Wednesday and Thursday were actually fairly uneventful days for me, I did actually do some homework (but not all), and somewhat cleaned my room, posted off a few things, and generally recovered from the madness of New Years. It's amazing how drained you can get after doing only 5 verbs for a few days!
Friday I got up early to get on the train to Kamakura again, this time to meet up with Claire, so that we could go on an adventure to Hachimangu, the shrine I visited earlier to see the Yabusame, and then to go to Daibutsu, a giant bronze Bhudda statue, a popular destination with tourists.
At Hachimangu we did Hatsumode again, Claire bought herself an arrow for killing Demons (handy), and I distanced myself from her as she went into tourist mode, photographing every little thing. (not really, she took very few photos, but you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story)
Had a look down 'Shopping town', the souvenir filled paradise beside the temple complex, picked up a few bits and pieces there, and made our way down to the beach. Yes, the very same beach that Olivia, Camille and I ever so foolishly brought food to in October.
Thankfully the few hawks that were there paid us no attention, probably as we lacked any food, nonetheless I was constantly scouring the skies for the feathered fiends, aware that at any time they might STRIKE! Much like in this here youtube clip actually.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjj32CavzU0
Beach finished, headed to Hasse, the location of Daibutsu, so we boarded a dinky little train, the outside painted all manner of pictures related to the area, followed the signage (and loads of foreigners), passed through some gates, and then we were met with the giant green head of enlightenment. At 13.35 metres tall, and weighing about 93 tonnes, it was built around 1252, but has had constant repairs and structural reinforcements over the centuries. It was once entirely covered in gold, but this has since worn off apart from a bit around the ears (always wash behind your ears kids).
For 20 yen you can also go inside the statue (it is hollow), and see the various sheets of bronze that have been welded together, as well as the cast marks, plus hundreds of years of graffiti. I was quite surprised to feel that the metal was warm to the touch, I guess the metal conducts the heat from the sun through to the inside quite well.
Looking up into Bhudda's brain
With a bit of time left, we took the train to Yokohama, as a way of burning up our last remaining hour and a bit, meandered around, did nothing too spectacular.
Came home for dinner, watched a bit of Atlantis (a disney movie for those of you not in the know), and went to bed. At the moment the moon cycle is such that I can open my curtain on a clear night (every night for the past fortnight), and look straight up into the sky to see this;
So, lying perpindicular on my bed, curtain open, I look straight up through my A-Frame window, and see three moons shining down on me. Quite nice to sleep in the moonlight I think.
Saturday was an equally exciting day, one that saw me get up even earlier than Friday (6.15, so not too bad), and on the train to Tokyo at 7.20. Olivia, Camille, Fernanda and I were headed to the Happiest Place on Earth, the place Where Dreams Come True, the Most Magical Place on Earth, Tokyo Disneyland Resort!
The idea of Disneyland and the queues, mass of people, overly priced stuff you probably don't need and fakeness is a massive turn off for many people. I will admit that on my first trip to Tokyo Disneyland in 2009, I was like that. I thought of it not as a day wasted, but something quite close. With my group of similarly minded friends, no rides were ridden, no lines were waited in, only photos were taken. However going to California Disney in 2011 with my FPS team, their insistence on going on the rides meant that I had to tag along too. And lo, my eyes were opened! With a strategy learnt at a previous Disney occasion, one of our group led us from ride to ride, attraction to attraction, with minimal (for Disneyland) waiting times. So when Olivia said she was organising a Disney trip and would I like to come, I was all for it, so that I could experience a Tokyo Disney renaissance of sorts.
Toyko Disney 2009
California Disney 2011
This prediction would turn out to be correct, and full of optimism and hope, I took the time to find an English language map of Disneyland's attractions on the internet and print it out, lest we be spending most of our time translating the various destination names instead of riding them. So on the train I was formulating the best way to work the park, taking into account waiting times, fastpass usage and time of day, and before long it looked something like a military operation.
Operation Dreams Come True was a great success, a hit rate of 100%, not a single attraction was missed, and as the day turned into night, the waiting times for some of the rides was reduced to a platry 5 minutes, so some targets were hit twice.
The little boy in the seat right behind me looks mildly concerned at the drop, and the boy behind him is vomiting into a bag. Us four, however, are in dreamland.
