Is it light drizzling rain outside?
Is the temperature 3 degrees celcius, or -1 with wind chill factored in?

What would a sensible person do? Go to Disneyland, obviously!

We woke up today with no firm plans of what to do, except to relax on my birthday. My original plan was to wake at 4:30am and walk down to the Tsukiji fish market to watch the tuna auction. When looking for details last night however, I read that from December 1st 2011 until some time next year, the tuna auctions would no longer be granting access to members of the public. Well that idea went out the window. I could have still gone to the markets, which apparently open for public access to the inner sanctum of fish sale at around 9am, but I've seen enough fish in my lifetime, and the auction was the bit I was truly interested in, so I decided to strike Tsukiji off the list, and do it again at some point in the future when I can get access to the auctions.

So we work at a normal time, and went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. A buffet, with a mixture of western and Japanese breakfast dishes, it was good without being great. While at breakfast we discussed our options for what we could do for the day. We toyed with the idea of a day trip to one of the five lakes surrounding Mt Fuji, but with rain, fog and general miserableness in the weather, viewing Mt Fuji would be impossible, and we've already seen Hakone, so we decided against that option.

After a few other un-exciting Tokyo options, we decided that we'd go for a train ride to Disneyland, check out the crowds, and make a decision whether we were going in.

Being a Friday, and with the added bonus of the rain and cold, to our delight the crowd levels seemed quite light. Last time we were in Japan we went to Tokyo Disneyland, and I must say that I was disappointed because the massive crowds prevented us from enjoying the days. Today that wasn't the case. We all had a really great day.

Firstly, the weather. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn't idea Disneyland weather. It was bitterly cold (even more-so than yesterday), it was raining slightly when we left the hotel, although once we got to Disneyland, mercifully it didn't rain again.

We left the hotel a little late, at around 9:30am. Once we got off the train at Disney resort, we walked the 10 minute journey to the park gate. Zero line up to get in, we had our tickets and were through the gates within minutes.

We started the day in usual Disney fashion. Browsing some of the hideously expensive shops, photographing everything that moved, and quite a few things that didn't. Attacking a few Disney characters lurking among the crowds for photo poses, etc. After tiring of that, we wandered out into the (literally) freezing cold winds in search of rides.

First port of call was Tomorrowland. After grabbing Fast Pass tickets for Space Mountain (a very popular ride), we backtracked to line up for the relatively new Monsters Inc ride. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Disney fastpass system, it basically allows you to reserve an express boarding ticket to a selection of the most popular rides using your disney entry ticket. The catch is that you can only reserve one Fast Pass ticket each hour, and the Fast Pass allocations generally cease by mid afternoon.

After 25 minutes of shuffling through the queue to get into Monsters Inc, something was announced. All I could make out was several "sorry"s, which I new couldn't be good. The line began to move faster. And faster. Straight out the exit door. Great. Someone broke the Monsters Inc ride. Fortunately they gave us free express passes which could be used to skip the queue in any other ride in the park, so at least we didn't spend all of that time lining up for nothing.

We returned to use our fast passes for Space Mountain that we'd booked earlier. Veronica hates roller coasters, so I was surprised when she agreed to go on it. It turns out that Veronica wasn't the problem. We got in a carriage, and set off. Space Mountain is a relatively quick indoor roller coaster which goes through pitch black dark with stars all around, mimicking a space ship. At the first sign of any speed, the entire Space Mountain hall echoed with the sounds of Angela's hysterical screaming. I'm pretty sure she thought she was a gonner.

When we got off the ride, Charlotte was bouncing around shouting things like "awesome!" and "again!", while poor Angela was an emotional trainwreck. All she could muster was inconsolable crying, mixed with anger at the ride for scaring her so badly. Once she calmed down a little, she explained that she wouldn't like to go on that ride again.

A few more little rides, like a go-kart style car ride around a track, and it was time the the Disney Christmas float parade. We got an excellent position, seated at the side of the parade route, and waited for the parade to reach us. The ground had now dried out, but obviously since the temperature of the air was only a few degrees, this meant that the concrete that we were sitting on was also at freezing point, or there-abouts. Naturally since we were sitting on said concrete, everything below our belly-buttons also approached freezing point after a little while. Not entirely pleasant. Trust me.

The parade however, was quite well done. But damn noisy. Each float had inbuilt speakers, one or two feet above ground level. Since we were sitting, right at the side of the parade route, and our ears were also one or two feet above ground level, we were blasted with a massive wall of chronically happy Christmas music each time a float went past. I can still hear Jingle Bells ringing in my ears.

As soon as the floats cleared out, so did we. Into a nice warm food hall to escape the Siberian temperatures outside, and to thaw out all of our frozen parts. This was the first time on this trip I've appreciated the Japanese habit of heating up indoor spaces to irrationally hot temperatures. At the time we left to go back out into the cold we were starting to get quite hot, but it is very pleasant to walk into a room heated to near the high 20's when it is one or two degrees outside.

