The Happiest Place in...Asia?!

Well it's been almost a week since my last update, and I'm very sorry for that, but today I'll share some pictures of our weekend trip to Tokyo Disney.

We decided, that with the long weekend, it would be a good time to visit the Disney parks in Tokyo.  With a country of 127-ish million people, 12-ish million of those in Tokyo, going to the parks during the week would be a safer bet than during the weekend.  We spent Sunday in Disneyland and those are the pictures I will share today.  (My camera died almost as soon as we entered the park, so I still need to steal some pictures from our travel buddies!)

We left our place around 8 AM on Sunday and we made it to the resort area around 10 AM.  We were pretty proud of ourselves for getting all the way to Tokyo without getting lost.  :-)

We were welcomed at the JR Maihama Station, located across the street from the park entrance. 

We went straight to our hotel, the Sheraton, to check-in and drop off our bags.  The resorts at Disney are all located in a little alcove of Tokyo Bay, away from the city, and right on the water.  The resort has a monorail that surrounds the park and has 4 stops, one for each park, one for the hotels, and one for the shopping center/Cirque du Soleil theater.

On the Monorail...notice the windows!

The view of "Mysterious Island" and "Tower of Terror" at DisneySea from the Monorail Station

We bought our park tickets at the hotel, then made our way into Disneyland.  Of course, Tim had to take a picture in front of Main Street (Adam tried to get in on the action).

Main Street, unlike the American parks, is covered by this large glass structure so that the park can be open 365 days a year.

The castle, as always, is my favorite place to take pictures.  They were setting up for a musical celebration, taking place in February, but I still got my picture!

It should be noted that Disneyland Tokyo is huge! The rides are much larger, there is a ton of space to walk and stand, but there are less rides.  Much less.  We definitely found enough things to do to occupy our time, especially with all the waiting we had to do, but it was pretty obvious that they built the park with the intention of giving people a lot of space and only the best of the best from the original parks.  It also didn't help that some of the classics were closed during our trip (Haunted Mansion, Pirates..., Splash Mountain).   

Also, the characters are way more accessible here.  In fact, I think that the Japanese prefer to take pictures with them more than they like to ride the rides.  We had to laugh every time we watched the adults (yes, the ADULTS) sprinting after the characters, cameras ready, with kids in tow.  It was quite the sight!

The Seven Dwarfs had a small parade at the park entrance

We managed to get in a few rides on Big Thunder Mtn. Railroad (it was freezing!) and Space Mountain (Much Warmer!).  We also tried out Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the wait for this was easily two hours all day, but we caught it at the end with a 10 minute wait.  We tried to do as much as possible in each area, even with some long lines. 

Tim, trying his hand at some Toon Town dumbbells

The guys got a bit crazy as we made our way through the park and managed to find some perfect picture spots.

Adam as Cinderella and Matt as Prince Charming

We even walked over to Critter Country, even though it was pretty much all empty, with the closure of Splash Mountain.

It was very interesting for me to go to the park with three mechanical engineers in tow.  Usually Tim will point out a few things to me here and there, but with three of them, it was an all-out engineering discussion following each ride.  I did notice quite a few things I found to be different/humorous/purely Japanese while we were there:

(1) The food was all Japanese.  Instead of hot dogs, there were sausages on a stick.  Instead of churros or ice cream, it was popcorn (salted, chocolate, curry, pepper, soy sauce, caramel, you name it).  When it came to fried food, it was dark-meat chicken, shrimp, or some other seafood.

(2) All of the rides, with the exception of Big Thunder and the very end of Splash Mountain, were under cover.  This includes most, if not all, of the line for the ride.  The weather was very cold to down right freezing when it got dark, so all of the rides were also heated.  This is VERY different from sunny California and Florida, where everything is air conditioned!

(3) As I said before, the rides are much larger, not longer, but larger.  

