MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Tokyo Trip
Day 4 - October 17 2024
We woke up early again. Not by choice. Mike has been doing OK with sleep, I have been having a rough time. The original plan was to sleep in and hang out in the hotel until checkout at noon, take the 3 train journey with all our luggage to the hotel in Akasaka, and get some dinner in town. We were up at 6:30 chatting about how spending hours in hotel rooms today didn’t sound particularly fun, we threw around the idea of taking an Uber instead of dealing with the trains. It would be a 90 minute ordeal with 30 minutes of walking with our luggage and 3 transfers or a 30 minute Uber directly to our hotel for $50 extra bucks total. The car ride started to sound pretty great. But then the issue is that check-in is not until 3PM. So, what did we want to do with those 3 hours in between?
We discussed options when I mentioned that I was having a bit of the post-Disney blues. We had so much fun in the parks and we knew there was a good chance we would end up going back to one of the parks at some point during our Tokyo stay. however, that 90 minute journey would be both ways if we did it later on in the trip. Pretty quickly, doing that extra park day now, while we were already there, started to sound like the most fun and efficient choice!
We had done a great job of exploring DisneySea the day prior, and without the vacation package pass to Fantasy Springs, we decided it made most sense to visit Disneyland again. We had skipped a couple lands there and had missed a few rides we wanted to hit due to exhaustion. So, we bought some tickets (they are so much cheaper now with the yen so low) and packed up our stuff. We had read prior to coming that the hotel will hold your bags for you the entire day/night of checkout, so we dropped our luggage at the front and made our way to the park.
We got off the monorail at 9:30 and were able to walk right into the park. Unlike yesterday arriving at DisneySea at 9:30 and having to wait 30 minutes in line.
We were able to score a fastpass for Big Thunder in a couple hours and we started walking to Fantasyland to do one of the dark rides we missed last time, Snow White’s Adventure. We waited about 10 minutes and when we got out, we noticed the line for flavored popcorn was super short.
In the Disney parks, lines for everything are huge. Food, drinks, snacks, rides, everything. If you see a short line, you gotta grab it. For most of the time in the parks, the various popcorn stands were typically a 20-45 minute wait. It made sense that most people wouldn’t want popcorn at 10AM. But, we did!
Mike really enjoyed his Shrimp and Garlic popcorn in Disneyland last time, but the Soy Sauce and Butter was a real letdown, so we went for what seemed a safe choice- black pepper popcorn. Let me tell you- this isn’t just plain popcorn with black pepper sprinkled on. I don’t know what they are putting in this, but it was so addicting. This ended up being our favorite flavor of the parks.
As we are still finishing the box of popcorn, we are walking towards Westernland and see another short line! For popcorn. While eating the black pepper popcorn, we queue up for curry popcorn. This one was delicious. I was expecting an Indian curry flavor but it was a Japanese curry flavor, which obviously makes more sense. It was very good!
Since our breakfast had only consisted of corn, we needed something more substantial. Right across the bench we were sitting at was a restaurant that accepts mobile order, so we got some Japanese curry with rice, a meat patty, chicken, and a Mickey egg. Please forgive the next picture, we forgot to take it before we dove in.
One of the lands we completely bypassed when we were here before was Critter Country. The only ride in the land is Splash Mountain, and we did not care about that, so we never even walked in. But, the theming is cute and they have an ice cream sundae I wanted to try.
Our fastpass time for Big Thunder was up, so after exploring Critter Country, we rode the coaster again. It was the only non-dark ride we rode in any park, and it’s so well done here, we honestly could have ridden it over and over and not gotten sick of it.
One thing Mike or I have ever done at either Disneyland park is take the float over to Tom Sawyer island. So, we did it! Don’t need to do it again! 😉
When we got off the float back on the mainland, we started walking towards the kiosk where we had just placed a mobile order, except the parade was about to start. Which means the park becomes an absolute madhouse. We needed to go about 20 steps forward and to the right of where we got off the float. However, we were not allowed to. We had to walk TEN MINUTES in the most insane detour guided by cast members because people LOVE parades. “People” does not include us, but to each their own. We finally made it to pick up our now-mostly melted rum and apple smoothie cocktail. Not going to seek out this combo again, but it was an experience.
At this point, the parade was in full swing, and we wanted to get off our feet, so we walked to the Le Tavern de Gaston restaurant while lines were short. We got the onion and potato hashbrowns again, apple wine spritzers, and the Sweet Gaston dessert.
A wild choice was to go on Alice’s spinning teacups after drinking a couple cocktails midday, but who doesn’t love a bit of high risk/low reward options in their lives?
When Mike and I were dating, he would take trips down to California to visit me and we went to Disneyland in Anaheim a few times. We have disposable camera pictures I took while Mike was spinning the teacups 13 years ago. We wanted to recreate the pic now. Did not know he was gonna go so hard spinning the cup while I snapped photos of him.
The other land we mostly bypassed our first go-around was ToonTown, so we explored the land, getting yet another popcorn! I got this because the second fastpass we were able to get was for Star Tours, which made me super nauseous last time since it’s a 3-D ride. So, Mike was gonna go on his own and I wanted a snack while I waited for him. This flavor was Corn Potage, basically corn chowder flavor. It was sweeter than expected but really did taste like the soup.
After Start Tours, we chatted about when we wanted to leave the park and make our way to Tokyo. We had done everything we wanted to coming in and we did want to avoid calling the Uber in rush hour, so we either had to leave soon or spend another 4 hours in the park. We decided to pack it in and get to the hotel while there was still light.
But before we left, on the way to the gate, was Pirates with only a 10 minute wait. So, we had to get on.
Mike had never used an Uber in Japan, so we didn’t really know what to expect when we picked up our luggage from the hotel and requested one, but a prestine van pulled up at the lobby, a man with a suit jumped out and loaded our luggage, and we got into the incredibly clean car. It was the best Uber we have ever taken. We have had some seriously scary Uber rides while travelling internationally (I’m talking to you, dude in Lisbon), but this was awesome. Also, I’m gonna sound so kitchy, but driving into Tokyo proper really feels like being in a movie set in the future.
We checked in and immediately left for dinner because we knew if we allowed ourselves to relax at all, it would be game over.
We had made note of a ramen place just a few minutes walk away with English on their menu. It was a vending machine order, which is super common here. When you walk into the restaurant, or right outside the door, there will be a vending machine with the menu options. Sometimes with English on it, sometimes not. You select what you want and pay and get a ticket that you give to the restaurant worker. Then, you take a seat and eat! We got a pork shoyu (soy sauce and pork base) ramen, chicken and kelp tsukemen (tsukemen means the broth is more concentrated and the noodles are served separately. You dip the noodles into the broth instead of getting a bowl with everything together) and an order of gyoza.
It was the best gyoza either of us have had before, and the pork shoyu was the best shoyu ramen we have had. The kelp broth was tasty, not fishy at all, but it was very subtle, so it didn’t pack as much punch. The entire meal, including the two large beers, was $20 total.
After dinner, we packed it in and finally got a good night’s sleep (I got 12 hours!!).