Fernanda got the brunt of the splash, and so now I can say that being in the front is the place you want to be in Summer, but not Winter. (I can never remember which position is best, only that I wasn't/was in it in California, I got the waves). We proceeded to Big Thunder Mountain, which I promised to Fernanda as being far kinder than Splash Mountain (you can agree or disagree with this, I think rather the opposite) as a way of getting her on to it, and it worked I am glad to say. Before long we were tearing along a Western themed railroad, screaming all the way. (some of us anyways)
Then came lunch and the parade, lots of children waving at people in suits or wearing lots of makeup, who despite working at the Happiest Place on Earth have lost the ability to be happy, as it has been all used up in providing happiness to others. Nonetheless, the parade was a bit of fun, plus I could see over the heads of everyone else, so I had a good view, unlike plenty of others!
After the parade more rides ensued, we got to go to Star Tours, a Star Wars themed ride, the line was, at 5 minutes long, 1 hour 55 minutes shorter than the line at California Disneyland, so I was well pleased with that, and we managed to get Fernanda on Space Mountain, which I think she enjoyed. As darkness grew the lines grew shorter as children started to get sleepy and people were lining the main road to get good spots for the night time parade, and we followed along with that plan, again my height allowing me a good vantage point regardless of location.
Apparently more than a million lights go into this parade, provided quite the visual spectacle, I was reminded of Pandora from James Cameron's Avatar at times.
We did Cinderella's Castle, reliving the story of the girl who goes from essentially a slave to being a Princess, as told by a variety of mosaics and sculptures.
And then, in a dramatic event, I, Troy Stade, sometimes known as King Troy to my High School classmates in NZ, sat in the throne of Cinderella's Castle, thus reaffirming my position as king.
A rather dark King, perhaps, but a King nonetheless
A few more rides ensued, namely Pooh's Hunny Hunt, a ride which pleasantly surprised me as being rather fun, something I was not expecting. Our fastpass ticket gave us the 20.10-21.10 time slot, and when we arrived the normal line was full up with waiting times of 45 minutes, it felt mighty good to walk past all of them.
We then stopped for dinner, and at around half past 9 pm, 13 hours after we arrived, I left the Happiest Place on Earth.
The day was a very fun one, starting with Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster Adventures and ending with Pooh's Hunny Hunt, we cured Fernanda's fear of rollercoasters (if Disney rides can be called as such), I restored my faith in Tokyo Disney, and Olivia and Camille had their first Disney experience in many years. All in all, it was a successful campaign.
Arriving home late, I went to sleep just over 18 hours after waking up, so consequently I was quite tired this morning, but nonetheless I got up and was out again at 9 am, headed to the Ebina town hall where there was a demonstration by the Ebina city Fire Department.
A lot of families had come to witness the demonstration, which included an awards ceremony for the Ebina fire service for their work over the past year, a parade of the various divisions, as well as their fleet of vehicles, and then there was some hands on stuff, fire teams hitting targets with their hoses, and people being able to get up close with the fire vehicles. Before the actual parade started there was a performance by a junior high school Taiko (Japanese drum) club, which was pretty impressive. Not a lot else to say really, there were some firemen, some fire trucks, some people, and a cold wind.
And as well as seeing Ebina's finest in action, I also met a very peculiar character known only as 'Ebinya', Ebina's very only mascot.
Ebinya is a Shrimp hat wearing, strawberry bodied white cat. 'Ebi' means shrimp in Japanese, hence the shrimp hat, and Ebina is famous for its strawberries, hence the strawberry body. In Japan, cats don't go 'meow', they go 'nyan', a which in Ebina's case is a good substitute for the 'na'. Thus, Ebinya was born, and here I am with it.
Arrived back home thinking I'd be doing some homework and sorting out my room a bit, but then some guests arrived that I didn't know about, and once they'd left, I had to have a post afternoon tea siesta, and then it was time to write the blog (homework can wait), so that you, the reader, may have something exciting to read in your otherwise grey, mundane life.
Tomorrow I'm off to Kawasaki, it will be one more city I can tick off of my list, and I shall be doing a new blog in the coming days on that, and the return to school which I am in no shape or form looking forward to.
However looking at my school calendar for January, I see that I have the 25th and 26th off as junior high schoolers take their high school exams, and that the 23rd, 24th and 30th are half days, so I may be able to get some last minute adventures in then.
So hoping you're all well wherever you happen to be, and Sayonara for now from Under the Kanagawan Sun!
Toroi
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