(4) All of the signs, decorations, anything on the walls of the rides are in English.  Everything spoken is in Japanese, there is almost no English.  It was pretty funny when we decided to do MicroAdventure (aka Honey, I shrunk the Audience), a 3-D show and we realized that we wouldn't understand a word of what was being played.  I thought maybe we could just tune out the sound and read the actors' lips, it was all dubbed, but at the last minute we were informed that we could listen to an English version if we sat in a certain row with headphones.  

(5) They don't have the classic, Mickey Mouse Club, Mouse Ears here.  In their place, they have headbands, ear muffs, and the very popular Mouse Ear Hoods.  It is exactly as it sounds, a hood with mouse ears that can tie around your chin.  I really wanted one to keep my ears warm, but I never found one I liked enough to spend the Yen...maybe next time!

Well, I think that is all for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to get the pictures from our second day pretty soon and then I will post those!  

Sorry for the giant lapse in posts, I will try to keep it more updated throughout this week! 

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"Kiss Me Midnight"/"I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane"

I realized when looking over the blog that I promised to post some pictures from our New Year's Eve celebration in Portland.  I've decided to also incorporate some more information on our preparation and departure from Japan to round out this little post!

Before we left Hawaii, I wanted some pictures of some of the beautiful orchid leis we acquired during our stay (the total count was 4, not including the other Wells').

Taken on our balcony

Our flight out of Maui was actually delayed about 45 minutes, but we managed to land on-time, a late 10:30pm in Portland.  It took us a while to get our bags (we would re-check them in the morning) and find our shuttle to the hotel.  The shuttle was PACKED with passengers from our flight, which we thought was pretty funny.  As far as we could tell, we were the only ones flying to Seattle in the morning.

After checking in, we contemplated just going to bed, we were catching the first flight out of PDX in the morning, but hunger won us over and we headed to the lobby restaurant/lounge.  It seems everyone else on the shuttle/plane had the same idea and the place was pretty full!

We decided a tuna melt and pepperoni pizza were suitable choices to ring in 2010. 

When it close to the new year, the hotel party staff passed out party hats and champagne/apple cider for all of the eaters!  It was a pretty sweet!  And we rang in the new year with a kiss, ensuring a year of happiness (and new adventures)!

The next morning we got to the airport in enough time to surround ourselves with UO Ducks and lots of them!  I wish I had gotten a picture, even the airline had decorated the waiting area in green and yellow.  

We spent the next few days organizing and packing like crazy for Tim's departure.  This is the only picture I got of our packing:

Just in case you were wondering what DVDs we brought.  :-)  It was so overwhelming that I honestly forgot where the camera was until I unpacked it here in Japan!

Tim left on the 3rd and luckily, Tim's parents and sister met us at the airport to say good-bye.  They had their camera, so these next few were provided by Patti! (THANKS!)

My World Traveling and Working Hubby

Saying Goodbye and "You Better Get in Touch with Me ASAP!"

Three days later, I repeated everything again and the rest is history!

Today was the first day of rain that we've experienced.  I have coped with it by staying in my PJs and watching Japanese infomercials and the Disney Channel...Tim still has to walk home.  I think I got the better end of the deal, whaddya think?!

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A Tour of our Accommodations

Before we left for Japan many people asked us about where we were staying, how big it was going to be, what was provided, etc, etc...  I've decided to provide a picture tour of our place so that everyone can experience our inviting, fully-furnished, homey, basic living environment!  I don't want to seem like we don't like it, we're actually very glad that we choose to live in a larger place, but it is DEFINITELY a minimalist environment, complete will all white walls and birch-colored furnishings.

A view of our living room from the dining room/kitchen.  You can see that there is a sliding partition between the two areas.  We tend to keep this open all the time, but when people come to visit, we can shut it and give them their own room!  ::hint, hint::

The main bathroom is located off of the living room.

The dining room with the main storage behind the table.  This has also become a bit of a dressing room for us, because there is little-to-no closet space in our bedroom.  

The kitchen.  We actually have a dishwasher, an oven, microwave and toaster oven.  Evidently, having an oven is quite the luxury here in Japan, who knew?!

The front entrance and hallway, you can see the kitchen is on the right, the washer/dryer is next to that.  Our bedroom is the only door on the left and there is a tiny bathroom across the hall.

