Tokyo Disney - Dec 29th

Monday started out wet and rainy but since we had already purchased our 2 day passes, we pretty much had to to go Disneyland (it's not a flex pass like in California).  I thought we'd get an early start and that combined with rain and a Monday, that it would be less crowded.  Nope.  Buzz Lightyear ride - 200 minutes.  Monster Inc - 180 minutes.  Pretty much every popular ride had a standby wait that was around 3 hours.  So the first thing we did was go get Splash mountain fast pass tickets before they ran out for the day.  Then I stood in line with the littles for Monsters Inc (partly because they had a covered area to stand in) and Chad and Jamie stood in line for Star Tours.  I think the wait was actually more like 2 hours so that was good.  Then we headed over to Tom Sawyer's Island because that was a wait of zero minutes!  We spent a good time out there exploring the whole island and then we came back and found a covered area to eat our lunch.   Finally it was time for Splash Mountain!  Tristan said it was his "first favorite ride", and we all had fun.  Jamie ended up getting splashed but he had a water-resistant coat on anyway so it was no big deal.  I bought the picture of us going on it, I'll try to take a picture (of the picture) soon.  After that we went on Mark Twain's riverboat and the carousel, then Chad took Tristan on a rocket ship ride while I took Jamie and Abby to Thunder Mountain with the next batch of fast passes that we had gotten.  Once that was finished we all headed onto the It's a Small World ride, which Tristan also really liked (as did I since it was quite warm inside!).  We all went over to Toon town to visit Minnie's house then Chad and Abby went on Thunder Mountain and I took the boys on the little roller coaster, as well as exploring a bunch of the different houses in Toon town.  Once Chad and Abby returned, we went on the little coaster again and decided that we were frozen enough to not be able to stay another hour and a half to wait for the electric light parade.  Instead we opted to head over to the district near our hotel and we found a ramen shop to warm up in, and had some really tasty ramen while we there!

First stop - the Subway.  Okay, first stop was actually FamilyMart (picnic lunch) and Starbucks (latte)

Soaking up the rain - thankfully it lightened up but it was still really cold all day

Monsters Inc ride

with Abby and Tristan

Out to Tom Sawyer's Island

Mark Twain riverboat, which we did later

Splash Mountain ride (wasn't the one in California only 1 person wide?)

Which flavor do we have this time (maybe Marmalade?)

rocketship ride

Minnie's couch

Goofy's painting

On our way out in front of the New Year's decoration

Thawing out

Slurp!

Disney Sea

We weren't in too much of a hurry to get to Disney Sea so I got some coffee, we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast (which was not great), then headed out to the train.  It takes 2 trains to get there from our hotel.  The first ride we went on was just a boat ride that took us to the other side of the park.  It was quite crowded and only got worse throughout the day.  We did get a fast-pass for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride.  The line for the roller coasters were always around 180 minutes!  However, we spent a fair amount time in Mermaid's Grotto and the two littlest had fun on those rides, and the lines were not as long.  After that, we ate curry at Aladdin's palace and went on the carousel there.  We then headed to the flight simulator ride, which ended up being kinda scary for Tristan, and then to the 20,000 leagues ride.  By that point it was already getting late (and very cold) so Chad took the littles back while Jamie and I went on the Indiana Jones ride through the singles line, which only took about 20 minutes!  We thought we might have luck with another singles line on the other roller coaster but no, it was much longer and we were freezing so ducked out of that line and headed back, viewing bits of the firework show as we headed out of the park.

Mermaid's grotto was a bit dark inside.  I took Tristan on jellyfish ride (he picked the green one, of course)

We went inside here for the flight simulator ride.

Abby is holding our reusable popcorn container.

They have all different flavors around park - some had very long lines as well!

Another day in Kamakura

The city of Kamakura is only 3 train stops from us and has so much to offer that we headed back there on Sunday Jan 4th.  It also happened to be the last day of the Japanese New Year holiday period so it was really crowded (especially since Kamakura has plenty of shrines and temples, which is a big part of their New Year tradition).  But we ended up trying some street foods, visiting a shrine and temple, and finding a quick hike.

Note: blogger loaded these pictures in reverse order!

We found some awesome homemade type donuts!

Crossing a creek on our way back from the hike.

Group shot at the end of the hike!

Tristan is pointing to the ruins of an old temple.

The hike was on a ridge so we had some great views.

Having fun!

The temple where we started our hike.

Temples often include cemeteries on their grounds.

A shrine with lots of extra decorations for New Years.

The streets were crowded, we're stopping to the side to eat some food we bought.

And Chad's beer from Kamakura brewery.

I love these fried purple potato cakes!