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| "This is Halloween. This is Halloween. Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!" |
This was actually what I did for Halloween, and I had an awesome time. A friend and I went to Tokyo Disney Sea's Halloween festival and indulged in all kinds of spooky decorations, fun rides, elaborate shows, and expensive food.
I should probably explain what Disney Sea is first, as I didn't really know until the day before I went. Much like how California's Disneyland is actually two parks (Disneyland and California Adventure), and Florida's Disney World is four parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios), Tokyo's Disneyland is two parks: Disneyland and Disney Sea. From the maps of each I saw, Disneyland looked to be essentially a copy pasta of the Anaheim and Orlando parks, but Disney Sea looked completely different. So we ended up going to Disney Sea.
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| Very well-designed park overall. Each area had a unique atmosphere. |
The whole park has a strong water focus. It's not actually a waterpark, but there are a lot of harbor, waterfront, and ship motifs. Most of the park is centered around a large lake that plays host to a variety of elaborate water shows. There was actually an "American Waterfront" section of the park, where I found my first sandwich since coming to Japan. (Thinking of you guys, HSU sandwich crew!) There were a few attractions from other Disney parks--Tower of Terror, for example. That was actually kind of amusing. The ones back in the States have a Twilight Zone theme, but seeing as Twilight Zone isn't really a thing over here, there's a completely different backstory to the ride involving some sort of Egyptian artefact's curse, I think. It was all in Japanese, so it was kind of hard to parse out what was going on.
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| O_O |
Anyway, for the most part, though, the rides were unique to the park, or at least unknown to me. There was an Indiana Jones ride based around the new movie. Fortunately no part of it incorporated Shia LaBouf. There was a coaster that stood out, since Disney parks don't generally do much with coasters, as well as a Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, that took us through a large volcano at the center of the park.
Japan's food continued to be good here, though because of the exchange rate and the fact that it was a Disney park, there were pretty much two compounded levels of price hiking. I definitely saw a soda for about the equivalent of $7.
The decorations were probably the best part though. I'm a total sucker for Halloween--it's my favorite holiday--so to get to be in the midst of such elaborate Halloween festivities was pretty surreal. The entire park was dressed in orange, black, and purple decorations, Jack-o'-Lanterns lined the walkways, gravestones and ghosts appeared on signs around the park, and the streetlights were decorated in a manner which had each bulb replaced with a full-size pumpkin. So cool. The evening's fireworks show was also set to Halloween music and featured some orange and green Jack-o'-Lantern-shaped fireworks.
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| This globe gave me some perspective on just how far away I am. I had to walk almost all the way around to find home :( |
It was nice to have some down time too, though. There was a big ship permanently docked as a part of the park. We headed up to the deck, hung out by the prow, and just took in the lights. It was really nice...
All in all an excellent way to spend Halloween. There weren't that many costumes though. Halloween is still a relatively new holiday over here, so it's still gaining traction. We saw a few people dressed up, but not many. Trick-or-Treating doesn't happen much over here either. Though toward the end of the night park staff began handing out candy to the guests. I said "trick or treat" before the man handed me mine, so I'm gonna count that.
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| These lights were so cool! |
One more post to come. The Sophia Festival was this past weekend, and I want to convey just how awesome that was. Until next time!