Our bedroom.  We ended up buying a set of sheets (as well as a pillow for me, they only provided one) when we arrived here.  The sheets that were provided were just not doing it for me and we figure that it is an investment in our ability to sleep for the next four months!

Our lone dresser. Yep. That's it.  You can see why most of our things are in the dining room.

Our tiny, tiny bathroom.  There's no mirror and no hot water.

Finally, here is the view from our sliding glass door:
 

It's not great, but we are happy to be on the ground floor.  There is only one elevator in each tower and we've heard the wait can get very long!

So there you have it!  We have yet to see the inside of the other places people are staying here, but I'm interested to see how they differ.  I do know that almost everyone is having to buy some basic kitchen necessities (can opener, spatula, silverware, dishes) because these places have provided very little for us.  We got two place settings, we've heard other people only got one!

In other news, I got pretty sick yesterday. :-( We were actually on our way to see the largest Buddha in Japan when I thought I was going to be sick.  My wonderful husband immediately brought me back to our apartment and took care of me. I felt terrible about missing the group outing, we were supposed to meet some of Tim's coworkers, but I don't think I would have made the trip too fun for everyone else. Thankfully, I am feeling much better today and I'm hoping it was just a 24-hour bug!

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横須賀 to 横浜 and back again...

Finally I am getting around to putting a post up! Yay!

Life in Japan is going well so far.  Up until today we were focused on getting our stuff unpacked, filling the apartment with food and supplies (it was very sparse upon move-in) and adjusting to the new time zone.  Today, Saturday, was the first time we got a chance to actually explore outside of the base and explore we did!!

Our next door neighbor happens to also be a co-worker of Tim's, so after knocking on his door for some help with Tim's cell phone, we found out our plans for the day were very similar.  Lucky for us, he has been to Japan a few times with work and so we decided to all head out into the city together.  It was kind of funny because we knew how to get to the train station from the apartment and he and his fiance knew where a good restaurant was in the city, so we got to "trade" our services.

N, Tim's coworker, gave us a great hint about getting around the trains: Take a picture of the signs, so you can find your way home again.

Once we got into Yokosuka, we headed to N's favorite restaurant, CoCo Curry, for some delicious curry.  We got to experience our very first Japanese restaurant ordering, which mostly consists of pointing and hand motions.  It gets the point across and so far our orders have all been correct!

After lunch, we decided to walk around a bit more, including a trip to the mall and the "gas lamp" district.

Once we had done a bit of walking we all kind of looked at each other with a "what now?" expression.  So, with absolutely no planning, we headed to the train station for a little jaunt into Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan! Tim's response to our impromptu plan: "That's quite a commitment!"

The train ride was about 45 minutes to an hour, but gave us an interesting view of Japanese life.  About 3/4 of the way to Yokohama, we thought we were going to have to switch from the local train to the express, so we got off and then discovered that they had actually connected the two trains and turned them into one express.  You live, you learn!

N decided it would be fun to show us all the Landmark Tower, which did mean switching trains...but that's a whole other kind of post.  Once we got to our destinations, pictures were in order.

It was so funny, because right after we finished taking our pictures, a group of Japanese high school girls  approached us with some questions.  They were obviously practicing their english and were very nervous/excited that we were willing to let them record our answers and take pictures!

Right near the Landmark Tower was a carnival, which included this huge ferris wheel.  Apparently, a ride is about a 1/2 hour.

So what do you think is in the Landmark Tower?  Any guesses?

A mall.  A huge, very Americanized mall, with shops ranging from Gap and H&M to Tiffany's and Salvatore Ferragamo!  The old Dry Dock has been converted to this little walking area featuring many restaurants and bars.

For dinner, Tim & I went even farther out of our comfort zone and followed N's urging to try Okonomiyaki.  Yeah, say that 10x fast! I was the only one not brave enough to try it and, quite frankly, I have no remorse about that! 

