Tsukuba-Dooba-Doo

In celebration of Reagan's 2nd birthday, the Haines' and Walkers (or as I like to call us: The American Full House. 3 Haines' and 2 Walkers) spent a day in Disneyland Tokyo!


Personally, I wasn't sure how excited I was supposed to be since I'm 24 years old and I am was a Disneyland virgin.  "So...wait, its just for little kids right?" WRONG! (sort of).  Obviously, the theme park is geared towards children, but I found many aspects about Disneyland which I (as an adult) enjoyed a lot.  Also, lets be honest, I act like a child 90% of the time so it was easy for me to share in the pre-pubescent bliss.

When we walked into the park we decided to hit up Tomorrowland (which I mistakenly call "Futuretown" every time).  The problem is that we were instantly hit with the realization that every popular ride had a 100+ minute wait.  It is, after all, summer at Disneyland in Tokyo.  So the first ride we went on was the rocket ship ride (shown below).




Following this we walked to the wacky world known as Toontown.  Reagan especially enjoyed all of the crazy interactive buildings.


While in Toontown, we decided to get in line for the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" inspired ride.


So Katie and I waited, and waited, annnnd waited.  During our seemingly endless wait in line Katie and I stayed sane by playing Yatzee on my iPod.  This proved to be an essential survival tool throughout the rest of the day.  I also ended up teaching Katie how to whip a wet towel in order to pop any unsuspecting friend on the leg or tushy.  2 hours later, we were very relieved to board the log ride.  It ended up being great.  Plus, we got a killer photo from the big drop!



One inescapable fact about all early Disney princesses and princes are that they are very obviously Caucasian.  Consequently, Disney must hire white people in foreign Disneylands in order for the characters to be believable.  Before you pull the race card just remember: it isn't racist if its for the kids!



We met back up with the Haines' after the parade and quickly went back to Tomorrowland in hopes of catching the Buzz Lightyear or Monsters Inc attractions.  We did make it to the Buzz line before the wait time topped an hour.

Just as we were about to walk out of the park we passed by the "Captain EO" attraction which is a 3D short movie that George Lucas and Francis Coppola made with Micheal Jackson.  For some reason this ride in particular had been pulling at my soul all day, plus it was only a 10 minute wait at this point.  It was 80s to the max with its blend of funky bass lines, dancing, Star Wars-esque vibe, and MJ saving the day by shooting purifying lasers out of his feet via whip kicks.  


As we stumbled out of the theater, having headaches from the bad 80s 3D, we had one more chance to take some photos before we left.  It was a truly gorgeous night with a bright moon shining next to the Disney Castle. 


Since we had such a great time AND we didn't get to do all of the rides, I'm pretty sure we will be going back soon.  Sometimes it pays to know the birthday girl.



-Seth

A testimate to the power of Facebook:

Koji, a man I met through the Tsukuba Hiking and Mountaineering Club, posted an event labeled "Awesome Summer Trip to Aquarium, Beautiful Beach, Isosaki Shrine in Oarai" and invited all of his friends.  Two weeks later the Walkers and Haines' hop on a Greyhound sized bus (rented specifically for this occasion) with 50+ other people and make our way to Oarai.  Amazing. 


About 75% of the 61 confirmed guests were students at Tsukuba University and in true 'Science City' fashion, almost every individual was from a different country.  As we made our way to Isosaki Shrine, our first stop, the bus microphone was passed down the bus as everyone introduced themselves.  For most, English is their 2nd language which meant it was fun to hear greetings in many different languages.  Of course, since there is really no need to learn another language in the U.S, when I was handed the mic I said


Upon arrival at the shrine we quickly determined that the beachfront 100 yards away was more appealing.  This particular part of coastline is famous for its images of the temple gate embedded in the coastal rocks (see below).

Luckily, I was able to stay relatively dry as we got back on the bus and made our way to the Aquarium.  After grabbing some "American Dogs" (a.k.a. corn dogs), we entered the Aquarium.  Quite frankly, the aquarium was all around better than the Kamagawa Sea World we visited the week before.  Although navigating around in the Aquarium is like trying to make your way through an M.C. Escher drawing, the facilities and animals were quite good.

