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Tokyo Disney Sea Food (Spring 2017)

This is a breakdown of all the food we tasted while In Tokyo DisneySea during the Spring of 2017, including Easter event dishes!

Apple Pastry, Egg & Bacon Focaccia, Chocolate Croissant - Mamma Biscotti's Bakery

The egg pastry was was slightly warm, the egg was also runny in the middle, which made it pretty tasty, the sauce on top seemed to be a hollandaise of some sort.

The other two were pretty standard, they would have been better warmed up or with a warm drink, but the apple danish and chocolate croissant tasted fine and did their job

Sea Salt Ice Cream - Ice Cream Cart (All Over Park)

The outside is a wafer shell of sorts, inside is sea salt ice cream with has a lovely flavor, the sea salt really compliments the vanilla ice cream. And surprise, there is some raspberry paste in the middle as well. Good treat for a warm day or afternoon snack. One of the more unique sweet treats available at the ice cream carts.

Tiramisu Ice Cream Sandwich - Ice Cream Cart (All Over Park)

Cute Mickey stamped on the outside, standard ice cream sandwich with a tiramisu flavor. The flavoring is pretty on part with tiramisu, it that is something you enjoy and want a sweet treat, this is for you!

Maple Cream Ball & Soft Cream - Sultan's Oasis

They taste like pancakes, in ball form! Pretty yummy sweet treat, sweeter than some of the other options in the park and paired with a very creamy soft serve. While a lot of the deserts in the park are more fruity, tart, or savory, this treat is a bit more sweet. Pairs well with the Chandu tail.

Peach Mousse - Mamma Biscotti's Bakery

Many of the mousse options in the parks are fruit flavored, good luck finding chocolate if that’s what you like. This was very cute in it’s souvenir cup, but there are many varieties like it throughout the park.

Little Green Men - Mamma Biscotti's Bakery

The little green men seem to be one of the most popular snack purchases. They are filled with custard, chocolate, and strawberry. The filling all seem to have a pudding like texture and the men themselves are a mochi like texture.

They are cuter than they taste. The custard was good, the chocolate and strawberry left more to be desired.

Ubiwa Bun - Seaside Snacks

One of the best Disney Sea snacks. A shrimp bun! Makes a great breakfast item, or afternoon snack. The bun itself is in adorable packaging and looks like a life preserver, it is incredibly like and airy. The inside has a shrimp mixture which is no too overpowering but very savory and tasty!

Chandu Spring Tail - Sultan's Oasis

Too good, we ate before pictures! This is the Spring version of Chandu’s Tail. The inside consists of a chicken and cheese curry mixture, with just a bit of a kick to it, but tastes really good and is a filling snack. The outside has a similar consistency to the Ubiwa Bun, a light airy bread.

Pork Rice Roll - Liberty Landing

Basically a roll of rice rapped in bacon and then fried. It is a bit greasy, but is also a unique and tasty snack. The bacon wasn’t as cooked on some areas as It could have been. A good snack if you are looking for something a bit different in the American Waterfront area, but you aren't missing much if you pass on this.

Caramel Popcorn

Much more sweet than the milk chocolate popcorn. Still tasty, and had a little bit more of a salty kick as it’s caramel. If you are looking for a snack to share and want something salty and sweet, grab some caramel popcorn! However, you may be more interested in the other flavors.

Miguel's El Dorado Cantina

Two meals and drinks - breakdown below.

Combination Plate - Miguel's El Dorado Cantina

Donald shaped rice with a tortilla sombrero, veggies are in a bell pepper cup and the meat and shrimp covered in salsa. Surpsingly good for mexican inspired food in Japan. A large well rounded meal.

Tres Fruit Cocktail - Miguel's El Dorado Cantina

Three fruit cocktails. Lime, mango, and berry (strawberry, cherry, blueberry). The lime one was the best tasting of the three, it was similar to a margarita. Great little sampler to pair with any of the plates available.

Spicy Meat Tacos - Miguel's El Dorado Cantina

Don’t fool yourself, they are not spicy, but they are tasty! The tortilla’s were soft and not stale as you will sometimes find in more humid locations. Pretty standard soft tacos, with some hard shells tossed into the mix, which actually added to the flavor/consistency nicely. If you are missing Mexican food while on your trip to Japan, the options in Miguel’s are a great lunch choice!

Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

Breakdown below.

Easter Special Sparkling Lemon Drink - Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

Another drink with a sprite like taste, including raspberry jelly in the bottom and pop-rock (without the fizz) like candies added. The jelly in these drinks was very popular around the park, it was a unique consistency. Good taste, but it little over powering if you drank up too much jelly at once. Give it a shot just for the jelly added at the bottom, it’s different.

Scallop Chowder - Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

Very standard chowder, a nice warm snack with a cute Micky bread cracker. Nothing outstanding, but a good snack if you are hungry and not looking for Pizza while in the Mermaid lagoon. It is a small cup, so don’t expect to be full for long.

Sausage Pizza - Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

The bread on the pizza was very good! Light, tasty, and not over cooked. The sausage was a bit greasy, but overall this pizza is a good snack if you aren’t looking for something as large as a full set meal that many of the restaurants offer.

Strawberry Cream Roll Cake - Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

Wafer like sea shell decoration, similar to the sea salt ice cream. The cake was very moist and tasty, the pairing of the strawberry cream was a good touch in lieu of a vanilla cream. I would definitely recommend this dessert if eating at this restaurant.

Blood Orange & Passion Fruit Mousse -Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen

We ordered the mango version and ended up with blood orange. It was very tart. If you don’t like tart do not order this. There were mini boba and a jelly like mixture on the top. I would personally not order this again (though I would try the mango version), but it was nice to give it a try.

Potato Soup - Magellan's

Magellan’s has course meals which come with a soup, main dish, and dessert.

The soup of the day was a creamy potato. Warm and tasty! There were however no large potatoes in the soup itself, it was completely puréed, but still very good! I would recommend this soup.

White Fish - Magellan's

I’m not actually sure what type of fish this was, I’m leaning toward a Halibut? No one was able to tell us, just that the fish of the day was a white fish.

The main dish portion was small, but the fish it self was well cooked and tasty, I would definitely order again. There was bread on the side so don’t fret about not getting full from a small main dish.

Creme Brulee - Magellan's

A very standard creme brulee, nothing speculator or ground breaking in terms of the recipe, but it was well executed, and a very large portion for one person. If you like creme brulee I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Link to Tokyo Disneyland Spring 2017 Food

https://happysandwichparty.tumblr.com/post/160218011602/tokyo-disneyland-food-spring-2017

#food #foodpics #travel #japan #tokyo #tokyodisneyland #tokyodisneysea #toktodisneyresort #disneyland #disneysea #disney #travelfood #cutefood #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Tokyo Disneyland Food (Spring 2017)

This is a breakdown of all the food we tasted while In Tokyo Disneyland during the Spring of 2017, including Easter event dishes!

Double Chocolate Chip & Banana Walnut Muffins - Sweetheart Cafe

They are muffins, cute muffins, but none the less muffins! They tasted good, and were a nice morning snack. Nothing to write home about.

Mike Wazowski Melon Pan & Mickey Sausage Pastry - Sweetheart Cafe

The Mike Wazowski melon bread was significantly more melon tasting than many of the other melon pan we found in Toyko - however, it was still a subtle flavor, the bread was light and airy and tasted very good! A nice breakfast snack.

The sausage pastry was surprisingly good. It was however room temperature, not hot. On top was a drizzle of Japanese mayo, this was a good breakfast item if you were looking for something quick and easy, but a little more hearty. 

