Our Japanese adventure *LIVE* Trip Report - updated 8/26 Disney Sea

[pandv_2000]

thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us!!

i'm really enjoying your report and the pictures!!

i adore japan and hope to be able to get back there one day!!

Thank you - I think we will wait until the boys are a lot older (and left home lol) before we return. Not that we aren't enjoying it with them but it's quite restrictive for bedtime with DS2 being so young. Hopefully you will get there again before us and we can enjoy your TR and pics

Lovely pictures! Looks like a great trip.

Are you going to try to go to an obon dance/matsuri while you are there? If so, make sure to hit all the matsuri food booths - Japanese street food is the best!!!

Thanks. We are so excited for Gozan no Okuribi tomorrow. The only problem being we are having kaiseki in the ryokan tomorrow evening so may be completely stuffed and unable t enjoy the street food. Maybe an early lunch?

 

[tinibee]

Dessert - definitely get street food dessert!

My favorite is the waffle bites dipped in chocolate, while my husband prefers the chocolate dipped bananas. And shave ice because I agree with you, it is so HOT! Mmmm, now I'm hungry!

 

[pandv_2000]

Ok so while I am on a roll - well not passed out due to exhaustion I will continue.

Today was still hot but we were more sensible - yay! The first thing we did was pick up a one day bus pass and then we took the bus to Nijo castle. Nijo was actually build by a shogun. We got the guided audio tour so that we didn't rush through it and might learn something. We liked the nightingale floors that squeaked so that the guards would hear anyone coming.

Photo overload again























No pictures were allowed inside the castle.

DH pointed out that we were close to the International Manga museum so as the boys like manga we headed there.





We stopped for lunch en route for more ramen. We've had quite a bit of ramen so far and this was my favourite. The manga museum doesn't really hold that much appeal to foreign visitors tbh and was quite expensive for what it was. It was effectively a big manga library. If you lived nearby, like manga and can read Japanese it would be worth getting an annual pass but for us it wasn't really worth it. There is an English section and DH and DS1 hung out there for a while. I took DS2 to the kids room where all of the manga was Japanese but - he is 4 and can't read English never mind Japanese but there are pictures. We took the boys to get made into manga heroes and then DS1 and DH did a drawing class.



We actually spent quite a bit of time here but a lot was lost in translation. We were closed to Nishiki market again so we went back there to see how it was at the other end of the day. It was a lot busier and I'm pleased we saw it like this.

We ended up looking for somewhere to eat and walked into somewhere that looked good from the Japanese menu pictures outside. We ordered drinks and they gave us an English menu. It turned out they did beef intestine stew. I looked highly unimpressed as DH ordered. It was actually really tasty and I'm glad we tried it. I would actually order it again through choice.

I feel quite sad as tonight is our last night in the Granvia but we don't leave Kyoto yet. Tomorrow we have a night booked in a ryokan. I received an e-mail today aksing if we want our food serving early at 5pm so we can watch the fires on the hillside. The plan is to get up early, takkyubin all but one case to Tokyo Disney and then drop our remaining case at the ryokan before heading out for the day. DS1 has been looking forward to his kaiseki meal tomorrow for months!

 

[pandv_2000]

Dessert - definitely get street food dessert!

My favorite is the waffle bites dipped in chocolate, while my husband prefers the chocolate dipped bananas. And shave ice because I agree with you, it is so HOT! Mmmm, now I'm hungry!

Dessert - ah now that's the way we can snack after so much food! Thanks

 

[pampat]

I am absolutely mesmerised by your holiday, thanks so much for taking the time to post. The experiences you are giving your boys is invaluable and they will remember this for the rest of their lives.

A couple of questions - you've really whetted my appetite for Japan, but please don't bother to reply while you are on holiday. First I'd like to know how you manage with the language and secondly about the food. Is it easy to find something to suit western tastes. How did you find out about the ryokan and markets, temples etc. and was Japan recommended?

I'm really fascinated by it now and have never been bothered before reading your trippie.

