*Warning – Photos Intensive*
1-7 December 2009
On our second last day in Japan, it was time for some fun in Disneyland! Unlike my previous tour, the tickets were not part of the tour package. But our kind tour guide decided to help us purchase it from a convenience store, for us to exchange it for the tickets itself when we reached Disneyland. Although we had the choice of choosing either DisneySea and Disneyland, we decided to go for the latter because I had experience with it before. (Besides, we can always go to DisneySea together next time) =P

Our hotel was kind enough to provide transport to and from Disneyland. However, it came at a price. It was either at 730am or 10am, when Disneyland opens at 9am. We decided to go with the later one, as I could then sleep in more since I looked more and more like a zombie as the days go by. As nice as it might sound, horrors of horrors, the day that we visit Disneyland is actually a Sunday!! Crazy crowds…
Since I came to Disneyland before, I knew that the Boy had to take Winnie the Pooh ride. Our first stop upon entering the gates was to head directly to that station. But… When we reached, we realised that the Fast Pass was for 8pm onwards, and the standby queue had a waiting time of 210 minutes!! Disappointed, we decided to give it a miss first, and headed off for other rides.

Our first ride was the Haunted Mansion, which the Boy felt unimpressed. What high expectations… =D

Here, we waited for more than 2 hours!! The crowd was just crazy, that even the ever patient Boy got a bit tired of waiting… Though when finally we got onto the ride, it was a really nice one!
When we finally got out of Splash Mountain, there was a parade on suddenly. We thought that we’d skip this one first, and head on to the other rides first, because the crowd tends to dwindle for the rides when parades are on. But luck wasn’t on our side, when we discovered that Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster ride was having maintena
nce…


In the end, we decided to just try waiting for Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. Struggling through the crowd to make it to the ride, somehow we got a bit lucky that we managed to still see the parade carousel past us while standing in the horribly long queue…

It was during this 1+ hours of waiting that the Boy got turned off by the Fast Pass too. He realised that while it was good to get it, but the system of letting in 20 fast pass to 3 standby crowd was overly unbalanced. Thankfully, the ride was just awesome to him, that I’m so glad that he thoroughly enjoyed himself! =)
After these 3 rides, it was time to camp for the parade… And with it being 3pm, we decided to just feed ourselves with some munchies to tide us through lunch.


A star shaped prawn and dumpling bun with mickey chocolate banana pastry.




One might realise that I have more shots on the parade floats than the characters. That’s because we decided that my P&S was better at capturing that, while he’ll zoom in with his DSLR for the character shots.
It was a really nice and entertaining parade, filled with lots of Christmas cheer. And while it was only about 4pm, the sky was starting to turn dark. Hence we quickly made our way to the castle to grab a shot of it first before we lose the blue skies…


Nice nice… =)

Towards the end, we took a few more rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Tours (of which I felt sick), and shows like MicroAdventure.
Soon, it was time for the Night Parade, where thousands of lights dazzle the streets!






Apparently, this parade was a lot longer than the first one we saw. So much so that my arms were aching from holding up the camera for so long. Not to mention that I had no tripod as well that it was such a challenge taking clear pictures with the floats constantly on the move. Nonetheless, it was really cool seeing all the lighted floats. Quite an experience indeed!
At the end of the float, I cannot help but feel starved. During then, we decided to just give in to our hunger pangs and buy some of their expensive food in the theme park. During then, we were hurrying with our food, because it wasn’t long before they would blast off some fireworks in the sky. I thought that I would have loved to capture the fireworks with the castle. But due to the lack of time, we ended up being behind the castle, the wrong place to be to capture both the castle and fireworks together on film.

As such, this was the result of only the fireworks… Bummer… =(
At the end of everything, we decided to just call it a day. As our shuttle bus back to the hotel would only arrive at 1045pm, we had close to 2 hours of shopping! Unfortunately, Disneyland only sells food and souvenirs, as the Boy went crazy over choosing the various types of cookies and crackers, and even influencing me to buy some! Before I met him, I was not one to buy souvenirs or foodies from such theme parks, but because of him, this time, I bought a lot! =P
Anyway, before I end this entry, I shall share with you all a wonderful find.

By the time we reached our hotel, it was about 11pm, and most shops were closed by then. But because we were starving, we decided to try out the convenience store’s takeaway. I chose the udon (left), he chose the prawn noodles (right). And… They were extremely delicious!! Do not be misled that we found them tantalizing just because we were hungry. They do really taste good, and you will really marvel at how they turned from a frozen ball of food to such delicious meals. If you are ever in Japan, do give these takeaways a try! =)
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