End of our trip to Japan

We returned home after almost 3 weeks in Japan, visiting Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji. It will take some time to post my experiences in the land of the rising sun, in reverse chronological order. Will also cover my month long trip in Italy back in May/June; that may take a while to complete.

To start, these are the luggage covers I bought from a Mega Don Quixote in Tokyo. We got covers only for the new suitcases that we checked in for the flight back to the US. The medium one was bought in Kyoto, the large in Tokyo as we, i.e. my daughter, accumulated more purchases. Sure made it easy to find the cases in the luggage claim area! Will describe Don Quixote a bit more in a separate post about shopping in Japan which we did a lot of!

I decided to stay at the Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand Haneda Airport, to make sure that we did not miss our morning flight. This was a very nice and modern hotel located in the Haneda Airport Garden, right past the new shopping arcade. Easy access to the check in and departure gates in Terminal 3. Wish I had taken a photo of the hotel entrance which was on the 4th floor of the airport. We got there by taking the airport limousine bus directly from our disney hotel in Tokyo Bay; it was a breeze to book via cell phone. They even took our large suitcases, so there was no need to transfer our luggage separately (more about that in a separate post). Below is a stage/exhibit area in the center of the Airport Garden; the area was rather quiet.

Lots of options for dinner: we went to the Oedo Food hall so that each could order different types of Japanese food instead of one type of restaurant, like the 2nd photo below which was a Chinese restaurant; others specialized in curry, sushi, udon, etc. Ordering was done on a kiosk with an English menu and lots of photos. Laurel ordered the wonton ramen set that came with beer, while I had sashimi over rice and sake. We swapped our drinks since she did not like beer and I did not care for sake.

Breakfast came with our room rate, the hotel's restaurant was located on the 1st floor. We were at breakfast when it opened at 6 am, to have plenty to time to make it to our flight at 10:30 am. The huge Japanese and Western buffet was amazing; I binged on my last Japanese breakfast for the trip.

The ANA non-stop flight was uneventful; it was not full, nice to have the middle seat empty. After arrival at Dulles Airport, I booked an Uber ride for the first time. It was so easy, came in just 5 minutes. Less cumbersome and cheaper than our other option which was to rent a car to drive back to Bowie and return it to BWI. We could have taken the metro to New Carrolton (like we did when we left for the trip) and an Uber home from there, but we did not feel like managing 4 suitcases and 2 backpacks on the train. Traffic was light and we got home in about 50 minutes.

DisneySea, Tokyo

We spent most of the day at DisneySea. It was cloudy but still humid. We were curious about this Disney park, available only in Japan (found out later that the Japanese parks were not part of Disney, but under license to use the name and characters/images). Bought tickets from home about a month ago, using the Klook app. A new attraction in the park, Fantasy Springs, opened recently and we hoped to get passes to that. Those free passes were only available through the Disney Resort app after admission into the main park itself. I have read that passes to popular attractions and rides are gone very early as many people arrive 1-2 hours before the official opening time, and the park lets visitors in before the official opening time. We simply could not get up early enough to line up at the entrance. Also, unlike Universal Studios Japan where our hotel was just steps from the entrance, we had to take the hotel shuttle and the Disney monorail to this park. Sure enough, once we got in, a big sign informed us that passes to Fantasy Springs were sold out for the day. But we managed to register for a priority pass to the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride in the afternoon, using the app. Most of the thrill rides had wait times of over 90 minutes. Like Tokyo Disneyland, we had to wait 1-2 hours before we could register for another priority ride; by none of the thrill rides was available.

My impressions of DisneySea: it was crowded but not as crowded as Tokyo Disneyland. There were distinct areas with beautiful buildings and designs, a few rides and attractions in each area. The concept reminded me a bit of Epcot Center. Above photo is the entrance just inside DisneySea. Past that is the Mediterranean Harbour with its Venetian look, complete with gondola rides.

Below, the American Waterfront with New York vibes and truck rides around the streets. I got on a car that looked like a police van transporting criminals, short ride but kind of fun. Also went on the Steamship Columbia, most of it was a restaurant with an ornate entry way, 1920s/30s decor. They allowed visitors to walk around the outside deck for a view of the harbour below.

Tokyo Disneyland

Unlike Universal Studios Japan, we just could not get up early enough to queue up at the Tokyo Disneyland entrance to try to beat the crowds and get priority passes to top attractions and rides. Instead, we had a late breakfast at the hotel, then took the free shuttle to Disneyland. On the bright side, we avoided the breakfast crowd and long lines waiting for the shuttle. It was another sunny, hot and humid day in Tokyo.

After arriving at about 10:30 am, we went to the visitor center to figure out the Disney Resort app to sign up for priority passes. The staff spoke very little English, but we managed to understand each other. Some of the rides, like the highly recommended Enchanted Tale of Beauty and Beast ride, could only be obtained by paying for premium passes, at 2,000 yen per person, which we did for the available time slot of 6:45 pm. We also managed to sign up for Big Thunder Mountain ride using the free 40th anniversary pass. A few rides, like It's a Small World and Splash Mountain, were temporarily closed.

My impressions of Tokyo Disneyland? Crowded, crowded, crowded. About as bad as Universal Studios in Osaka, and this was supposed to be a less crowded weekday. A lot of young people in elaborate costumes, lots of princesses, anime characters and the newest craze, characters from Disney's Twisted Wonderland, a mobile game which is very popular in Japan, and only recently released in the US.

We mostly walked around the different parts of the park, got on a few rides with short wait times, watched a street parade in the afternoon from the back of the crowd (people pay for access to the front, sitting on the ground of the sidewalks. Everything was in Japanese, although a few rides had announcements in English and Mandarin.

The high point was having lunch at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall, the line to get in was short, prices were quite reasonable and the restuarant was nice.

The food was pretty good, 8,410 yen ($56.40) for both of us. We also opted for two different desserts in a commemorative cup and a saucer respectively. They even gave us some honeycomb packing paper to protect the souvenirs. Both items got home in our luggage without any issues.

We stayed long late enough to watch the electrical parade, which was nice, but decided to skip the fireworks at 8:50 pm, just 10 minutes before the park closed which would mean very crowded lines at the shuttle stops. Let's hope that tomorrow's visit to DisneySea is a better experience.

Shopping in Tokyo

I have scheduled shopping in the Nippori Fabric Town three days before we depart from Tokyo, thinking this will give us time to pack our suitcases and get them transferred to the airport by a third party so we did not have lug them on the trains. Turned out we needed to revise our plans. Today was a public holiday in Japan, Sports Day and the main fabric store we wanted to visit, Tomato, was closed. Instead, we had to settle for other stores that were opened. Our room came with breakfast; the buffet was very nice, a mix of Western and Japanese dishes. Since we slept in, there were not too many people in the restaurant. After breakfast, we took the hotel's shuttle to the Maihama station, and got on the local train to Niporri.

We spent a lot of time looking at fabric. I was going for Japanese prints, 100% cotton for quilting projects. Laurel found small pieces as souvenirs for members of her crafting club. We found some fantastic bargains, in fact most things were bargains since the exchange rate was very favorable to the dollar. The set of packaged fabric below, 3 meters total, were only 600-1,000 yen (about $4-$7.50) on clearance. We got a lot of stuff, and ended up buying a wheeled shopping bag to help carry them back to the hotel.

We also bought more souvenirs, cute "eco bags" that are foldable and used for shopping. In the late afternoon, we found a place to rest and had a late lunch, a tempura and udon/soba restaurant close to the train station.