Tapioca Mango Drink - Squeezer's Tropical Juice Bar

Hands down my favorite drink from Tokyo Disney - We picked one up both days in the park. It is in a small cup so it will leave you wanting more. Very smooth texture, great for a morning drink. The tapioca balls are small on not overpowering. This is a must try in my opinion!

Sparkling Tapioca Drink (Lemon) - Captain Hook's Galley

More of a refreshing, soda like, afternoon or lunch drink. Tastes very similar to sprite. There are mini tapioca balls in the bottom, I believe the same ones as the mango drink. Also has mini crunchy pieces with a consistence similar to pop rocks (without the fizzing). Tasty if you are thirsty.

Cheesy Potatoes - Captain Hook's Galley

They are tatter tots. They are a bit ambiguous on the menu as to what they are, but they are basically tater tots with a hint of cheese. Easily an item worth passing over, nothing spectacular, pretty bland.

Basil Clam Chowder with Bread Cone (Easter Seasonal) - The Gazebo

The basil was quite prominent in the chowder, there was also a small hard boiled egg in the chowder. All in all it has a nice flavor and was a good small snack. The cone was a little large and thick for the amount of chowder included, but both tasted good. 

This location also has a chili bread cone they serve year round - which we did not taste.

Milk Chocolate Popcorn - New Orleans

Tokyo Disneyland has quite a variety of popcorn flavors, as we do not often eat popcorn, we tried very few.

The milk chocolate was a nice mix of sweet chocolate with regular popcorn. There was no butter or salt on the popcorn that we could tell. That would be the one thing I would personally add to have that perfect salty sweet mixture. However, for chocolate popcorn, it was pretty good. Ideal choice for a quick snack for sharing while wandering around

Scrump Dumplings - Space Place

(The Space Place closes in October 2017)

The hair is not edible! These are filled with fruit flavors, more savory than the Little Green Men. Mango, Banana, Red Bean. The banana has a fake banana flavor similar to Runts. I believe these are good to share with someone as they can be a little much for one person to eat all three, especially if you don’t enjoy one of the flavors. 

in my opinion, these are better than the Little Green Men, but overall are cuter than they are tasty.

Chicken and Rice au Gratin - Grandma Sara's Kitchen

This can be ordered as a set with a salad and a drink. However it is plenty filling on its own. It’s a cheese, rice, chicken, and veggie mixture. The veggies are carrots and broccoli, the chicken is full, good quality pieces of rotisserie chicken. A very hefty, tasty meal! Can be a little bit greasy but nothing over the top.

Easter Special Set - Grandma Sara's Kitchen

Included a main dish, soup, dessert, and drink. The soup is a potato. Breakdown of the main dish and dessert below!

Chicken in Tomato Sauce, Eggs, Ketchup Rice - Grandma Sara's Kitchen .

The rice really is rice mixed with ketchup, it’s not bad just different. Goes well with the scrambled eggs provided along side. They are a little more runny than what you would usually find the United States. More similar to a European style scrambled egg. This is a large filling meal, the chicken portion is very large. Could definitely be shared by two people who are not large eaters.

Grilled Donut - Grandma Sara's Kitchen

A very dense but tasty donut dessert. Comes with a blueberry sauce and a cream drizzle. Pairs nicely with the set meal, but doesn’t stand out enough to order on it’s own if it was available.

Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

This is not a set meal, just three of the options available. The soup is minestrone, and is on par with similar soups, nothing to write home about.

 Seafood Fry - Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

Fried seafood with tartar sauce. Fried shrimp, white fish fried, scallop cream cream croquette. The theming of the restaurant is what draws people in, this dish was particularly underwhelming and not very warm. I would recommend picking another dish in this restaurant.

Strawberry Mousse Heart - Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

First - it’s impossible to find chocolate mousse in Tokyo Disney, it’s all fruit flavors. that being said, this was actually pretty tasty! It came with a blueberry and strawberry sauce and whatever the top layer of the mousse was, it was very good tasting. If you enjoy fruit flavored desserts I would recommend this if you are eating at this restaurant.

Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

This is not a set meal, just three of the options available. The soup is cream of corn, and is the better of the two soup options, it’s actually pretty tasty.

Grilled Swordfish & Tomato Caper Sauce - Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

The better of the two dishes we tasted. The fish was cooked decently well, especially for a walk up counter service restaurant. The tomato caper sauce was tasty.

The issue with this dish, like the first, it was a bit cold. Second, also relates to the fried fish plate, the potatoes with the dish were flavorless. They had red and yellow peppers mixed in with them, but still had zero flavor. They needed to be mixed with the tomato sauce.

However if you are eating at this restaurant, and want something more than a standard chicken or beef patty dish, id say pick this one.

Cassis Cream Cake (With Souvenir Plate) - Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall

Cassis is black currant berries, for those who may not be aware (like me).

A simple layered cake with a fruity (cassis) filling between the layers. The cake was moist and topped with a vanilla bean frosting. The lady bugs are edible chocolate. A typical cake dessert, however I would recommend if looking for a dessert to taste, it was well made and very fresh tasting. The fruity filling definitely added to the flavor.

Link to Tokyo DisneySea Spring 2017 Food

https://happysandwichparty.tumblr.com/post/160257554697/tokyo-disney-sea-food-spring-2017

#food #foodpics #travel #Japan #tokyo #tokyodisneyland #cutefood #travelfood #tokyodisney #Disneyland #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 14 (Akihabara)

Our last full day in Japan. We decided to go back and finish up Akihabara and look for some last minute gifts for friends.

This was our laziest day yet. Probably because we had done everything we wanted on this trip and were just hitting up Akihabara a second time.

I did get up at around 5:30AM, but we didn’t leave the Air BnB until around 10:00AM. Spent a lot of time being lazy. I also did some packing and prepping for us to leave.

I did try a new drink though! And, it wasn’t very good unfortunately. I picked up a milk tea with tapioca at the Family Mart, the tea was fine, the tapioca not so much. Ew.

Once we were on our way, we too our last trip on our usual route. Ginza to Ueno, JR Yamanote to Akihabara.

We did a lot of walking back and forth intitally. We started at the Yodobashi, as I wanted to walk through it again. It was actually much busier than the first time.  I was considering buying some stuff in the paper and office supplies area as they had some unique things, but in the end refrained. I’m already going to have a super full suitcase.

We then wandered over to the main street in Akihabara and started from the opposite end from last time since we still had about a 1/3 of the street to visit. However at around 12:00PM we were meeting up with a friend who has been living in Japan.

We went with her to get some lunch at a hole in the wall place. We were going here for shabu shabu, but it turns out they were only doing yakiniku on this particular day. That was fine for us, we hadn’t had that yet!

It was very good! They had some soups, sides/salads, plenty of meats to choose from, and ice cream! My favorite was the kimchi pork. yum! The entire meal was only about $10 a person. Super cheap!

After lunch we made out way back to the stores we handn’t been to. Our friend came with us for the rest of the day. We spent a lot of time walking up and down the many floors of the different building. There were so many cutre figurings that I would have liked to bring home. But I really just don’t have the space for them.

In search for a particular gift for a friend, we ended up on some 18+ floors, which was incredibly awkward in my opinion. It was just me, a bunch of men, and some characters with very unnatural looking boobs. 

We ended up calling it quits in Akihabara around 3:00PM. At this point we made our way back to Ueno, friend still in tow. In Ueno our plan was to hit up Ameyokocho again. I needed to pick up kit-kats for the people I knew, as up unti this point Mr. Husband was the only one who picked up any.

Upon finishing our mission in Ueno, we parted ways with our friend at the station and made our way back to Asakusa.

We walked up the shopping street neat the Senso-ji Temple, I needed to pick up a couple post cards for my cousin. We found what we were looking for and then decided to go crazy with the drink vending machines.

We can’t exchange small coins back to USD, so we were using the to get drinks.