The main highlight of the aquarium was the dolphin show.  Since Katie and I missed the dolphin show at Sea World, I was really excited to see it here.  Apparently Reagan wasn't able to contain her excitement either as the following video shows.







After a miscommunication lead to us waiting for about an hour by the bus, our group finally arrived at the sandy beaches of Oarai for swimming, beach soccer, and lounging.  Katie, Matt, and I were so excited we immediately took to swimming out to the outer buoy barrier.  This proved to be more of an event as our strokes of pure joy quickly devolved into thrusts of survival.  The buoys were much farther away than they looked.  We all took a small break from the swim, played on the buoys, and soaked in the moment.

Once we got back to the shore, I decided to throw Katie into a wave.  It was then that we noticed that there were literally hundreds of small dead fish swaying back and forth with the waves under water about 2 feet down.  UGH!  We couldn't keep from stepping on them or bumping into them as we tried desperately to get away.  In fact, the spikes on one of the fish's fins stabbed into my ankle.  Not cool.  Every time I stepped on a fish I fought back the urge to dry heave.

It wasn't long before I started questioning what lead to so many dead fish....hmmm....I suddenly felt the urge to stay out of the water, so I joined in the soccer game in the sand and Katie went to hang out with the Haines'.  She took this photo during that time. 


After a mind-clearing game of soccer, I gazed back at the water and saw the the local birds diving in on the dead fish situation.  Since I was sweaty from the game I made myself get back into the water for another swim.  Once you got past the dead fish barrier, the water was great.

I ended up having good conversations in the water with a guy from Uzbekistan whose name to me sounded an awful lot like chocolate.  He wanted people to call him "shoe" because it means "honey" in his language.  I guess he wanted all of the girls to call him honey.  The trouble is, all of the guys end up calling him honey too..?  As we stood in the waves he asked me about undertow because that day was the first time he had ever been in an ocean!  I congratulated him and asked what he thought of it.  He replied nonchalantly "It's salty."


After I broke though the dead fish barrier for the last time, Katie, Chelsae, Matt, and I enjoyed a beer on the beach.  We walked back toward the bus and found a fountain-ish station where we washed off (below).

July 4th weekend is special for everyone who lives in the States! It is a great times with friends, enjoying our freedom and watching fireworks. For Seth and I, it is also our anniversary, so we decided to do a weekend trip.  Seth has a Japanese language class till 8:00pm on Friday nights, so we headed out "early" 9:00am Saturday morning.

Seth and I have become the masters of public transportation, but it was a bit of a challenge to arrive where we wanted to go on Saturday.  To take the trains from Tsukuba to Awa-Kamogawa ( the station for Seaworld) should have taken 2 1/2 hours, but we did not arrive until 2pm....which was 2 1/2 hours more than what it should have taken!  What happened one might ask?  Well it was a struggle with getting on four different train lines and not knowing about rapid trains (everything is in Japanese with no English subtitles) and we also had a train break down on us!

Luckily  all we really wanted to do was hang out and spend time together.  The whole traveling time we would just laugh about what was the next obstacle (ninjas, tsunamis) would come in our way. Once at Seaworld we enjoyed three shows: killer whales, sea-lions, beluga whales, and of course all of the exhibits.


In leaving Seaworld, we picked up our public transportation pride and did much better getting to our hotel. We still had a little obstacle by getting dropped off at the wrong hotel by our taxi driver, but we figured it out and we were ready to rest our feet and eat some dinner!  Here is some more pictures of the Japanese hotel that we stayed in and our day on the beach.





At the beach we realized that we were the only people not surfing and not wearing a wet suit. It was funny but also awkward because everyone was staring at Seth and his awesome body boarding skills!!!

We hope that everyone reading this had a great 4th of July celebrating our countries freedom and the ones that give/risk their lives to keep us free!

   ~Kate