Pam

 

[amyren]

Looks like you all are having a great time! I'm enjoying the pics makes me miss our time in Japan!! I wish we'd gone to Nara! Maybe next time Sorry it's been so hot. It was pretty warm in June but not unbearable. You may consider getting an umbrella for the sun at Disney. My daughter and I used them and it really helped with the heat.

 

[pandv_2000]

I am absolutely mesmerised by your holiday, thanks so much for taking the time to post. The experiences you are giving your boys is invaluable and they will remember this for the rest of their lives.

A couple of questions - you've really whetted my appetite for Japan, but please don't bother to reply while you are on holiday. First I'd like to know how you manage with the language and secondly about the food. Is it easy to find something to suit western tastes. How did you find out about the ryokan and markets, temples etc. and was Japan recommended?

I'm really fascinated by it now and have never been bothered before reading your trippie.

Pam

Thank you for your kind words. The language can be an issue. Most of the Japanese people we have come across do speak some English but I think sometimes things do get a little lost in translation. Knowing a handful of Japanese words helps. You can find food for western tastes - they have the usual KFC, McDonalds etc but we are steering away from these as much as possible. Thankfully the boys will eat most things that are put in front of them so are happy to go along with this. We have done a lot of research for this trip on the internet and we've purchased quite a few guidebooks. This is our second trip to Japan but the first trip was a brief stopover in Tokyo en route to Australia. We absolutely loved it and decided that it's much more than a stopover and we really wanted to dedicate a full trip to Japan.

Looks like you all are having a great time! I'm enjoying the pics makes me miss our time in Japan!! I wish we'd gone to Nara! Maybe next time Sorry it's been so hot. It was pretty warm in June but not unbearable. You may consider getting an umbrella for the sun at Disney. My daughter and I used them and it really helped with the heat.

I shouldn't have complained about the heat - you will see from my next post that it can rain quite heavily too! Have you seen that there has been a mudslide in Hiroshima? I'm just thankful we haven't experienced anything like that and pray that casualties are kept to a minimum.

 

[pandv_2000]

On Saturday we decided to take it a bit easier than we have been. We were due to move hotels within Kyoto for our ryokan night so we got up a little later than we have been and got everything packed away. I called down to concierge to arrange to takkyubin 2 of our suitcases to the hotel in Tokyo leaving us with one case plus hand luggage for the overnight journey. It cost us just over 3000 yen in total for the two cases. Someone came to our room to collect them and the cost was added to the room charge at check out. We took a taxi across town to Gion and checked in at the ryokan. Our room wasn't ready so we left our bags and went to look around. We hadn't gone far when it started to rain a little so we went back to get our umbrellas and then headed out again. The ryokan was at the end of the street near Yasaka jinja shrine so we decided to walk through there. As we were looking around the heavens opened so we took shelter to the side. The rain was really heavy and we sheltered for about an hour as it was raining so hard.







When the rain had eased off we went for another walk. It had been so heavy the river had burst its banks.



When we got back to the ryokan our bags were already in the room. The boys got changed for dinner.



And we settled down to our kaiseki meal. I have no idea what we ate for most of the courses but it was delicious. It was very well presented and seemed a shame to eat it!



I know this one is octopus










I had discovered on the night of the 16th August they light bonfires in the shape of kanji on the mountains around Kyoto to mark the end of Obon and send the spirits of their ancestors back to the spirit world. I was quite excited to see this and was worried all day because of the rain that they wouldn't be able to light them. I had also seen the best viewing spots were on the banks of the river but that was still fast flowing and the banks hadn't cleared. We managed to get a decent view of the big daimonji from one of the bridges. We could also partially see another fire from there.



As we walked back we came across the street that Taka had taken us to earlier in the week and it was good to see it in the dark. We headed back to the ryokan where our futons were laid out for us and decided to get a relatively early night. We had ordered breakfast for 7:30 as we had to catch the shinkansen to Tokyo and we were told they would come to put the futons away at 7.

 

[westgrove]

I've been looking forward to another instalment ,

the meal and new hotel look wonderful

 

[pampat]

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions while you are on holiday.

