Disney Adventure

For Caroline’s birthday the women in the family traveled to Tokyo Disney Sea for an entire day of celebration. I must point out that I have avoided spending vacations with the mouse in the US because an artificial environment that bears no relationship to reality is not my idea of fun and I have no wish to escape to such a place. However, in Japan where much of our life is strange and foreign it was a bit of welcome Americana for our child. Although we were not totally prepared to hear the person portraying Donald Duck to have a high female voice. It was also a bit odd to listen to the familiar songs for the rides in Japanese since all the signs used for decoration are in English.

We were very lucky to be able to go on a weekday which was not a holiday for Japanese children although it was a holiday for Caroline’s school. (In fact we ran into several of her friends at Disney that day.) We took an early morning long subway ride with two changes that included a rush hour experience that Caroline did not like. By the time we arrived at Disney the sun was out and we could tell that we were quite lucky for early November because we did not need jackets for most of the day.

Disney was very nicely landscaped and there were many flowers even though the entire complex was decorated for Christmas. (In Tokyo the Christmas decorations go up right after Halloween.) Caroline went on every thing she wanted two times and she never had more than a 5-10 minute wait. The rides she chose were even tame enough for her mom to enjoy, although I did sit out on one spinning clam shell.

The best part of the experience were the shows – even with a language barrier an extravaganza is still entertaining. The Disney Sea shows made great use of the water and floating boats. Fireworks went off even during the daytime show and there were also many costumed dancers. The evening show included fire as well as colored fountains. Both shows were more enjoyable than I expected even though I did not understand the plots, or maybe because I could not understand the lyrics of the songs. The shows reminded me of a three ring circus because there was entertainment to be had in every direction you looked.

We also caught a Mariachi band performance during our dinner. The group was quite good and reminded Caroline of Texas. Although the songs were all in Spanish the performers did speak a few words of Japanese in their introduction. I must say seeing someone in a Mariachi band speak Japanese adds something to the international tone of Disney. The audience sat emotionless throughout the set although the band finally got them to clap to the beat for one song.