Apple juice, banana milk, and of course, milk tea! 

This was my first time trying banana milk. It tasted like banana Runts. And as much as I love banana Runts, I was not a fan of the banana milk. The husband liked it though!

Around this time I started to not feel like (seems like a trend, huh?). So I spend the rest of the evening laying down. The husband when out and picked up food for himself. I ended up not eating any dinner, just drinking some Sprite. Sad ending to the day. 

Despite all of this, I really enjoyed our last day, it was just very relaxing and also fun to meet up with a friend!

#Japan #Tokyo #Akihabara #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 12 (Tokyo Disney Sea )

It was our second day in Tokyo Disney Sea. We opted to spend to days in each of the parks. However it was incredibly windy so it made it difficult to do a whole lot during the day - the park was quieter though!

We started to day off later than our first day at Sea, the crowds were supposed to be lighter and we already did a lot so weren’t worried about rushing in to get fast passes.

We left for our 40 minute train ride at about 7:20AM, with the park opening at 8:30AM. We ended up getting in line about 10 minutes before the gates opened. You could tell right away there were less people than the first day. 

Upon entering we both went to the locker today, and right after stopped for some breakfast pastries. Afterward we made our way to Journey to the Center of the Earth for fast passes. It was really quiet so we rode it while we were there as well.

We basically did exactly what we did the first day with less rushing around. Rode on Indiana Jones a few times, and Journey a few more.

We of course were snacking the entire day!

For lunch we made reservations at one of the sit down restaurants - Magellan’s.

The restaurant was really lovely, had a great ambiance.

After lunch the wind had gotten even worse, and on top of the wind my foot problems had also gotten worse. I just decided to power through and I will suffer in a few days when we get home.

We decided to walk through the shops again to get out of the wind. We did end up picking up a few things for ourselves and for the Twitch stream giveaway.

There are still a few more items I want to pick up before we leave, hopefully I can find them all in the Disneyland park!

We spent a lot of time exploring again, we did end up going to see a show, Out of Shadowland. We didn’t know what to expect going in, but it was a cute show! All the dialogue and singing was obviously in Japanese, but the store is still very easy to follow with visual queues. 

After some more exploring and hanging out in the Ariel location (it’s out of the wind!) we decided we were going to call it a day. On the way out we made our way to one of the popcorn stands to pick up a popcorn bucket that one of my coworkers asked for.

He’s pretty cute. Not the popcorn bucket i’d necessarily pick, but still unique. He also hold’s a surprising amount of popcorn. This cart in particular had caramel popcorn. So I munched on it on our way out of the park!

The ride back was pretty uneventful. There was some high alert on the JR line, but I have no idea what for.

Also, it was significantly less windy in Asakusa. Go figure.

All of the walking in the wind really tired me out, after to internet browsing I ended up going to bed at 8:00PM.

#Travel #Tokyo #Japan #TokyoDisneySea #Disney #happysandwichpartyJapan

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#tokyo #japan #tokyodisneyland #東京ディズニーランド #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 10 (Tokyo Disney Sea & My Birthday!)

April 24th is my birthday! I turned 25. Before taking this trip I had determined that I wanted to be in one of the Tokyo Disney parks on my birthday, so we made it happen! Because the weather was good and the park itself is unique to the Disney park family, we decided on Tokyo Disney Sea as our first stop!

To preface this blog, there will likely be a set of Disney entries. The daily entries, food blogs, and a general Tokyo Disney blog. When the others are complete I will link them within the corresponding posts. That being said, these daily post may not be as in-depth because of a lot of the detail will be in the expanded posts! I love Disney way too much and Tumblr can only handle so much in a single text and photo post!

I got up decently early, about 4:00AM, I was too excited and we finally had to get going early for once. No 9:00AM start. The Disney Sea park opened at 8:30AM and we had to get there and buy our tickets as well.

The train ride was a little more complicated today. We took the Asakusa line to Ningyocho, switched to the Hibiya line to get off at Hatchobori, then again switched to the JR Keiyo Line and arrived at Maihama. Maihama is the Disney stop! 

Once you reach Maihama you can either go to Ikspiari (shopping area), walk to the Disneyland main gate, or get on the Tokyo Disney Resort Line (costs about $2) and take that to Tokyo Disney Sea.

We obviously took the resort line since we were heading over to Disney Sea. We opted for Disney Sea our first day because it was nice out and the park is unique to Tokyo.

There is also an Easter event going on right now at the resort!

I don’t want to say the park was packed because in reality it wasn’t too bad. The popular rides had a long wait but nothing outlandish. 100 minutes was the highest I saw all day and it was for Toy Story Mania. Many of the rides had a 20 minute wait, with the other popular rides around 40-60 minutes. 

Anyway! When we arrived it looked insanely busy because everyone here seems to show up before the park opens. This isn’t quite as common in the States.

I ran straight for Journey to the Center of the Earth upon entering, needed to get fast passes, and the husband took our jackets and put them in a locker.

We rode the big rides that were important to us pretty quickly, in about the first hour and a half, and then took it slow. I really enjoyed the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride. I have no clue how large the drop was, I usually avoid drops, but I didn’t care I had fun! We ended up riding it twice. Between rides on the Journey we ventured over to Indiana Jones, which was very similar to Disneyland, but still fun!

We picked up some snacks on the way as we found things we wanted. Such as this shrimp bun! Everything in the park is incredibly well themed and that includes the food. Not only was the packaging adorable but the food was as well!

Another example of the snacks we had - the famous Green Men Dumplings. These make their way all over the internet because they are so cute and unique.

Between snacks we spent our time getting on the rides that had shorter 20 minute waits. There are so many rides that are only in this park I was so excited to try them out, even if they were kid rides.

Additionally, the Disney Sea park is incredibly beautiful, I can see why a lot of people say it’s the best of all the Disney parks. It has such a special feel and look to it, it’s unlike anything else in the Disney family. You can definitely tell how important it is to them that they carry the theme and that everything is perfect.

I had so much fun just looking at everything. We spent a lot of our time during the day just exploring and looking at the different areas.

Each area of Disney Sea park represents a different world, be that a real world or a made up on. For example one of the most impressive areas of the park in my opinion was the Under the Sea area. Absolutely amazing looking, very unique atmosphere.

One big thing for us during the day was lunch! There was a taco restaurant! As people from the southwest we are blessed with so many options when it comes to Mexican food, and we definitely eat it often. This usually means I crave it when I travel internationally because you just don’t find it anywhere! We were very excited to have some and it was pretty good!

We spent more time exploring and wandering through the shops. We bought a few things. I made sure to pick up a headband i’d been eyeing, as well as a little pouch that are incredibly popular here. Mine it a Mickey hamburger, because it thought it was hilarious looking.

As mentioned the park itself is beautiful! During the day it’s beautiful and the same can be said for night. The park lights up! There is a completely different feel at night, there is something very special about the night time here. We made it a point to stick around until It was dark just so we could see the park light up. It was totally worth it!

Disney may not seem like the type of place you’d want to go after traveling across the globe, it’s just a theme park. For us we love Disney so it was a must. More than that, I actually think it’s a great way to really see the culture of a country. There are so many unique things that people do here that you don’t see in the United States park. It’s very fun to people watch and just soak in the cultural differences here!

We ended up leaving the park around 7:00PM. We had a 40 minute ride back to Asakusa and we didn’t want to go to bed too late as we are doing this all over again in the morning!

Please look forward to the other Disney blogs as they will give a more indepth look of the park, food and rides!

#Tokyo #Japan #TokyoDisney #TokyoDisneySea #Mickey #Disney #disneyEaster #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 3 (Akihabara)

Time to let out our inner weeaboos. We are going to Akihabara! If I was in Akihabara 5 years ago I probably would go more crazy than I will now, but I guess we will see!