That food looks amazing. I would eat anything, but not sure about the other two in the family, but you are right, stay away from all that fast food!

Keep on enjoying your experiences - and sharing them with us. Can't tell you how much I am enjoying reading about them.

Pam

 

[disneyholic family]

Thank you - I think we will wait until the boys are a lot older (and left home lol) before we return. Not that we aren't enjoying it with them but it's quite restrictive for bedtime with DS2 being so young. Hopefully you will get there again before us and we can enjoy your TR and pics

i grew up spending a lot of time in japan (due to my parents business)..
first time i was there was when i was 7 and then pretty much every year until i was 21 (usually for extended stays)..
since i'm now 59, it was a very long time ago...
last time i was there, i was 29 years old, pregnant with my eldest daughter.
My husband and i were in the far east for 3 months on business (yes, 3 months in the far east while pregnant - don't ask) -
alas we had no business involving japan, but i decided we should take some R&R there before leaving the far east (we were flying around the world, as we also had to be in the US before returning home).
Anyway, DH had never been in japan, so i insisted we take a week to visit my second favorite country in the world (where i live being my most favorite)..

this was 30 years ago, exactly... a wonderful week...

by the way, in all those visits of mine as a child, i almost never saw any non-japanese at all in japan, ever. Maybe one businessman every now and then in a hotel, but even that was rare.
very different from how it is today...

regarding ryokans....DD spent a month in japan a few years ago with a girlfriend.....they stayed almost exclusively in ryokans...but regular run of the mill ryokans where japanese stay...
they're not like the one you stayed at (which seems to be a super deluxe ryokan)...
DD loved japan and dreams of going back...i was so happy she loved it...i'd been brainwashing her for years, but was worried that she would be disappointed after all my tales of wonder!! but she did love it...

as for taking a 2 year old!! wow!!! you are brave!!!!!!

.

 

[pandv_2000]

I've been looking forward to another instalment ,

the meal and new hotel look wonderful

Thank you - I was hoping to update before yesterday but the laptop was in transit between hotels.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions while you are on holiday.

That food looks amazing. I would eat anything, but not sure about the other two in the family, but you are right, stay away from all that fast food!

Keep on enjoying your experiences - and sharing them with us. Can't tell you how much I am enjoying reading about them.

Pam

Thank you - we've had to purchase the odd cheeseburger for our youngest but we are trying to avoid the fast food!

i grew up spending a lot of time in japan (due to my parents business)..
first time i was there was when i was 7 and then pretty much every year until i was 21 (usually for extended stays)..
since i'm now 59, it was a very long time ago...
last time i was there, i was 29 years old, pregnant with my eldest daughter.
My husband and i were in the far east for 3 months on business (yes, 3 months in the far east while pregnant - don't ask) -
alas we had no business involving japan, but i decided we should take some R&R there before leaving the far east (we were flying around the world, as we also had to be in the US before returning home).
Anyway, DH had never been in japan, so i insisted we take a week to visit my second favorite country in the world (where i live being my most favorite)..

this was 30 years ago, exactly... a wonderful week...

by the way, in all those visits of mine as a child, i almost never saw any non-japanese at all in japan, ever. Maybe one businessman every now and then in a hotel, but even that was rare.
very different from how it is today...

regarding ryokans....DD spent a month in japan a few years ago with a girlfriend.....they stayed almost exclusively in ryokans...but regular run of the mill ryokans where japanese stay...
they're not like the one you stayed at (which seems to be a super deluxe ryokan)...
DD loved japan and dreams of going back...i was so happy she loved it...i'd been brainwashing her for years, but was worried that she would be disappointed after all my tales of wonder!! but she did love it...

as for taking a 2 year old!! wow!!! you are brave!!!!!!

.

Wow - we love Japan and would love to be able to spend more time here. Our youngest is 4 now but he was 2 when we visited last time. We have left the pushchair (stroller) at home and he's doing quite well with all of the walking but I am trying to stick to bedtimes as much as possible - it does kind of go out of the window though.