Outside, into the cold, for more rides and exploring. The haunted house first up, and 2 little girls were initially scared...until the ride started. I actually closed my eyes and laid my head back a few minutes into the ride it was that ordinary. A Japanese skeleton Santa Clause with head that looks like a big white volleyball is not scary. Its just weird.

Since the wait time for rides were only around 10 minutes for all but the top 5 most popular rides, we went from ride to ride sampling what was on offer. It was then time for another noisy damn parade, this time in "Disney Christmas" flavour. Again, quite well done, but very very noisy, very long and very cold. Especially the elfy reindeery all singing all dancing number at the end, which I began to doubt would ever end.

After that was over, we decided to wander to the other side of the park, to Adventureland and Westernland, since we hadn't even made it over to that side of the park yet. That gave Charlotte and I a chance to use 2 of the priority ride boarding passes that we'd earned earlier in the day with our Monsters Inc misadventure. We jumped the queue for the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster, which Angela and Veronica refused to go on. While we rode that, Angela and Veronica went to walk through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, or something equally as timid.

When Charlotte got off the ride, she was bouncing around like...I guess a 7 year old girl who'd just been on a roller coaster at Disneyland. Talking at 100 words per minute we set off trying to find Veronica and Angela, so we could steal their priority passes, and go on the roller coaster again without having to wait 30 minutes. They returned from their ride, and we looked at the list of rides, and decided that there was nothing that they would need a priority boarding pass for, so we grabbed the passes and headed back in to do it all again, while they headed for the "Its a small world" boat ride.

With that done, it was starting to get dark (with sunset at 4:30pm) so an announcement was made that the laser light parade would be starting in 30 minutes. When we left Disneyland last time we were in Japan, with 2 exhausted children, we missed seeing the laser light parade, and it is something Veronica has always regretted, so we went to get a prime position for today's parade.

For some reason the parade today was quite early, starting at 5:20pm. According to the park schedule it usually starts at around 7pm, so I'm not sure why Saturday night was different. Perhaps because Saturday night's parade was longer? Not sure, but it was a very long parade.

It was worth the wait. I took photos, while Veronica recorded video on her new iPhone. It was very impressive, and well worth sitting on the cold ground and getting hypothermia for. I wont bother explaining it. I'll just post some of the pictures.

After that was complete, we returned to the comfort of the super-heated food hall where we'd had lunch. After thawing out, and having a quick bite to eat, we went for a walk to Toon Town, which is kiddie heaven and parent hell, for a few rides for the girls.

Much like any good parent would do to get their child into military service, we lied about Angela's age to get her onto a kids roller coaster by themselves, so we didn't have to go on it. Straight to the front of the queue, Veronica was a little on edge to see whether Angela would come off a hysterical mess like she did from Space Mountain. Both girls ran out, begged to go again, and then ran back around and jumped on again. And again. And again. After the 5th ride, Veronica and I were losing all feeling in our extremities, so we had to keep moving. The girls went through a few more rides and attractions in Toon Town, and it was time for the fireworks.

We grabbed a position with good view of Cinderella's castle, and waited for the fireworks to begin. Good, without being great, Charlotte's summation was "Good. Quite nice. No purples though, so not the best fireworks I've ever seen". Disney staff, if you are reading this, you need to add purple fireworks to your display.

After the fireworks, it was like someone had hit the fire alarm. Everyone disappeared, even though there was still several hours until park closing time. We took the opportunity to grab some more rides. Firstly the Roger Rabbit taxi ride that Angela was very keen to do, then Charlotte and I did Space Mountain again (and practically walked straight on) while Veronica and Angela did a spaceship adventure ride, where the cabin doesn't go anywhere, but the screen displays a video and he cabin moves in synchronisation to make it feel like you are moving. Anyone who has been on the Batman ride at Movieworld will know what I'm talking about.

After we met up again, Angela dragged Charlotte, Veronica and I onto the spaceship ride again, which again we walked straight onto. With that done, we went to Monsters Inc, which had reopened, waited a comparatively long 15 minutes and rode that too, before heading for home at around 10pm. 3 very sleepy girls, and I was quite tired too I must admit, but we found our way back to the hotel with very little hassle. Dodging taxis was the hardest part. There was honestly 20 taxis to every one non-taxi car that we saw between the train station and our hotel. I'm not sure why, but it was unbelievable. On a 6 lane road (3 lanes in each direction) there was easily a few hundred metres where taxis were parked nose to tail in 4 of the six lane, leaving one lane each way for traffic. Even the back streets around our hotel were filled with parked taxis, waiting, for something. Weaving through the taxis we got back to our hotel. Baths, then beds, and we were all asleep within minutes.