We started early again today - woke up at 3:30AM. However seeing as most of Akihabara doesn’t open until 10:00AM we moved more slowly. We didn’t actually start getting ready until 6:00AM. I just spent my time browsing the internet, working on this blog, and moving video from the GoPro to the laptop; all while finishing up my milk tea from yesterday and chowing down on some melon bread we picked up at Lawson last night on our way back.

When I first woke up this morning and discovered that nothing opened until a bit later in the morning, I thought we could maybe go back to Ueno and around 9:00AM hit up the museum we missed and then head over to Akihabara. That plan was foiled as well, the museums are not open on Mondays. Damn.

In the end we decided to just get outside and start walking! I suggested we walk toward the Sky Tree, and so we did.

We made our way across the bridge and then through Sumida park. Once again it was super quiet, it was only about 7:00AM, we did find a small shine that had a great view of the Sky Tree though!

We eventually did make our way over to the Sky Tree. It opened at 8:00AM right when we arrived, however we decided not to go up, as there are other locations in Tokyo to get a great view of the city. And the sky tree was a bit expensive in my opinion. Having done the Eiffel Tower in Paris I know you pay a bunch of money and are up there for 20 minutes. So we opted out, but it was still really neat to see!

There is also an aquarium at the Sky Tree, which opens at 9:00AM and some shopping (including a Pokemon Center) which open at 10:00AM. Again we are cursed by being up so early, nothing is open. At this point we hopped on the train at Oshiage and head back to Asakusa.

This train ride was a treat as now we were in rush hour. Time to get comfortable with thousands of our new Japanese friends! I was so worried about falling over on someone, it was so packed I had one foot on the ground and nothing to hold on to! It was definitely an experience though, one I knew I’d have at some point, and probably will again over the next 2 weeks.

We decided to hang around our Air BnB for a little while to let things open up and then head over to Akihabara. I took this time to eat a second breakfast (what am I a hobbit?), I’ve been so hungry on this trip. Just a quick snack of some orange juice and another salmon onigiri, nothing too fancy.

Finally around 10:00AM we jumped on the Ginza line to Ueno and then switched to another line (Not sure what it was called, It wasn’t the JR Yamanote) for the quick ride down to Akihabara.

When we arrived our first stop had to be the Yodobashi store. There are (I believe) 9 floors of everything you can imagine! I specifically wanted to stop here to pick up film for my Instax Mini. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of hand checking twice on the way to Tokyo and I knew I could buy it was soon as we got to Akihabara.

I was content just picking up the film and then heading out, but the husband insisted I walk around every floor - I’m glad he made me. I didn’t end up buying anything because I was so overwhelmed, but I definitely saw some really neat items! And they really did have EVERYTHING.

Note this aisle of Gundam. There were 4 aisles just like this one. I never knew there were so many Gundam.

Tower Records is on the 8th floor, which I was excited to finally visit. High school me would be so proud! And the top floor was a food court, and let me tell you, it all smelled AMAZING. If we didn’t have other plans we would have eaten there.

After leaving the Yodobashi we head out in search of a maid cafe. I was specifically looking for @Home Cafe or Maidreamin. However I was leaning toward @Home Cafe, which we did find first.

I still think I may go back and try Maidreamin though, I’d like to see how the two differ.

Anyway!

We arrived at a good time, it got very busy right after we arrived. Everyone was definitely adorable! We both ordered set meals, which in hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have done. It was a lot of food. I ate all of mine, but the husband had a hard time finishing his. It was all well worth the experience though.

The set meal included a drink, meal, dessert and a picture with a maid of your choice. At first I felt bad because I didn’t pick the maid that seat us or took our order, but as our time there progressed the maids mingled with everyone so I didn’t feel quite as bad.

All of our food! Pink curry, beef curry, pancake dessert, cheesecake dessert and drinks (alcohol mixed drink & melon soda). The alcohol drink tasted blue, and you could not taste the alcohol. And I really mean that, I do not drink and can ALWAYS taste alcohol in drinks and even I took a small sip and couldn’t taste anything.

We received our pictures with the maids, and in the end a little loyalty card that looks like a credit card. You can rank up after so many visits.

After our visit to @Home Cafe (which I would definitely do again!) we finally ventured out into Akihabara and started to hit up all of the stores.

There were a few things I was specifically looking for - cute gachapon, neko atsume UFO machines, and a boob mouse pad for a friend.

I was only able to find the gachapon. But not to worry we only hit half the street and will go back a second day!

We did see so many neat things though, and I really wish that I could fluently read Japanese. 3 years of studying and then ignoring it for 3 years doesn’t do me much good. I digress, there was cute manga I wanted but I can’t read it so damn!

One really cool find, which I didn’t buy, but may go back and pick up - a Super Mario game for the Game Boy. I had it when I was a kid, it was one of my first games and unfortunately my sister lost my Game Boy on a trip one year and the game was in it. I’d never been able to find it again, until now!

After wandering around for a few hours up and down buildings we started to get tired and it started to rain - we decided to call it a day. We head back around 5:00PM.

Plans went awry again. We intended on going to dinner around 7:00PM. Jet lag caught up with me again and I fell asleep at 7:00PM. I must have been very tired because I slept through the night in my jeans. Oops.

I think one more day and i’ll be over the jet lag finally!

#japan #tokyo #akihabara #yodobashi #anime #manga #gachapon #maidcafe #athomecafe #tsumtsum #sumida #skytree #kawaii #maids #shrine #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 2 (Senso-ji Temple & Ueno)

The goal for the first day was to explore the area directly around where we are stayig. Asakusa and Senso-ji temple, as well as venture over to Ueno park and zoo. Mr. Husband’s birthday is today (April 16th), so hopefully he has a good day!

We started the day at 5:00AM, in the end I went back to sleep for an hour and a half. We were out the door at 6:00AM - which for the husband is very early. We finally made our way down the the Lawson, picked up some morning snacks and checked their ticket machine to see if we could get Ghibli Museum tickets. We had no luck buying them months ago when they released and again had no luck, I guess that’s an adventure for another trip.

After grabbing our snacks we wandered out into the temple area to explore. It was incredibly quiet being so early in the morning. None of the shops were open yet, meaning the crowds hadn’t arrived. We got very lucky with our first day, the weather was AMAZING. 79 degrees, no clouds/rain - it was like being at home!

We explored for a while and then made our way back to our Air BnB to eat our morning snacks.

Milk tea and salmon onigiri for breakfast. 

I’m sure everyone will be sick of seeing salmon related foods by the time we leave Japan. But what can I say, I love salmon.

After eating we decided to make our way to Ueno to walk through the park and go to the zoo. A quick subway ride and we arrived!

A big part of us visiting in April was I really wanted to see the cherry blossoms, unfortunately it has been pretty warm, and there was recently a storm, so most of the trees had already dropped their flowers. Walking through Ueno park we maybe saw only 2 or 3 trees that still had their sakura.

We made our way over to the zoo about 9:20AM and it opened at 9:30AM, perfect timing! Tickets into the zoo are only about $6 per adult, super cheap compared to the zoos I’ve been to in the states.

We walked the entire zoo in about two hours, there were definitely some unique animals that I had never seen before so I found it to be enjoyable.

After leaving the zoo we were hungry, so we wandered around the park looking for somewhere to eat. We found a little panda themed cafe restaurant. We both ordered curry, mine was panda themed. Very cute, and very good!

We were originally going to head to the Science and Nature museum next but jet lag started to hit me hard right around lunch, and we decided to head back so I could rest for a bit. This is the second international trip that I've gotten sick from jet lag, despite doing everything I could to avoid such - oh well!