You don't see too many English people here. We have mainly stayed in "business" hotels so you do see a lot of American businessmen mainly. There seem to be more Italians from Europe than any other nationality. DS2 is blonde haired and blue eyed so tends to get a lot of attention.

 

[pandv_2000]

Lots of pics today so I may have to do a few posts!

We woke up at 6:50 on Sunday morning - just in time for our futons to be put away. We got dressed in the small seating area and washed etc whilst the breakfast table was set up. I didn't care for the Japanese breakfast as much as the kaiseki the night before. It was quite similar but I just couldn't face fish and miso soup at that time of the day really!



Rice porridge


Pickles


Fish


Savoury egg custard




This was a dessert


Omlette and that little bowl had tiny little fish in it. I'm not sure what they were but they were delicious. Sorry -it's a little blurry.


Our hostess


We said goodbye and took a taxi back to Kyoto station. I had managed to find a company in the UK called Japan Travel who booked our shinkansen tickets for us as soon as they became available. They charged us £20 in total to do it and it was worth it as we were travelling at the end of the Obon holidays so the trains were busy. The tickets were waiting for us when we checked in at the Granvia on the first day. We booked the fastest Nozomi train which takes about 2hrs and 20 mins to get to Tokyo station.

Our shinkansen


A view from the train - unfortunately it was too cloudy to see Mount Fuji.





We switched trains at Tokyo station - I'm pleased we had been here before or it would have been quite daunting navigating Tokyo station for our first Tokyo train experience. The line to Maihama seems like it's in the depths of the earth as you just seem to take escalator after escalator down.

Maihama station


We were staying at the Hilton Tokyo Bay. As it's an official resort hotel you can drop your bags at the station. When we went to the desk to do that they confirmed they had received our cases from Kyoto and told us if we wouldn't be going to our room until after 5 they could check us in there. They took our case and hand luggage and gave us our room keys - it was great at the end of an exhausting day to head back to the room and find our cases already there - no standing in line to get room keys.

Cont in next post.....

 

[pandv_2000]

We had bought tickets our Disney tickets in advance. Today we were going to Disney Sea as although we only had a half day we had visited the park before. We bought a 4 day monorail pass and went to catch the monorail to Disney Sea which is the third stop on the loop from Maihama station.





We caught a glimpse of the castle on the way past Tokyo Disneyland



And we headed into Disney Sea



DS2 saw Mickey as we were coming past the globe and the line said about 40 minutes. A brass band came out and were playing Disney songs so we decided to get in line. About 5 minutes before it was our turn Mickey went back stage - unfortunately for our little boy Minnie came back out! He wasn't too impressed but managed a smile anyway.



We knew the likelihood of getting fastpasses for most rides was pretty slim so we decided to soak up the atmosphere a bit. We entered the lottery for big band beat and we managed to get tickets. We grabbed some lunch at the New York Deli and went to catch the show. It was nice to get some air conditioning but there were two Japanese guys asleep behind us and they were snoring quite loudly!

We picked up some fast passes for 20,000 leagues under the sea so we went to ride that. I hated it. I'm quite claustrophobic and as soon as the door shut I wanted to get off. I spent the next 5 minutes trying to breathe and not scare the kids so I missed anything worth seeing. The rest of the family really enjoyed it and they did a good job of making you feel you were under water (which just added to my tension lol). We spent quite a bit of time in Triton's kingdom on the small rides for DS2 and he enjoyed playing in Ariel's play area. He spent most of the days we were at Disney asking if he could go "in the area". DS2 was stalked around Triton's kingdom for about 10 minutes by two teenage girls. They were watching him eat an ice cream outside and then they followed us in and hung around while the boys went to the toilet before plucking up the courage to ask if they could take a picture. DS was quite obliging for once - usually he turns away but he put on his best smile for them! It was getting quite late by now and we hadn't eaten and we weren't able to get any PS in the park as we didn't enter until about 1:30pm so we went to Ikspiari for some food. We just ate in Ikspiari kitchen (food court in the basement) and went back to our room.

Some park pictures.