The dish had three kinds of protein: shrimp, pork (bacon), and squid, and was covered with a egg/cabbage mixture.  The white sauce on top was mayonnaise mixed with an Okonomiyaki sauce.  Yeah, so not regretting getting my yakisoba!  I also wanted to post a picture of the outside of the restaurant: 

As you can see, they put a representation of their dishes in the front window so patrons will know what is available before deciding to eat there.  I am actually finding this to be very beneficial.  Tim also told me that sometimes customers will actually take their waitress outside to point at the dish they want...I think I'll stick to pointing at the menu!

For our first adventure in the country, we had a great time and were SO thankful that N & L took us along for the journey.  We're slowly, but surely, getting acclimated with the culture and pushing ourselves to step outside our comfort zone!

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I'm in the FUTURE!

I HAVE ARRIVED! 

I would normally send out an email, but I'm on Tim's computer and my email is not set-up to switch between machines.  It is currently 10:36pm on Thursday, Jan 7th, here in Yokosuka and I am exhausted.  My flight was, for the most part, smooth and I am so glad that I upgraded to EconomyPlus! Although, I almost postponed my flight until tomorrow, so that I could get a $600 voucher for business class...oh well...I guess it's better to be here with my hubby!  Speaking of which, the poor guy has only managed about 6-8 hours of sleep since his arrival in Japan and it's pretty obvious he is feeling it! This weekend will be all about adjusting and catching up on the Zzzzs. 

I'll try to update more tomorrow, until then, SAYONARA!

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Aloha 'Oe/Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat

Well, I got a few days behind...oh well, can't win em all! :-)
Day 3 was a lazy/fun/entertaining day.  We started off the morning by sleeping in (finally) and a shopping expedition in Lahaina.  I have always loved the Banyan tree that takes up the entire courtyard in front of the Courthouse, which mean I had to, of course, show it off to Tim's family!

We had lunch at the famous Hard Rock Cafe, with an excellent view of the ocean...too bad we were sitting in front of the window and therefore had a horrible backlighting problem!

That explains all the shiny-ness...right...right?!  Following our shopping excursion, we headed to the beach for some R&R and body-boarding. 

Our beach had a lack of waves, as it is better known for its snorkeling.  Tim decided to be our puller instead and Laurie and I had a great time being dragged over the coral reefs.

Tim and I had planned on giving a luau to the family for Christmas and this is the perfect night for that.  We had a table at the Old Lahaina Luau, which is done pretty much right on the water.  In fact, the stage is in the round and the only backdrop is the ocean!  The dancers even used the beach area during the show.  It was fantastic!

Waiting for the show to start

Our view of the water and a partial stage to the left

Unveiling the Pig

Hula Dancers!

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Day four was pretty much all about whale watching and snorkeling and boy did we do both of those!  The sea was very choppy for our journey out to Lanai and back to shore, there were definitely people feeling it on the way back (if you know what I mean)!  The whales were out in FULL FORCE the entire day, in fact, we even witnessed a "Maui Mugging!" Care to guess what that is? It's when a whale literally comes up to a boat a starts to "play" with it.  I was SO thankful that we were on a large catamaran and not the tiny pontoon boat the whale was playing with, there were completely at the whale's mercy.  Too close for comfort, in my opinionn!

Watching from the top deck

We went with the Pacific Whale Foundation, so in addition to great whale watching and snorkeling, we got a play-by-play of what was happening in the ocean.  I, unfortunately, don't have any pictures of us snorkeling, but just know that I stayed in the water the entire time Tim did!  A huge accomplishment for someone who is ridiculously afraid of fish! :-) 

After our snorkel adventure, we were completely worn out, so we took the afternoon to nap and lounge around at the hotel before Tim and my final Hawaii dinner at the Pineapple Grill. 

  We got to sit outside and had a great view of the beautiful golf course and Patti had her first Shirley Temple...how can someone go so long without this delicious drink! Oh and she liked it, of course! :-)

We finished off the evening with ice cream and an impromptu photo shoot under the banyan tree in Lahaina!

We left the next day after a wonderful breakfast with the family and final walk on the beach.  We spent the evening/New Year's Eve celebrating in Portland...but that a story for tomorrow! 

Until then...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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