After a pretty long rest, and the hubby trying to figure out how to get hot water to the shower (yes we took cold showers today), we finally head back out for a bit. Mostly we just wandered around Asakusa taking everything in, looking at the different food options.

We ended up at McDonald’s. Since I wasn’t feeling great I just wanted something American to fill me up so I could go back and sleep some more. 

I do tend to like visiting McDonald’s in different counties, especially since they usually have some unique food items. Japan has a teriyaki burger - which neither of us ordered. We are boring. But the food presentation is definitely a step up from the States. Note that the bread is not smashed completely flat.

Uneventful end to the day, hopefully by tomorrow i’ll have kicked jet lag in the butt!

#Japan #Tokyo #Asakusa #Ueno #Uenozoo #sakura #cherry blossoms #mcdonaldsjapan #curry #sensoji #happysandwichpartyJapan

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#sensoji #tokyo #asakusa #happysandwichpartyjapan #Japan

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#sensoji #Tokyo #Japan #asakusa #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 0 & 1 (Travel & Arrival)

Good Morning, it’s 3:20am in Japan and I can’t sleep. So here is how our first day went!

We spent a lot of time traveling, that was the point, getting there. However overall it was a very smooth and enjoyable experience.

We started off the day with a Southwest flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles. We flew through security with TSA Pre-Check, which I highly recommend, and boarded our plane quickly an hour later.

Then my one panic moment of the day happened - our plane had engine trouble and couldn’t leave the airport. We had a 4 hour layover at LAX, but engine trouble on our flight there, who knew how long that could take and how long we’d sit at the gate. After panicking in my seat for a bit, we finally got the go head after about a 30 minute delay, we were took off at 8:00am, 50 minutes after our scheduled time. Whew.

We arrived at LAX, quickly retrieved out bags and made the long walk (it’s really not that long, but suitcases are heavy!) from Terminal 1 to the International Terminal. ANA’s check in was right inside the door and the process took about 5 minutes. This was a day of everything going insanely quick, an airport miracle. To continue the trend, we spent only another 5 minutes in the security line, again with priority. Not taking off shoes and removing laptops is amazing.

The inside of the LAX international terminal is beautiful! I didn’t take any pictures, but i’d like to on the way back, it had a very modern feel to it!

We made our way to the Star Alliance lounge, which is on the 6th floor! At this point I was just excited to snack in the lounge, I hadn’t eaten yet!

The lounge was nice and decently quiet, this is the view from one of the more secluded corners.

Because of our arrival time at the lounge we did get to experience the breakfast and lunch snacks. Unfortunately I didn’t try as many of the breakfast items as I was trying to avoid certain foods prior to sitting on an 11 hour flight. But there was a nice selection to choose from.

Some of the lunch food below:

They had a wide variety of salads, all which looked amazing, as well as a noodle bar. Everything was tasty and just enough of a snack before boarding. We made sure the not eat too much in the lounge as ANA has their first meal service about 40 minutes into the flight.

At 11:50am we made our way down to the gate, which was just outside the elevators to the Star Alliance lounge (YAY!).

Again, we boarded very quickly, almost as soon as we walked up to the gate they started First and Business Class boarding.

I was very excited to be in Business Class for this flight, 11+ hours in economy is no fun. This was definitely an experience and made the long haul more enjoyable.

ANA’s Business Class s staggered, and although we were in the two middle seats, I had to lean forward to look at hubby. Much to his annoyance I continually popped my head around the partition many times throughout the flight, causing him to pause his movie and ask me “What?”.

As mentioned, the first meal service took place rather quickly, they started prepping as soon at we hit 10,000 feet.

The meal in Business is a course meal, and being a 5 star airline ANA is known for the service and quality of the food - it was outstanding. Having a good meal on an airplane completely changes the vibe.

The rest was your typical long haul flight - attempting to sleep, the seats lie flat so that’s a plus, and watching a bunch of movies (3 to be exact). Also don’t forget peeking over at the husband.

Oh he’s playing Zelda.

Despite the feast that wast the first meal, I was very much looking forward to the second, which was served about 3 hours before the flight landed.

For the first meal I chose the western option, for the second the Japanese. Many of us tend to follow the rule from Airplane! - don’t eat the fish. However, do eat the fish on ANA. It was all VERY good!

After fidgeting for the next 2 hours after the meal we finally made our final decent into Narita. The only major bumps on the flight were during the last 20 minutes, no big deal!

We are finally here!

And then we waited at customs for an hour.

But we got our bags quickly after finishing customs. Picked up our WiFi hotspot from PuPuRu at the QL Liner store, bought our Suica passes (highly recommend) from the JR ticket booth, and were on our way on the Keisei Sky Access line toward Asakusa!

I always hear mixed remarks about whether the subway system in Tokyo is difficult or not. It doesn’t seem much different than others, just busy, and not very fun while hauling luggage. But we made it to our destination, after a few train changes, Asakusa station, right by the Skytree!

A short walk later we arrived at our Air BnB, which is right by Sensoji Temple. Literally.

The view from the balcony is amazing!

The original plan was to go to Lawson and get some snacks. But, I laid down on the bed for 5 minutes and that was that, I decided sleep was better! And now here we are 3:20 am and I can’t sleep, go figure.

#japan #travel #travelblog #happysandwichpartyjapan #tokyo #ana #businessclass #asakusa

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Japan - Day 7 (Ikebukuro)

Starting out the day I didn’t honestly know a whole lot about Ikebukuro and how long we would be there. I just knew there were two places on my must to visit list there and that’s why we were going.

(Few pictures today!)

I woke up feeling like crap. The Gyoen Gardens adventure from the previous day was hitting my allergies hard. I wasn’t even sure how long I was going to make it before having to come back and sleep.

We got rolling a little bit later in the day, despite getting up at 4:30AM, we didn’t head out until about 9:30AM. It was the usual train rides - Ginza to Ueno, and the JR Yamanote over to Ikebukro. No rush hour today, we left too late - YAY!

Upon getting off the train our first stop was the Kit-Kat Chocolatory. We did take a little detour to get there. The store is in a department store attached to the train station but I seem to have a problem finding entrances from the train station so we exit and came back in through and outside entrance.

On our trek to find the store however we ended up in a grocery store in the station, the food there looked AMAZING! Wouldn’t it be great to be able to just get off the train, pick up your meal, and then walk home? One can dream. That will never be a reality in Arizona.

I digress, we eventually found the sweets area! More amazing cakes here, seriously ive never seen such beautiful little cakes. There were also many traditional Japanese sweet/dessert options to choose from.

Eventually we did find the Kit-Kat store! You aren’t going to find bags of Kit-Kats here, if you want those, hit up a convenience or grocery store! These are gourmet Kit-Kats in fancy boxes that you’d give as a gift. I picked up a box for my mom since they had special mothers day gift boxes. Mothers day is a little ways out, but it’s not like they will go bad in that time, plus we grabbed her a bag of matcha Kit-Kats to give her right away.

After the Chocolatory we wandered around to waste a bit of time in the station area. There was a restaurant I wanted to go to that opened at 11:00AM and was said to get busy very quickly so we were hitting it up right at opening time.

You may have see video’s of this place floating around on social media, it’s called Kura Zushi. Basically it’s a revolving sushi bar, which you can also order from, and you use your empty plates to play a gachapon game!

When we arrived (exactly at 11:00AM), there were already about 4 groups waiting. You walk up to the machine and get a ticket for your group. The machine is completely in Japanese, no English, as is the ticket. The staff is willing to help you get a ticket if needed, or you can just let someone go in front of your and watch. It was actually simple. Green button, party number, and then tap the final two buttons, done! - you now have a ticket!

They will call your number in Japanese so make sure you are paying attention. Basic understanding of numbers will probably do you good in Japan anyway.

