expiration date 

the day didn’t start well, as it rained pretty hard and we planned to go to Disneyland. out of all the days we were here, why does it have to rain on the day we were supposed to go to Disneyland!? boo~~

nevertheless, we tried to be encouraging and positive. aina didn’t really care about the rides. all she wanted to do in the Disneyland was to meet Minnie… and Mickey, Daisy, etc. she wants to shake hands with them.

aina decided that she’ll wear her pink t-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it, because she’s a big fan of Minnie… she said, “so, when i meet Minnie, she’ll be very happy to see me wearing this tee with her picture on it… and she’ll say, wow, that’s me on your t-shirt, aina!”… i thought it was so cute!

it turned out, Disneyland was not that far from Jessi’s apartment. taking the express train, it was only about 3 stops away. very convenient!

even from the train station, you can start to feel the Disney atmosphere. the train station was very pretty…

one of the disney hotels… so pretty!


disney monorail with mickey windows

supposedly, starting from early September, it’s Halloween season in Tokyo Disneyland. so, pumpkins and ghost decorations were scattered everywhere. the clothing and accessories sold in the stores were also mostly halloween-themed.

aina was busy taking pictures of things she liked

on the way into the park, we saw Mickey. there was a line for people wanting to take pictures with him, but when we tried to get in the line, we were told that the photo session was closed and Mickey had to go somewhere… aina was clearly disappointed.

but not long after being rejected from Mickey photo session, we bumped into Daisy, who were busy taking pictures with many fans… aina, who’s usually pretty timid in a crowded place, let go of my hands, ran towards Daisy and grabbed her hand…

they walked hand in hand, very briskly. ari and i stumbled around trying to keep up with Daisy and Aina, frantically taking pictures, as the crowd hovered around her… i felt like my daughter is being kidnapped by Daisy Duck!

after trying to convince aina to let go of Daisy’s hand, we went to buy ears. aina was still looking for Mickey and Minnie… and since it was still raining on and off, the characters seems to have stopped wandering around the park… maybe they don’t want the costumes to get wet.

to get into the mood, aina and i bought two pairs of mouse ears. aina gets the Minnie (of course), and i bought the “rock ‘n roll” version.

while waiting for the rain to stop, we went for lunch at the hotdog restaurant.

during lunch, a halloween parade passed by with Mickey & Minnie dressed up in their halloween costumes. too bad we couldn’t take a decent photo…

after lunch, the rain was still on and off. we walked further in and aina saw the dumbo ride. she immediately asked me to go in line. 30 minutes wait! that’s very long for such a simple ride… but we waited in line anyway. by the time we got to the end of the line, the rain was pouring. ari passed me our sweaters and aina’s hat. but the rain didn’t matter for aina, she had such a great time riding dumbo…

i bet the people down there could hear her squeals and laughters… it was fun, indeed.

after that, we ran into the Small World ride. it was indoors, perfect for avoiding the nasty weather outside. strangely, the line was only 5 minutes. we immediately boarded the little boat and, lucky us, we got the front seat. aina sang along during the ride, although she got a bit confused because a lot of the songs weren’t in english.

so, Dumbo and the Small World were the only two rides we got to try… after that, we went to the Toons area, which from what we remembered, didn’t exist when we were small (ari and i went to Tokyo Disneyland in the 80’s… separately, of course). in the Toons area, we found houses of the main Disney characters.

we took pictures in front of Goofy’s house, which was not open for public at that time (we told aina, maybe Goofy was out for lunch).

across from Goofy’s house, there was Minnie’s house, which was open. aina was ecstatic to see the inside of Minnie’s house and hoping that she’ll meet Minnie in there. the line was only 5 minutes long. we passed the living room, bedroom and kitchen. and of course there was no Minnie in there. the inside was cute, though… especially the kitchen stuff where there was a dishwasher and an oven that kids can play with to see 3D illusions.

aina was a bit disappointed that Minnie, like Goofy, wasn’t home either. but she was very persistent in her goal: to meet Minnie and Mickey. so, upon seeing Mickey’s house, which is located right next to Minnie’s, she literally dragged us into the queue to enter Mickey’s house… upon entering the queue, i saw the board saying that the queue was 70 minutes long. seventy?? maybe i didn’t see it right, so i told ari to check on the board again while we stood in the queue. and yes, it was a little over an hour wait to get into Mickey’s house. what the hell? i wondered what could possibly have been in there that people were lining up to see besides Mickey’s living room and bedroom…

aina, on the other hand, thought that she would meet Mickey in his house. learning from past experiences, we tried to lower her expectation… it was still possible that Mickey was out for lunch with Minnie and Goofy, you know… but aina didn’t care. she stood there for 70 minutes, under the rain (yes, it rained during the wait), with wet shoes and cold feet. what an effort given by a 3 year old to meet an idol…

it turned out that Mickey’s house was different than Minnie’s. not only was it much larger (bedroom, living room, etc), it also has a barn in the back with (robotic) animals and plants, which aina loved.

then, it was connected to Mickey’s studio, where he shoots all his (cartoon) movies…

then we were told to wait in a little movie studio, watching pieces of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, with Mickey’s and Donald’s voices commenting on the scenes. after waiting a while, the tour was broken up into groups of 10. we were led to another room, and there stood Mickey Mouse! we could see Aina beaming with excitement.

Mickey was actually there to be photographed with us! he was all dressed up in his tuxedo and Aina being quite nervous and with a constant grin on her face, kept looking at Mickey when we posed for the photo. but instead of ignoring this, the lady who took the pictures with our camera, actually made sure we were happy with the photos. Mickey also made Aina less nervous by hugging her and caressing her face. so after about the third shot, we finally got it right. Mickey gave Aina a kiss with his giant nose and Ari a high-five. the experience was well worth the wait. aina couldn’t stop blabbering about it on the way out of the house and since then on, she was on cloud nine… skipping about and singing.

we walked around the theme park a bit and decided to have some cake and tea.

we bought a lemon cupcake in the shape of Mickey’s silhouette and a green one with an eye on it resembling Mike from Monsters Inc., which Aina joyfully chomped on.

after filling our bellies, Aina took a nap on the stroller as we walked around waiting for it to get dark so that we can see the Electric Parade.

an hour later and it was still drizzling and we were wandering around the Old West area when we heard an announcement stating that the Electric Parade had been cancelled due to the poor weather. needless to say, we were all very disappointed. it was such a huge let-down that as we dragged our heels back to the main gate, we hardly noticed the rain getting heavier and heavier. then within the last 20 meters before reaching the train station, the rain really started to pour down. along with the other visitors around us, we made a mad dash towards the platform. at the end of the day, we thanked our lucky stars for not getting stuck in the thunderstorm and made our way home.

more photos in the album of the day: 16 september 2010