Day Two - The best day ever!

Up at 6am as we are off to Disney sea, we have read on various blogs the crowds are huge and we need to be there before the gates open. We walk to Ueno station and then head into the 'Family Mart' to buy some eats. This mart has a really good selection (most convenience stores do - very different to its Australian counterparts). The ready made meals are amazing, sushi, soba, baguettes etc. I grab a soba and an iced coffee. A real coffee (melbourne style) is not really readily available here, but as it is so humid the iced coffee make a welcome change, and they come in cups that look like coffee.

Again all this is really cheap and i think i spend in the range of 680 yen for an ice coffee, breakfast roll, seaweed rice triangle and soba salad.

We catch the train to Disney which took about 20 minutes and then swap to the Disney resort line which is all Mickey themed, hand grips, windows etc. WE glide past the hotel station, disneyland station and then... DISNEY SEA, yay! We get off and have a look at the spinning globe in the welcome area and i am sooo excited I almost cry. We join the queue of excited (mostly local) attendee's waiting at the front gate and sit down. I begin to look around and take in vibe of the rest of the 'guests' and begin to realise two things.
1. Alot of people are dressed in matching outfits. Not disney costumes per se, but couples are wearing matching t-shirts, pants, socks and shoes. Groups of friends going together to disney are all matching as well.
2. All the locals have these hard plastic disney themed novelty bags around their necks..this mystery is solved later.

The gates opened and we had to avoid being mowed down by crowds running towards the Toy story ride to get fast passes. There are so many people running, the park actually has staff members along the course to this ride about every 5 meters asking politely that everyone slow down, doesn't really help though. This ride is apparently VERY popular and on busy days can have a wait time of 220 minutes, we decided to pass. However we made our way through the rest of the park and hit most of the rides, stand outs include the following
* Tower of terror
* Indiana Jones
* Raging Spirits
* Journey to the centre of the earth

As you learn something new everyday, today it was our turn ot learn that Tokyo Disney has it's own character - A teddy bear called Duffy.
The Japanese are crazy for him they all had little Duffy coin purses around their necks and many (grown) women were carrying around a stuffed version of him, or his girlfriend Shelli Mae, or his cat Gelatino. It is obviously a great marketing strategy on behalf of Tokyo Disney as Duffy is a fashion conscious bear and has many, many outfits, all labeled "limited editions" and all for a price, which apparently the Japanese are willing to pay as in one of the gift stores there was a strict 3 outfits maximum to be purchased. The other totally cute/Disney/ Japanese thing that happened was in one of the ladies facilities. I walked in and there were two Disney janitors in the corner giggling and chatting rather naturally (which was weird in itself, because even though all the staff at disney are super polite and sincere in this politeness, it's never really natural... but I digress). I did my thing in a cubicle and when i came out one of the janitors grabbed me by the wrist and very excitedly point towards it she directed me the sink and a soap dispenser. "Look, look" she cried as she stuck her hand under the soap dispenser, the soap began to come out automatically, still not greatly impressed (as backwards as Australia is, we do have automatic soap dispensers) i gave a half hearted smile. She then took her hand away and held it up to me, the image of the foamy soap on her hand was unmistakable.... Mickey Mouse! The janitor proceeded to tell me they had only been installed the day before, which i guess is why they were so excited (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/07/03/keep-clean-with-awesome-mickey-shaped-soap-foam-at-tokyo-disney-resorts-new-hand-washing-areas/).

Now the mystery of the hard plastic disney themed novelty bags I mentioned earlier. The answer...
POPCORN
They are popcorn containers, yes if you have one of these you can get it refilled at one of the popcorn concessions in the park for 560 yen. There were lots of different flavours, we saw the following
* Salted
* Black pepper
* Chocolate
* White chocolate
* Honey
* Soy sauce and butter (yes that is correct)
* Curry (yes that too is correct)

We left the park at about 4pm to make our way to Tokyo Dome to watch the last game in a five game series of the Yomiuri

Giants and Vs. The Hiroshima Carp. If Etihad stadium and docklands was 10% like Tokyo dome city, they may actually get some decent sized crowds down there. There are heaps of restaurants, arcades, lots of shopping, batting cages, driving range, and an amusement park, complete with massive roller coaster and ferris wheel. The great thing about going to see a game at the dome is that you can bring in your own beer! you just have to pour it into paper cups provided once you get in the gate. We bought a hot dog and made our way to our seats up in the nosebleeds. The best thing about the game is the beer girls that run up and down in between the seats selling beer at a reasonable price (approx 500 yen for a schooner sized beer), and it is all the brands as well not just one. The beer is carried by the girls in kegs on their backs, in 27 degree weather with about 80% humidity, by the 5th inning they are

practically melting, BF did all he could to lighten their loads though. Unfortunately the Giants lost 3-2 but it was a great game and a fantastic experience.

We made our way back to Ueno, quick bite to eat at an american blues themed restaurant and then home to bed.