On to the food! The sushi was very good for only being about $1 per plate.

They have some unique combinations - salmon with cheese? Surprisingly amazing.

We stuffed our faces, much more than we normally would. We have some revolving bars back home and it’s surprising if we eat more than 8 plates. Today we ate 16. Really I wanted a gatchapon and it took 5 plates to try your luck.

Spoilers. 3 tries. We did not win. The guy next to us won on his first try though, not fair! We do have a small vlog we filmed of this place so hopefully ill edit that and get it up pretty quick (i’ll link it here once finished).

One last thing about restaurants in general, many places have a pot of powdered matcha sitting on the table, cups, and a hot water dispenser so you can make your own tea! Surprisingly I actually like green tea, I don’t like many other teas.

This places is very convenient, when you are done you tap the check button on the tablet at your table, they come check your plate count, and you head off to pay up front!

After stuffing our faces we decided it was time to walk a bunch! Good plan. We were walking over to Sunshine City, which is a shopping mall. On the way we stopped at Round One and a few other game locations. There were a bunch. I found the Neko Atsume machine and again failed horribly. I also tried a Disney plush machine, had better luck but still didn't win anything.

We were once again off to Sunshine City. It’s a very traditional mall that we are all used to, and it was pretty nice! They had a fun water feature in the main atrium.

Our main goal here was to find the Pokemon Center! We did take a detour into the Disney Store though. Again, I wanted to buy so many things, but I will wait until we are at the Disney Resort. SOON!

After Disney we head up to the Pokemon Center. It was pretty busy, but all of the staff were super friendly and polite and did everything they could to make people feel welcome. We did end up buying quite a few things. I picked up 3 or 4 items for my Twitch giveaway, and also a few for myself! Included were a cute mug, a Ditto shirt tank top combo, and some socks.

Two side notes. Everyone in Japan has adorable phone wallet cases. They are everywhere and it’s making me really want one, the ones for sale at the Pokemon Center were super cute. Second, no one has face plates for the regular New 3DS, which is making me sad. Yodobashi is the only place and the selection was not great.

I digress, we went to purchase all of our items and it turns out there was some deal on socks! Who knew! I ended up getting a 3rd pair for free.

As mentioned the staff were great. They went out of their way to make customers feel welcome, they brought a basket of socks to the register for me to pick the 3rd pair instead of making me run through the store to find them. They make sure my items were double bagged so nothing would break, and they even offered me as many special decorative extra bags as I wanted in case I was getting gifts for people. I left very happy.

On the way out there were more Gachapon and penny presses. I did press a penny, which were provided in the machine, brand new and shiny! And of course another gachapon.

On our way out we stopped at Axes Femme. We visit their store in Shinjuku but it was small, this one was large! I did end up purchasing 3 items, mostly for work. This is a good store if you still like that lolita style, but want to be able to tone it down for real world situations.

After this we left Sunshine City and head across the street to the Animate. Which apparently had moved and was no longer an Animate. We still went inside because now there were 4 floors hat were cosplay stores.

This was a unique experience as a cosplayer. There were full costumes for sale, which wasn’t the awesome part to me actually, since I just make my own. It was the wide selection of wigs, contacts, props, shoes, glove, makeup and god knows what else that was all in one store easily accessible! Those small things are sometimes the hardest part of cosplay in the States because they are hard to get,you have to make them! Hell they had a prop violin you could buy!

Anyway! After having a moment we left to find the new Animate. Ikebukuro was bustling, it was a very fun area with a lot to do. There were a lot of teenagers and young adults around having a good time. It felt a lot like a less over the top Akihabara. I think I may actually like Ikebukuro a bit more.

We found the Animate! Which felt like it catered more to Women than the other one we went to. The whole area did really, a ton of women and girls around and a lot of people dressed up in alternative fashions. What I would have expected in Akihabara we actaully saw here.

We did not buy anything at the Animate but I did actually see things I liked in this ones. I think the thing holding us back from buying anything is that Idol anime and sports anime are super popular right now so it’s almost all you see. Neither of us are into those so we are left stranding. You wont find anything for older anime, if you do its in some corner and no one cares. It’s definitely what is popular now, which is understandable.

After leaving the Animate we head back to the station to head back to Asakusa. On the way in we ran into Ikefukuro, and owl statue, that like Hachiko is a place where a lot of locals wait when meeting up with someone.

We took the usual route home, JR to Ueno, Ginza to Asakusa. Upon getting off at Asakusa we found ourselves in a grocery and sweets store we hadn’t seen yet. We took this opporunity to get something sweet and yummy!

We spent much of the evening being lazy before going out to grab some food. We picked KFC because KFC is a suprisingly big deal in Japan (seriously they eat it as their Christmas meal), so I wanted to see what the differences were.

First major difference, no mashed potatoes. WHAT. Now I don’t really eat KFC at home, but mashed potatoes are a pretty big staple when it comes to fried chicken, at least in my opinion. Instead they have Coloneling Potatoes. Which are kind of just potato wedges in  unique shape, they were actually pretty good.

The chicken itself was good quality, seemed better than home. The one difference with the chicken was the breading was lighter, it wasn’t as ticket and crunchy, which I honestly think was better, it wasn’t overbearing. The final difference on the food we tried was the biscuit, the honey was more like a maple syrup, still good though!

After dinner we ate our desserts and then I rolled off into bed at my allergies were starting to bother me again.

My sleeping area is starting to become a fortress of shopping bags from everything we’ve purchased. By the time we finish Disney I don’t think i’ll be able to get in my bed!

#Ikebukuro #PokemonCenter #Pokemon #PokemonCenterMegaTokyo #SunshineCity #KFC #Dessert #Japan #Tokyo #sushi #kurazushi #kurasushi #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 15 (Final Day & Travel Home)

The final day was uneventful. A lot of cleaning, a lot of waiting, and a lot of flying.

(Text heavy, not many pictures)

We finally got the sleep in! Which really just meant me getting up at 6:00AM instead of 4:30AM. The remainder of the morning was spent eating, watching TV, and packing. We had to be out of the Air BnB by 11:00AM so we didn’t really do anything in the morning. Our flight also wasn’t until 5:00PM but we had nowhere to leave luggage for all that time.

That meant we got to spend a lot of time in the airport! Yay!

The train ride back to the Narita Airport does take about an hour, so at least we spent our time in different places rather than a lot of time in one place!

We took the Asakusa line to Oshiage. The only issue with this is that the elevator for the Asakusa line is kind of a far walk. We were very tired and sore from hauling he luggage. And we only ended up with one extra bag than what we arrived with. Imagine if we filled the two other bags we packed. Oh boy! Don’t pack heavy in Tokyo. It’s nice to have everything you need, but it’s not fun to haul it all over the place, especially in stations that don’t have escalators. 

Anyway! At Oshiage we transfered to the Narita Sky Access line. We were originally going to get off at Aoto (like we did on the way in) and swap trains. But both the one we were going to swap to and the one we got on at Oshiage both end up at Nartia, so we didn’t bother changing, just road the Sky Access all the way since we had seats.

Once arriving at the Airport we had to top off our Suica cards as we were just a little short. The great thing about doing the adjusted fair right when leaving is we have no money sitting on those cards! While we can use them when we go back in a couple years it’s nice to not have wasted any money. 

The fair adjustment machines didn’t have English as far as we could tell, but they were pretty easy to click through and figure out what you needed to do.

Next we checked in to ANA and dropped off our bags, then I made my way over to the post office to drop off the pocket WiFi. There are no post offices past security so make sure if you have to drop off a WiFi you do it before! There was a post office right in the terminal entrance so it was easy!

