Ah Disneyland. It would really be as magical as the brochures say it is, if the crowds would all pack up and find some other damn park to inhabit. It was crowded. Very very crowded. For those of you who have Google Earth, punch in the coordinates of Tokyo Disneyland and zoom in. You will see a million small dots in the park, being the people, and that is what the park was like today. On the whole it was a great day, but it was let down a little by the crowds. The weather didn't help much. It was just about perfect, so I'm sure everyone within a thousand miles of Tokyo decided that Disneyland would be a good way to kill a day. And Veronica assures me that it was even more crowded when she went there when she was in Japan as an exchange student. After all, today was a weekday, and outside of school holidays. I dread to imagine what it would be like on a weekend or in the middle of Japanese school holidays. We set off at about 8:15am, so we could get some breakfast, and find our way through the stations with no pressure. This was the time we would find out whether we were wise to be staying in Yokohama, or whether we had been foolish to cancel our hotel in Asakusa in Tokyo. We made our way to the Shinkansen at Shin-Yokohama station without any problems at all. Navigation of the stations may seem daunting, but it really could not be easier. We are yet to make a mistake, or even a wrong turn thus far. In what seemed to be the blink of an eye the train got to Tokyo station, but this is where it would become interesting. Tokyo station is apparently the busiest station in the world in terms of the number of trains coming and going (over 3000 per day), and is the 8th busiest station in terms of people passing through the gates. Only 8th busiest? Shouldn't be a problem then... Got off the train, and rode the sea of people out through the gates, and luckily the flow of people spilled down past the gates to the Keiho line, which led to the Mihama (Disneyland station). Good. Time to push. Straight through the gates and down to the platform, where the exact train we needed was just pulling up. Not a problem. Could not have been simpler. Once there, we walked the 5 minutes from the station to the Disneyland gates, and handed over $350 for the privilege of walking into the park. If this sounds expensive, it damn well is, but this was for our 3 day Super Fun Big-Smile Happiness Pass, which got us into Disneyland today, Disney Sea tomorrow, and either/both on Friday. At Universal Studios it was busy at the gates, and then the crowds disbursed to acceptable levels. Once we got through the Disneyland gates the crowds disbursed, only to be replaced with more crowds. We did the usual things when we first got into the park. Photos with a few of the lower budget, lesser known Disney characters, and then we hopped on a bus for an informative mini-tour of the park, spoken entirely in Japanese. Blah-Blah-Blah Mickey Mouse Blah-Blah-Blah Cinderella Blah-Blah-Blah Sandwich etc... Then onto Cinderella's castle, which was photogenic, but again crowded. Outside of Cinderellas castle, there was a mad push and shove to get to one of the Disney princesses, Sleeping Beauty. On the whole Japanese people have been very polite and courteous since we have been here, but there must be some trigger at the entrance gate of any theme park style attraction (such as the Osaka aquarium), which turns them into pushing, shoving maniacs. Well, many of them anyway. And for some reason it is always the middle aged women again who are doing the pushing. Men always seem to be gentlemen, older people are very respectful, and I haven't come across one rude young person yet, but if someone is going to be rude, you can bet the farm that it is going to be some short, pushy middle-aged woman. My girls simply wanted a photo like everyone else, but they got pushed out of the way to the point where Sleeping Beauty had to tell some women to simply step back and be quiet while she looked after Charlotte and Angela. And it was quite funny, because seemingly to spite the unruly crowd she got down onto one knee with the girls, and had a 5 minute chat with them both, while all of the pushing and shoving went on around them. She had a very strong American accent, and was probably happy to be able to speak English again for a change. The looks on the faces of the growing crowd around them was priceless. Many, many unhappy people, growing more unhappy as each minute passed. But my girls were happy, so I could not have cared less. After what seemed like an eternity she posed for some photos, and then had another short chat to the girls before giving them a hug goodbye. As we left the pushing resumed with a renewed enthusiasm because everyone was just a touch more annoyed now than they were 5 or 6 minutes ago. Next up we came across the next crowd, which was surrounding Cinderella, with a couple of her mice which were transformed into horses in the fairytale. In Japanese, a couple of Cinderella's handlers/bouncers announced that no more photos would be taken, as Cinderella was going to be getting on the carousel. That didn't stop Angela chasing her down. After she saw Angela she also got down and had a chat with her (again much to the disgust of the crowd around them, who she wouldn't talk to only a few seconds before). Charlotte joined them and she posed for a