What would you do with your final 6.5 hours in Tokyo, which is half way around the world at 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time?
Even with my stealth packing the night prior, the 6:45am wake up call was still brutal. But I was on a mission to navigate the wildly tricky Japanese public metro system (successfully) en route to squeeze in a visit to the very unique Tokyo DisneySea.
I arrived 30 mins prior to opening to a literal “sea” of eager guests standing politely in line. Unlike westerners, they all behave in an orderly fashion & we ease through the gates into a whole new world. Meanwhile, I had stashed my big book-bag in a strategically located storage locker near the bus hub for my eventual airport transfer (and to of course maximize my time in the park).
But it was time to play & I had the time of my life just putzing around all the different lands. I couldn’t find a park map anywhere & the app didn’t work, but I throughly enjoyed the change of pace just leisurely going with the flow. Around every turn was a new surprise & I hopped on any ride that had less than a 30 min wait time, which actually turned into a really healthy plan:
- Monorail
- Electric Railway
- Nemo & Friends Searider
- Walk thru Fantasy Springs – WOW!!
- Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage
- Magic Lamp Theatre
- Caravan Carousel
- 20k Leagues Under the Sea
- Transit Steamer Line
- Character meet & greets
- Shopping
I also stopped at numerous food carts to test out the culture specific snacks & start getting rid of all my piled up yen change – shrimp & chicken sushi roll, crème brûlée churro, pizza turnover and tipo torta sweet potato.
And I should also add that I had to search for all the popcorn stands trying to find the coolest of the viral souvenir buckets to bring back home to my mom. But I also had to navigate all the crazy popcorn flavors offered & only one was at each location (garlic shrimp, black pepper, roast beef, curry and more that I ran out of time for). I ended up reenacting a bad game of memory & finally decided on caramel (since I had to eat it en route to the airport), while also getting caught in the light rain that camped out overhead for my last hour.
What a glorious last day of vacation!! After stealth mode to change into my comfy travel outfit (definitely needed for my 17 hour commute), I had a mere 5 minutes to spare before the bus came to swoop me away & back to reality.
SPOILER – which bucket did I find??? Well, I snagged one of the Peter Pan clock tower buckets that illuminates & ended up spilling it twice along my journey: once in the first 15 mins on the bus (which was very embarrassing because if you know anything about the Japanese culture, you don’t eat in public areas & you always take your own trash to dispose of privately) & the second was about 1 hour from home on the plane. It’s always a good story!
FearlessAdventures 