We saw some workers walking around with banners, one of which said “My 1st Visit”. Some might claim our visit two days earlier was our first. I prefer to think of our entire visit to Tokyo is our first visit. We asked to have a first visit sticker, and they volunteered to take a picture.
We got priority access tickets to Soarin’ since the wait was never less than 70 minutes. Again, it surpassed every expectation. We flew around the world, probably a couple of times, given the latitude they took with the geography. We saw elephants playing in the dirt in the Kalahari, and smelled the dirt they were tossing up. We smelled sandalwood as we soared over the Taj Mahal. We smelled the sea as we saw an orca breaching. The entire journey was astounding.
We took another Journey to the Centre of the Earth, took the other course in trackless Aquatopia, and we’re surprised that the movie we saw on The Nemo and Friends Searider was different from the one we had seen the other day. We also explored Fortress Explorations. It recognized Henry the Navigator, the fellow commemorated in my favourite sculpture in Lisbon.
We took a mid afternoon break, a first for us, because we wanted to see the light show at 7:40. We were sooooo glad that we did. We saw the Tower of Terror again. In Tokyo Disney Sea, the hotel is owned by Harrison Hightower, a rich American who plunders treasures from everywhere he has travelled. One monkey statue takes revenge and zaps him to oblivion. Riders are threatened with the same fate. Fortunately we just get jolted up and down on the elevator.
The light show was up to normal Disney standards. There were projections on buildings and the volcano. Disney characters sang and danced on barges that circled the lagoon. Colours changed constantly, with each barge reflecting the colour scheme of the highlighted character. Thousands of people surrounded the lagoon; some were in hotel rooms overlooking the lagoon. As we were leaving, we saw people in several rooms (maybe 10) standing at their windows, waving their cell phones.
Our last stop was Toy Story Mania. You ride in cars and shoot electronic paint balls at screens pretending to be arcade games. It’s more fun than it sounds.
Juliette Knits 