesn’t offer it or charges too much for it this creates a bad experience for me. I’d rather drink beer than drink regular Coca-Cola and I don’t like beer that much.
The next stop on our touring agenda was something that I was really looking forward to. This would be a return visit for me to a place called Yodobashi Camera. This store is the largest electronic store in all of Japan and that’s saying something.
I have never in my life seen a place with so much inventory. They must have had well over 100 stock-keeping units of ballpoint pen refills. They had well over 50 different kinds of bike helmets. They had 75 more tripod options. We weren’t in the market for any of these items.
The place has nine floors connected by escalators. We walked every one of those floors. When I was here last time, I bought a briefcase which I love. Today we didn’t buy anything. We just “window-shopped”. You can easily spend three hours in this place just looking. As I say they have everything from a simple ballpoint pen refill to a $25,000 88-inch flatscreen TV.
I didn’t discover this during my first visit because I was a little bit rushed for time. On the ninth and top floors, they have a food court. There must be 12 higher-end quality restaurants in the place. We settled on a location called the “French Toast Factory”.
There we shared the three-stack option of fluffy pancakes with chiffon and vanilla ice cream. That order along with a drink and the added ice cream choice came to just $11.50 U.S. and that includes tax and tip.
The only thing that we really found to be expensive in Tokyo was the hotels. A subway ride is a little bit less than two bucks. Restaurants are inexpensive as well. Tokyo is a very affordable place, even though it is regarded as one of the most expensive cities in the world.
We walked about 15,000 steps today. Each night when we return to our hotel we are less and less tired and able to stay up later and later. Each day we get a bit more used to the 16-hour time zone change. Each morning when we wake up we are able to sleep in a little bit later even though we are still waking up by 6 a.m. or so which in my world is extremely early.
I know I’ve said this at the end of virtually every one of our touring days. We’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow!
THURSDAY
Tokyo is a great place for touring. We had already seen a Japanese major league baseball game, gone to a sumo wrestling tournament, rode in a rickshaw, visited Yodobashi Camera, and ridden the subway up, down, and around this great city.
What could possibly be left for us to experience? Wait! I’ve got an idea. I am usually full of ideas.
Disneyland Tokyo! Folks couldn’t come to Tokyo and not make a visit to Disneyland Tokyo, right?
I guess you could call us “Disney people”. We live just 30 miles from Disneyland in Southern California. Every friend and relative who came to visit us in the 70s and 80s had to go to Disneyland. We even had special “routes” depending upon how long our friends and family had time to visit Disneyland.
I’m going to guess that we have been to Disneyland in Southern California well over 50 times. We’ve been to Disney World in Florida a few times. We actually honeymooned there when the park had only been open for three months. We’ve also been to Disneyland in Paris a couple of times. Now today, we would be visiting Disneyland Tokyo.
It was an easy subway, and then train ride from our hotel in the Ginza district of Tokyo to Disneyland Tokyo. And yes, the majority of people in Japan continue to wear masks. We did need a little bit of advice on how to buy our train tickets in a very crowded train station. Left her own devices. we could’ve done it on her own. Our process just would have taken a little bit longer.
I purchased our tickets to Disneyland Tokyo a few days ago using the getyourguide.com website. I was surprised with one thing. What was that? I never would have expected, in a city like Tokyo which is reported to be on the expensive side of things the price of a Disneyland ticket.
In the United States, a simple one-day ticket to Disneyland will set you back $104-$179 dollars depending on the day you plan to attend. How much would a single day of touring Disneyland Tokyo cost? 62 bucks U.S. I found that amazing.
The train let us off right at the entrance to Disneyland, Tokyo. Finding Disneyland could not have been any easier. Considering that nobody speaks or understands English and the printed Japanese language is unreadable we navigated to every place on our agenda with no issues.
I simply used screenshots on our Disney tickets sent to us by getyourguide.com this morning. We were in the park. I thought I saw a piece of trash when we walked into the park. In point of fact, it was a rock. We never saw a piece of trash in the park all day long!
I am super impressed with the Japanese population. They are a good-looking group. They smile a lot, although you can’t always see it physically because of their masks. Everyone we met would do anything they could to help us out. Honestly, and this includes the United States, I’ve never seen a more squared-away population than the residents of Japan.
We found the attractions in Disneyland Tokyo to be virtually identical to all of the other Disneyland parks we have visited. Above is the “Small small world” attraction. The park was crowded but not overcrowded.
I stand 6‘3” tall. I didn’t see anyone taller than me during our entire visit to the park. I might point out that we may not have seen 10 people in the park today that were older than us.
Here’s my question. Don’t tall people come to Disneyland Tokyo? Don’t “seasoned” people come to Disneyland Tokyo?
It was a warm day with the temperature topping out at about 90°F. Disneyland can take it out of you. It’s not any easier when it’s that hot.
I remember when our kids were young and we went to Disneyland. We had a “Lewis family tradition” of arriving at the park just before they opened. We didn’t leave until the place closed at midnight. You should have seen us walking back to the car after a 100% full day at Disneyland with three small kids in tow. We were some tired puppies. That’s when we were in our early 30s and the kids were 5-15! Those were some of our best Disneyland visits. By the way, our kids on now in their 40s and still go to Disneyland.
Today we tried to pace ourselves. We went on as many rides and attractions as we possibly could. I am constantly telling Carol that “we are just kids”. We stopped and ate and drank at our leisure. It was a laidback day. I am not a fan of standing in Disney lines that are too long. We tried to pick our spots.
I was a bit surprised by the behavior of many of today’s Japanese guests at Disneyland Tokyo. It was 90 degrees outside. Folks would line up two hours before the different parades that went through the park. By “line-up” I mean they would sit on the ground with their umbrellas as shade…for two hours. I had never seen this during any other Disney visits.
I would say that all of the food and drink at Disneyland Tokyo was about half the price of Disneyland parks in the United States. A lunch that would have cost the two of us $40-$50 or more at home was just $20 U.S. here at Disneyland Tokyo. What a tremendous value.
Our intent was to stay until the park closed at 9 p.m. to watch the fireworks. However, when we inquired about the starting time for the fireworks, we were told they had been canceled. We don’t know why.
I was impressed by the covered entrance/exit to the park. As we left the place was packed. It was a nice ride back from Disneyland Tokyo to the hotel. The trip required one train ride of five stops and a subway ride of two stops. This took us within a block of our hotel.
Of course, this is a trackchasing trip. As you can understand my trackchasing includes a lot of touring as you can see from everything I’ve mentioned above.
Now we had to move in the direction of a racetrack. Tomorrow we would fly to Fukuoka in search of that race track. Of course, once in Fukuoka, we would have more touring to do. What kind of touring? This would be “seat of the pants” touring. We would figure it out as we went along. Sometimes that’s the best kind of touring. See you at the airport tomorrow?
Randy & Carol Lewis
Just a couple of kids, out with the other kids, for a day at Disneyland…Disneyland Tokyo