20,000 leagues under the sea










Disneyland hotel from the monorail

 

[pandv_2000]

Monday was


We are slowly getting adjusted to Japanese time and we can't burn the candle at both ends so we didn't get up too early this morning. This was a fatal mistake as we didn't hit the park until 9:30 and I thought we wouldn't get to ride anything!









Our first stop was Monsters Inc to get a fast pass. Our fastpass time was 8:10-9:10 and the lines were already building so we had a couple of hours before we could get another fast pass. We went into Toontown and got an ice cream for breakfast - well we are on holiday so that's ok! DS2 discovered Donald's boat and played happily there with his big brother for a while.







We walked through fantasy land and we were going to ride IASW but the queue management wasn't good. They were roping it off as we joined the queue but they left it double the width of a normal line and a lot of people were cutting. It wasn't working so we moved on. Splash was all out of fastpasses for the day so we went to BTMR but while I was in the fastpass queue they ran out - it was only 11:30 in the morning. We wandered back to Tomorrowland and managed to get a FP for Star tours for 12:30 so we grabbed lunch in the pizza place opposite. This is the first time DS2 has been tall enough for a 40" ride (or 102cm in Japan) and he really enjoyed it. We managed to get a fast pass for space mountain later in the evening and we went to browse the shops for a while. We went through to adventure land and walked through the swiss family tree house which we've never done in the US but it had some pretty good views over the park.



We went back to fantasyland and went to watch Mickey's philharmagic. I have always loved this show and it was a bit surreal watching the same show as in Florida but with the songs in Japanese.



Randon castle pics





Cont in next post....

 

[pandv_2000]

We stumbled across the mid-afternoon parade and I'm so pleased we did.









We went back through fantasy land and submitted ourselves to the inevitable torture that is IASW.





We then went back to toon town so DS2 could play some more



We tried some interesting flavoured popcorn



It was quite tasty and had a little kick to it.









We ended up with 3 overlapping fastpasses at the end of the day and rode Space Mountain - which is seated 2 in a row and the height limit is 102cm so DS2 could ride. It was quite a long ride compared to Florida and we all enjoyed it. We did Star Tours again and then we rode Monsters Inc which was fun but DH was being competitive because he thought he'd get scored at the end and didn't lol.

Although we had two park hopping allowed days left we decided it would be best to aim for one park only per day due to the fast passes running out so early and everything seemed to come together better for us in the afternoon.

 

[mesaboy2]

Thanks for your report and pictures. I was there about 10 days ago and already miss it!

 

[disneyholic family]

Wow - we love Japan and would love to be able to spend more time here. Our youngest is 4 now but he was 2 when we visited last time. We have left the pushchair (stroller) at home and he's doing quite well with all of the walking but I am trying to stick to bedtimes as much as possible - it does kind of go out of the window though.

You don't see too many English people here. We have mainly stayed in "business" hotels so you do see a lot of American businessmen mainly. There seem to be more Italians from Europe than any other nationality. DS2 is blonde haired and blue eyed so tends to get a lot of attention.

about the light coloring - interestingly, i got more attention than my very light sister..
my father was a very light blond with very blue eyes, and my sister was similarly colored...and was always considered stunningly beautiful...
i, on the other hand, have very dark curly hair (the only one in my family without straight hair) and black eyes...

in the US (where i'm originally from), my sister was considered the gorgeous one...everyone always would stop and look at her....and wouldn't give me the time of day....
oddly, in japan, it became apparent that they considered me the more attractive of the two of us...so perhaps i liked japan because of that????
could be....but it was very interesting to me....and reassuring or something like that...it certainly helped with my teenage self confidence!!...

i'm jealous that you were at disneysea!!! it didn't exist when we were there..
we were at tokyo disneyland back in 1984...about a year after it first opened (in 1983)....it was lovely then, but i know it's been expanded..and of course, now there's the amazing disneysea...
DD loved disneysea!!! she also stayed at the hilton there...she said the service at the hilton was outstanding!! they even made reservations for them at chef mickey's!

