Day 1: Realising dreams

It was a trip that was planned probably half a year ago. It's my graduation trip, and having heard so much good things about japan, it was perhaps time to experience it myself. Took up elementary japanese classes, walked around travel fairs, researched on internet.. all were done to ensure that the trip would be a memorable n enjoyable one.

It was my longest ever trip abroad, and naturally, my family was quite worried, and sent me off at the airport on May 15's night.
After a 7 hour flight, 2 unfinished on-board movies(letters from iwo jima and norbit), fred and I finally set our feet on the land of the rising sun. Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan. I couldnt be more excited than this!
However, the long queues at the immigration counter delayed our excitement for another 1.5hours.
There were many modes of transport to our hotel in Shinjuku(新宿) , Tokyo, but we chose Narita Express, since trains were the least susceptible to traffic jams. A helpful angmoh offered to help us to take a picture with the train.. hence the picture of both of us :P
Upon reaching Shinjuku(it's the world's busiest station and 2nd largest train station), we spent an hour going round the area, looking for our hotel. I finally picked up the courage to ask a passer-by(in japanese nonetheless) for the direction to our hotel. Every minute spent finding our hotel would mean a minute lesser for our disneyland adventure.

After getting all the administrative matters out of the way, we had a quick 'lunch' of buns before we headed off to Disneyland, Tokyo.
Was tryin to unleash the 'kid' in me, but i couldnt 'fight off' the competition with the kids, who had lotsa pictures with the mascots. In the end, i settled for this pic at the entrance of the park, a lilo/stitch(sorry i didn't watch the movie) picture made from flowers.
We reached the park at about 1 or 2pm.. And with the entrance fee costing 5800yen(about S$75), we had to make the ticket worth every cent of it. For those who havent been to any disneys before, this entrance ticket allows u to take ANY of the rides in the park, and u'll only have to fork out money if u r buying food or souvenirs..

This was the first ride we took, 'Jungle Cruise', in Adventure land, one of the 7 themed lands in Disneyland. As the name suggests, it's a cruise in a boat thru the man-made 'jungle', with a funny, comical boatman giving some interesting commentary(no doubt in Japanese).
Thruout the day, there will be parades in the park, and this was the first one we've seen, 'Disney's Dreams on Parade'. It's like a nice event for ppl to rest their legs, sit on the floor, picnic and view the parade. Reminded me of a certain parade in SG, with all the floats n ppl dancing along the streets.
I find this one very 'romantic'.. esp with Queen Minnie on top.
As we were navigating in the parks, we saw plenty of kids running around, with all these nice 'headbands' on their heads. Instead of looking 'wierd', i find the headbands cute. Oh, we realised something too, Disneyland was populated with locals instead of the foreigners that we had expected.
This is a 'Fastpass', a ticket that would get us priority to the rides, instead of queueing up (maybe 1-2hours) for the rides. But such tickets can only be requested at 1 per hour, and only the more popular rides will have. By the way, this ride was the BEST among all the 6 rides that we took that day. 'Big Thunder Mountain', a roller coaster ride that.. didn't feel too 'kiddish' as compared to the rest.
This boat, 'Mark Twain Riverboat', was the one we took to tour around in Westernland. It looks nicer than the one xk took in Florida :P
There was this 'dragon-boat' ride too, but it seemed dumb to exercise n sweat in disney, so we didn't go for it.The view of Cinderella's palace from the riverboat we took..
Another ride that we gave a miss.. 'Splash Mountain'. We could get ourselves wet in a similar ride in Singapore too.
One of the mascots that we managed to take a picture of.. Woody. Tell me u are lookin at Woody, n not the kawaii gal.. ^_^
And.. his wife i suppose?
Tom Sawyer's Island Raft was the next we took, to 'Tom Sawyer's Island'.
I tried to act scared, was it convincing?
A wierd structure on that 'island', releasing steam at times.
It's hard to believe that such 'fairy-like' faces existed, and these were 2 characters from peter pan.. Peter pan n his galfriend i suppose.
The 2nd roadshow that we attended. 'hulihuli ohana bash', a special parade by Lilo n Stitch.
Kids were asked to join along for the dances, and they were having a good time.
I find this 'pig' extremely cute.. Does anyone know his/her name?
The main focus of the parade, lilo/stitch and the Hawaiian gals ;)
A short clip of the parade:




The entrance to Cinderella's palace.. Nothin much inside, except a 'Glass Slipper' souvenir shop inside. Bought 2 mugs for my sis n her bf, complete with engraved names. They were selling this 'glass slipper' too, which i had an urge to buy, but no one to give to.
An interesting building in Fantasyland, which we didn't enter.
As the night arrived, we had a quick (yet expensive dinner, S$19 for 2 prawns and a plate of rice) in one of the restaurants, before we proceeded for this 3rd parade, 'Dreamlights'.
Resembles Chingay? :X
This is a very cute float which i liked.. from Monsters Inc. There's this cute little baby behind the monster.
Winnie the pooh! I want honey!
Beauty n the beast... Only fairytales would have.
I dunno where did this creature came from, but I find it nice too.
Well, we had to go back early to our hotel to check-in that night, n had to forgo the fireworks display. What a waste. Tried to buy souvenirs that night from Disney as well, but the shops were packed with kids doing that last minute purchases too. Left the souvenir shops, w/o buying a single souvenir.