Security was uneventful. We had priority with the business class tickets so there was literally no wait. Walked right up to the metal detector. Immigration too a little bit longer about 30 minutes. But they just scan the sticker in your passport from when you entered and then stamp, and you are good to go!

Next we went to find the ANA lounge so eat! Food time! On the way to the lounge we passed the ANA Duty Free store. And guess what? They had the Sakura Matcha kit-kats i’d been looking for the entire trip! My mother will rejoice.

The lounge was busy, but very similar to the lounge in LA. The food was obviously a bit more Japanese, but still good and nice to have something to snack on! 

They did have a noodle bar if you wanted something more meal like, and I didn’t notice until our way out to the gate but there was a sushi bar as well!

We were delayed about 20 minutes, but they board first and business so quickly it’s not really a big deal. Honestly ANA boards really quick, you hardly notice because it’s such a smooth process. Or maybe I’m too enthralled in business class by all the stuff and prepping my little sitting space. Who knows.

The return flight is short because of jet stream, plus it’s overnight so that always seems to go faster in my opinion.

The meal service was in similar fashion to the first flight, right at 10,000 feet they started prepping everything. This meal services seemed to go slower. While Mr. Husband seemed to get his food in a timely manner, it seemed as though I was the last one in my aisle to get food. This was the case for every course, despite the fact that I eat quickly and was done. For reference, the husband had his dessert right around when I got my main course.

I have to say the food on the way to Japan was better than the return. This is likely a biased opinion because I’m more tired, and just ready to be home eating my own food, but I still believe the other food options were better and they tasted better.

My only real issue with ANA business class, and I may have mentioned this in my original travel post, is the pillows are awful. I’ve read countless reviews on their business class and not one had anything bad to say about the pillows. Both husband and I thought they were awful. If you are just using them for your back it’s fine, but they are so flat that you may as well not even use a pillow when laying down. My tip, if you plan on actually sleeping, bring a small travel pillow.

My other issue, and this was flight specific because we didn’t have this problem on the way over. Actually I've never really had this issue. The plane was ungodly hot. That’s coming from someone who is always cold. This was unfortunate because it made sleeping really difficult.

All in all though, ANA business class is amazing, and you get treated really well! the flight back to LAX was only 9 hours, and we ended up landing on time despite leaving late. It also was a fairly smooth flight! Bonus.

Arriving at LAX was an incredibly smooth process! We were able to use our Global Entry, which resulted in us getting through the entire process of being cleared back into the country, including all baggage in about 10 minutes. The initial customs lines were incredibly long, but the Global Entry kiosks took about 30 seconds. It is worth it with just one use, I highly recommend!

The remainder of the day was frustrating and as such I wont go into much detail, it adds nothing. 

We did have TSA Pre-Check for security so that was nice. In the end our Phoenix flight was delayed, boarding was a mess, flight was bumpy, and children on planes can be frustrating.

But! We made it home safe, no real problems, and now it’s back to the normal life! The trip to Tokyo was great, and I can’t wait to get back to Japan and explore more! 

2020 Olympics anyone?

#Travelblog #travel #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 13 (Tokyo Disneyland)

It was our last day at the Tokyo Disney Resort. We are nearing the end of our trip. The last day was fun, and I’m glad we were able to relax so much and take our time in these two parks. It was definitely a unique experience and I’m glad we made the time to visit!

The longer you spend at Disney the more tired you get. We walked for a week straight on this trip before going to Disney and yet still somehow those 4 Disney days are more rough on my body than anything else.

Today was the first day where I looked at the clock and rolled back over for more sleep. In the end, I still ended up getting up at 5:30AM so i’d have plenty of time to get everything prepped for the day. The husband is not a morning person and I am, so it’s up to me to make sure we have everything packed up that we need.

We left a little bit later today, about 8:00AM, which now put us in rush hour. The trains were packed! Luckily we weren’t delayed at all because the Japanese train system is like a perfect science.

The park didn’t open until 9:00AM and we weren’t about the make the same mistake we did the first day in the Disneyland park. We arrived about 15 minutes before the gates opened. The line was maybe only twice as long as the day we arrived over an hour early. This was expected though as the crowds were supposed to be smaller.

Upon entering we took our time, similar to our second Disney Sea day. We picked up some fast passes and then when to eat some breakfast.

I’ve had quite my fill of pastries the last 4 days, which started to catch up to me about day 3 - definitely not feeling quite as great as day 1. I’m glad I had the chance to try so many though!

The day was incredibly similar to past days, the morning was filled with rides. 

Again we skipped some rides that were exactly the same as home, as in our opinion it was really not worth the wait.

After rides was lunch, we ate at a super cute restaurant in Critter Country. I don’t know how I ate so much the first two days. I feel continually stuffed now!

Despite feeling stuffed I still continued to snack through the day. I was determined to try all the yummy things I can’t get back in the United States parks.

If it has tapioca or boba in it, I’m going to get it! I drank so much liquid during our 4 Disney days! Have to try all of the amazing drinks!

And of course you have to have Disney churros! The ones here are shaped like Mickey!

After lunch we defaulted back to exploring and some random rides here and there. I’m still in love with all of the Easter decorations. It’s like a game finding all of the different eggs throughout the park. 

There actually is a scavenger hunt like game you can play with the eggs, but you just get a sticker for completing it.

We did end up watching a parade as well. We kind of stumbled into it while picking up some snacks. Very colorful! I haven’t watched a Disney parade in a while so it was enjoyable!

After getting our fill of the park, our last adventure was to go through the shops and pick up anything we wanted that we hadn’t bought yet! We didn’t end up buying as much as I thought we would. There were definitely more things that I wanted to buy but I figure it’s situational and I will only use certain things when in the Disney parks. Which is often, but not often enough to buy 3 more character headbands!

After our shopping spree, we head back to the train to return to Asakusa. We managed to just miss rush hour, so the trains weren’t terribly packed which was nice!

We left early enough that we would be eating in Asakusa for dinner. 

After resting (and getting off my foot) for a little bit, we head out around 6:30PM for some food! I picked out a sushi place a few blocks away. It was pretty good! Much salmon was eaten. Yum!

They had some amusing things to order. There were fries with chocolate. Mr. Husband wanted to order them, but I was so full I thought that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

I love ordering unique types of salmon here when we go out for sushi. This one was salmon with mozzarella and pesto. It was tasty. Again with this cheese and salmon thing, who knew!

Instead of fries we ended up with ice cream puffs. Mostly eaten by the husband, but I did get a few bites. They were pretty good!

Now that we have eaten an abundance of food for the last 4 days, I’m ready to rest and eat like a normal human again. 

After dinner, was just the usual TV and hang out before heading to bed. There were games show on! Like I said previously, it’s like TV roulette, no rhyme or reason, it’s always something random!

Link to the Tokyo Disneyland Food Breakdown Blog!

https://happysandwichparty.tumblr.com/post/160218011602/tokyo-disneyland-food-spring-2017

#Japan #Tokyo #TokyoDisneyland #Disney #TokyoDisneyResort #TokyoDisneyEaster #Travel #Travelblog #food #happysandwichpartyJapan

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Japan - Day 11 (Tokyo Disneyland)

Tokyo Disneyland is the main park at the Tokyo Disney Resort. It is more similar to the other Disney parks around the world. It’s our second stop on our Disney adventure and our second of 4 days at the resort.

I started the day at 5:00AM, I was so tired from the previous day at Disney Sea. We were planning on heading out the door a bit earlier today.

After our long train ride with multiple changes we arrived at the Report at about 7:40AM. I thought the park opened at 8:00AM because that is what I saw online, I was apparently wrong, it opened at 9:00AM. At least we were able to line up nice and early, about 20 people back in line today versus hundreds yesterday.