photo session which clearly upset the handlers. Nobody else got photos with her at that point, as she got whisked off to the carousel at that stage. Again we walked away from another unhappy group of pushy middle-aged Japanese women. Onwards to a few kiddy rides. A jumping castle, a small roller coaster, an "it's a small world" boat ride (which was featured on an episode of The Simpsons, in which Lisa drinks the water while on the ride, which results in her having hallucinations). We then waited for one of the parades, which to put it politely, was quite lame. Basically we sat in the heat for 20 minutes, to quickly be passed by a couple of colourful dancing things, and Goofy and a few other unknown characters on a bus squirting the crowd with fire hoses. Fabulous. As a result of the stupid parade I walked away dripping wet with a numb ass and a left foot that was asleep because I was nursing Angela. The stupid colourful things with hoses squirted the crowd, but seemed to lay off if the crowd ducked for cover. Veronica, myself and the girls didn't bother ducking or running away like frightened idiots, like 99% of the rest of the crowd did, so guess where Goofy and all of the stupid colourful things aimed their firehoses... We then decided to find a grown-up ride to go on. At this point, I have to be critical of Disneyland again. At Universal Studios, if you want to take the express lane onto the rides and skip the queues, you simply buy an express pass booklet which gives you an express pass ticket for the most popular rides. At Disneyland, they have a far more idiotic, and far less effective system in place, and I apologise if I press this point a little, but the system is terrible. Basically the Disney solution is called the "fast pass" system, and it works by selecting the ride you wish to go on, and inserting your park ticket, at which point you are given a Fast Pass ticket for the ride. This ticket gives you a one hour window at some point later in the day (the actual time depends on how many fast passes have been already allocated), at which time you return and use your fast pass ticket to go straight onto the ride. The system sounds good, doesn't it? There is one small, but fatally stupid flaw with the system. You can only get one fast pass on your park ticket. So you cannot get a fast pass for each ride in the park. You can only get it for one ride, and then when the allocated time window for that ride has passed, you can get a fast pass for another ride. The problem was that the fast passes were so popular, that by 11am, the fast passes could not be redeemed until 5 or 6pm in the afternoon, and by midday the fast passes were no longer available for any of the rides. So basically, with the stupid disneyland system, with the number of people at the park today, you were able to get one, and at most 2 fast passes in a single day. For example, I got a couple of fast passes to Splash Mountain soon after I got into the park, and they could be redeemed between 2:05pm and 3:05pm. Until 2:05pm I could not obtain a fast pass to any other rides in the park. By the time 2:05pm came around, there were no other rides left with fast passes available for today. Stupid, Stupid system. At Universal Studios, if you want to skip the queues, you can pay for the privilege, or be a cheapskate and put up with the queues. I would gladly pay $40 not to have to stand in a 90 minute queue for every ride I wanted to go on. But we used our Splash Mountain fast passes at 2:05pm, and I must say that if I had waited 90 minutes for the ride I wouldnt be happy. It was not bad, but no better than any of the other splashdown style rides, such as Wild West ride at Movieworld on the Gold Coast (which is actually a bigger drop and a better ride). Time for a quick bite to eat. We found a restaurant which sold "Meat Pies" for 300yen ($3). Being Australian, I *had* to try this, to see how the Japanese would interpret a meat pie. It turns out I could have asked for my money back for false advertising. Neither was it a pie, nor did it contain any meat. If they had advertised it as a "Pastry Stick" it would have been a lot more accurate. A couple of other slow paced rides, such as the paddle steamer, train and jungle cruise, and we were starting to get sick of it for one day. We were all tired and had had enough. Remember that we have Disney Sea tomorrow, and then in all likelyhood we will be back to do Disneyland again on Friday. As we were getting ready to leave we came across the afternoon parade, so we were obliged to stand and watch it. After that we were ready to leave. We gave some more money to the park for the customary Disney Mickey Mouse Ear souvenirs, had a quick ride on the carousel, the teacups, and watched a Mickey Mouse presentation/stageshow (which was Angela's favourite part of the day), after which we set off. Performed our train magic in reverse, and got back to Shin-Yokohama without any problems at all. It turns out that the decision to stay in Yokohama was a very very good one. A single change of train, and a very quick trip (especially the Shinkansen leg of the journey) makes the trip to Disneyland very painless. I would recommend it to anyone thinking about doing Disneyland without the added hassle of staying in Tokyo. Disney Sea in the morning, which will be an equally big day, so I'm off to get some sleep.