 

[pandv_2000]

Thanks for your report and pictures. I was there about 10 days ago and already miss it!

Thank you. Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan and I know we will miss it too. I'm trying to persuade DH we should learn Japanese properly and move here. It's a long term goal lol.

about the light coloring - interestingly, i got more attention than my very light sister..
my father was a very light blond with very blue eyes, and my sister was similarly colored...and was always considered stunningly beautiful...
i, on the other hand, have very dark curly hair (the only one in my family without straight hair) and black eyes...

in the US (where i'm originally from), my sister was considered the gorgeous one...everyone always would stop and look at her....and wouldn't give me the time of day....
oddly, in japan, it became apparent that they considered me the more attractive of the two of us...so perhaps i liked japan because of that????
could be....but it was very interesting to me....and reassuring or something like that...it certainly helped with my teenage self confidence!!...

i'm jealous that you were at disneysea!!! it didn't exist when we were there..
we were at tokyo disneyland back in 1984...about a year after it first opened (in 1983)....it was lovely then, but i know it's been expanded..and of course, now there's the amazing disneysea...
DD loved disneysea!!! she also stayed at the hilton there...she said the service at the hilton was outstanding!! they even made reservations for them at chef mickey's!

I always thought it was the light colouring but it may just be because he's 4 and still at a naturally cute age. I don't know what it was about the Hilton for us - it was just a bit meh. Every other hotel we have stayed in has been outstanding in terms of service but the Hilton Tokyo Bay just didn't live up to expectations. It wasn't bad and in the UK we'd have been happy with the service but it wasn't up to scratch with Japanese standards we felt.

 

[pandv_2000]

I'm a week behind and I'm going to start forgetting what we did soon! Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan but it's also my birthday and DH took me to Tiffany's in Ginza to buy my present. I'm a lucky girl :clap:. More of that later when I get to that part of the trip and back to Disney...

Tuesday we went back to Disney Sea. I went to line up for TSMM fast passes and DH went to get a reservation at Ristorante di Canaletto. I was still in the queue when he came back to tell me we had 8:10pm (damn we will miss Fantasmic!) and he took tohe boys back to "the area" or Triton's kingdom as it's better known whilst I waited some more. When I could finally see the front of the line they ran out of Fast passes. I didn't want to go back empty handed so I knew I had to get something. I went past Tower of Terror as DS1 is scared of it and ended up getting FP for 20,000 leagues under the sea even though I hated it. I went to sit with DH whilst the boys played and then he ran to get FP for journey to the centre of the earth. We managed to drag the boys away from the area for the 20,000 leagues FP and I took the chicken exit. They were putting another guy in with us and I just knew I couldn't cope in a small space with a stranger.

We had lunch at Sebastion's calypso kitchen in the area and then I ran to get FP for storm rider. The boys played in the area some more and I ran to get FP for Raging Spirits. We went to ride Storm rider which was similar to Star Tours but in a bigger box and then went to the Arabian Coast where we rode on the upper floor of the two storey carousel and then rode Sinbad's journey.



We got a couple of drinks and then DH and DS1 went to ride journey to the centre of the earth while we went back on Sinbad. The big mistake we made here was that we had 4 FP so DH and DS1 rode and I thought we would have plenty of time for me and DS1 to go back and use the other two FP. Unfortunately the FP line was longer than we thought so I didn't get to ride as our FP time had expired. We didn't make the same mistake with Raging Spirits which was a full loop coaster. We wandered around for a bit just taking in the atmosphere ad taking pics.































I like this one as I have a pic of the boys in the same spot from 2012




We had dinner at Ristorante di Canaletto. We ad the set menu which was very good. When we got back to the hotel DH asked about transferring our cases to Tokyo. We had read somewhere that it was v easy to transfer cases between the Hilton Tokyo Bay and the Hilton Shinjuku which is one of the reasons we booked those two hotels. He was advised that the cases wouldn't transfer the same day and it would be overnight. We needed at least one case the same day so we decided not to go to Disney tomorrow as we had too much stuff to carry with us. It worked out for the best as we really needed a bit of a rest anyway.