Our plan was similar to the first day, husband goes to the lockers to store jackets for the evening, I run off to the first ride for fast passes. In this case we went to Monsters Inc. Ride and Go Seek, which is almost right inside the entrance just inside Tomorrowland. After getting the fast passes we head off to hit the other major rides. Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, Space Mountain, and Peter Pans Flight.

Again during all of this we were on the look out for snacks!

This park has snacks that are different than Disney Sea so time to eat ourselves silly again!

We also wanted to make sure we ate at the Queen of Hearts banquet hall, we got there right around 11:00AM to make sure it wasn’t so busy we couldn’t get in.

After lunch we explored the other half of the park we hadn’t been in and rode Big Thunder Railroad! This is one of my favorite rides at home and I actually really enjoyed it here.

We of course continued to eat snacks. We seem to do more snack eating that ride riding. 

It started to get pretty windy later in the day so we spent a lot of time walking through the shops and people watching.

It seems like a bulk of the crowd came just to watch the parades and then leave. Very different.

Once it got too windy and cold around 5:00PM we decided to call it a day and head back on our 40 minute train adventure.

Plus I was having some issues with my right foot. I haven’t had problems in a while but a week and a half of walking decided to catch up with me during Disneyland and my extra foot bone was causing problems. Thanks weird feet!

Once back at the Air BnB we rest and hung out, watched some TV. Seems like we watch the news a lot here.

We also keep seeing a lot of American news talking about how scared everyone over here is of North Korea and how everyone is prepping just incase. Honestly, no one seems phased and we haven’t really seen much on the news in regards to it, just talk about Americans talking about it. We aren’t too worried.

Link to the Tokyo Disneyland Food Breakdown Blog!

https://happysandwichparty.tumblr.com/post/160218011602/tokyo-disneyland-food-spring-2017

#Tokyo #Japan #TokyoDisneyland #TokyoDisneyResort #TokyoDisney #Disney #Travel #Travelblog #happysandwichpartyJapan

[happysandwichparty-blog]

Japan - Day 9 (Harajuku)

Harajuku - the location of the young and fashionable. Home to the famous Takeshita Dori. Also home to Yoyogi Park and the Meiji Shrine.

I’m going to preface this entry by saying much of the day was spent feeling sick on my part so it wasn’t the most enjoyable of all the days so far.

I woke up early again, but that’s probably because I went to bed early. I spend most of the morning working on the blog and being a lazy blob until getting ready and waking up the husband.

We head off to the train around 9:00AM. The usual, Ginza Line to Ueno and the JR Yamanote to the Yoyogi stop in Harajuku.

We started the day by heading toward the Meiji Shrine. At this point I want to do as quick of an in and out of the forest area as possible. My eyes were watering like crazy and I was sneezing like mad. Unfortunate because this area really was beautiful and I would have liked to spend more time in it. But, there is always next time.

We had our first bit of disappointment for the day upon reaching the shrine. They were doing construction maintenance and the entire thing was covered because of such. You couldn’t see anything at all. Everyone was still praying at the covered shrine but as a tourist it was incredibly disappointing.

I’ve been to many places that were being renovated on my trip, but nothing has been quite as disappointing as this, you couldn’t see anything.

Because of the fact that I wasn’t feeling great I was incredibly frustrated at this point and just wanted to get out of the park/forest as quick as I could since my allergies were driving me insane. Grumpy wife.

We did get to see the sake barrels on the way out though, they were pretty neat!

After exiting we were now by the Harajuku station and head toward Takeshita Dori. This is another place id been longing to visit. 

Unfortunately, again, the fashion is a little out there for the States and it makes it difficult to justify a purchase. Also, this is definitely a more teenage area. There are some shops that are geared toward a young adult but most had a teen vibe and I actually felt very out of place at times. What is this, I’m feeling old?!

Also, all of the stores seemed to open at different times. Some 10:00AM, some at 11:00AM. Stores that were supposed to open at 11:00AM opened early, kind of? It was very confusing. Because of this we ended up wandering back and forth down the street about 3 times trying to hit the shops I wanted to see.

We did end out first trip down the street with a crêpe! This was mistake number 2.

The crêpe was good, a little underwhelming for what I was expecting, but still good. I also got a mango milk and the husband picked some Oreo matcha concoction. He’s more adventurous than me apparently. I also don’t like Oreo (gasp!).

After the crepes our wandering continued. We eventually hit most of the stores and then continued on to LaForet. I mostly just wanted to stare at all of the Lolita dresses again, which is why we went here.

About this time I started to feel pretty sick. The damn crêpe did me in. So at this point I started to not really care about clothing and just kind of wandered around taking it all in.

After LaForet we walked down Omotesando street, this a tree lined street that basically runs parallet to Takeshita, but is about twice the length. It is apparently dubbed the Champs-Élysées of Japan, I can understand why. 

There are a ton of designer store, it’s mostly what is on this street. If you don’t want designer, like me, you may be more interested in hitting up the side streets or the area closer to Takeshita.

After Omotesando, we head down Cat Street, it’s a side street off of Omotesando and it houses more high end stores. It has a very different feel and amost quaint cute look to it. Much quieter as well.

After Cat Street we looped back to walk by the Baby the Star Shine Bright store, as it seems to be one of the only lolita stores with a store front. We did not go in, as much as I’d love to buy everything in the store, it just wasn’t going to happen.

After concurring everything we wanted to see in Harajuku and me feeling progressively more terrible. We decided to head to Akihabara which was to be our Second stop of the day.

Remember the Yodobashi store, with the amazing smelling food on the 8th floor? That’s where we went for lunch.

We both had a beef, rice skillet for lunch. They were different types, but pretty similar. I wanted something a bit simple.

Unfortunately I still was feeling pretty awful after eating a solid meal and resting. We opted to go back so I could sleep it off since we Disney’s tomorrow and I need to be at peak performance! 

The usually route home again, JR to Ueno, Ginza to Asakusa. I could almost sleep walk this route now.

I rest for a while, prepped for Disney (looked at maps, tickets, food, times, etc) and then we head out to find some food. I was definitely feeling a lot better in the evening.

We wandered around Asakusa for a while just taking it all in, seeing what food was on the way. It did start to get cold, so after about 40 minutes we decided we should probably pick a place to eat.

Mr. Husband ended up finding us a shabu shabu place! Yes! Something we haven’t eaten here yet.

If you don’t know what shabu shabu is, it’s pretty similar to hot pot or sukiyaki.  It consists of thinly sliced meat and vegetables boiled in water. You swish the meat around in the boiling water to cook it and eat/cook things piece by piece. Shabu shabu is more of a savory flavor than sukiyaki which tends to taste a bit more sweet.

I’ve only has shabu shabu one other time, so I don’t have a lot of to compare to. We enjoyed it and it tasted pretty good! 

It was an all you can eat place, which isn’t great for us, we don’t eat a whole lot. But is also came with rice and ice cream, so cool! We also were able to go up to the self service area and pick exactly which veggies we wanted (mushrooms, mushrooms and more mushrooms!).

I did try a drink at this place as well - an apple juice. Now you may think, why order apple juice. Well, everything is different around the world, the US has apple juice that is super sweet and doesn’t really taste like apples. This juice actually tasted like I was eating an apple. It was pretty great!

After stuffing out faces, we made the trip back to the Air BnB. We took the route through the shopping area (now closed) leading up to the Senso-ji Temple, still very beautiful at night!

Upon arriving back at home base, we did some final Disney prep - power banks charged, go-pro empty and charged, wifi charged, etc.

Time to get my Disney on!

#Harajuku #Takeshitastreet #takeshitadori #omotesando #catstreet #crepe #japan #tokyo #travel #travelblog #food #shabushabu #mango #meijishrine #happysandwichpartyJapan