An Asian Disney and Universal Adventure - Trip Report COMPLETED 6/23

Day 25 - Part 3 - A Modern Mountain and an Traditional Shrine

After the owl cafe, we made our way towards Akihabara. Akihabara is the technology and anime/comic district of the city, where you can buy just about any electronic goods imaginable, and find all kinds of comic book and anime merchandise. Jared, being a crazy tech lover, had seen this part of Tokyo on a work trip to Japan. I, not being hugely interested in electronics, and not so much into comics or anime (though I do appreciate why people are) hadn't really considered putting Akihabara on our list of places to visit. However, we had some wonderful friends house sitting for us, and they were really into comics and anime and all those things, so I wanted to try find them a thank you gift that they would appreciate.

Jared had, for a long time, described the epic proportions of Yodabashi, Akihabara's biggest electronics store, with 9 floors (and if my memory serves, another 3 sub basements) of merchandise. The store had a whole level set aside for comic and anime paraphernalia as well, so Jared thought it would be a great place to shop for our house sitters. In addition, Jared had some birthday money he wanted to spend.

Upon arrival at the store I was blown away by the size of the store. Not only was it 12 stories, but every level was larger than your average Australian Department store! We decided to try find something for our friends, but before we did Jared wanted to go play the Casio piano's (at the time he still worked for the distributor of Casio in Australia). Here he is playing some Ben Folds for me on one of the pianos he found.


The anime/cartoon/TV/movie section of the store had collectables from all kinds of major IP's like Star Wars, Marvel and Disney, plus plenty of Japanese anime brands I'd never heard of. My favourite thing was the giant wall of puzzles, which had images of everything from Japanese cultural sites to European vistas, to Disney IP and Japanese anime IP. I bought my Dad a puzzle of the Golden Temple in Kyoto which was beautiful, and which we have still yet to attempt (that reminds me, I must set up a time to do that puzzle with him, that was part of the gift!).

Anyway, we had expected to spend very little time at Yodabashi, but it was so huge, and we couldn't make up our mind about gifts for our friends or for Jared's purchase (he ended up not buying anything worrying about the fact anything he bought wouldn't be covered under warranty here in Australia), so by the time we got to our next destination of the day, the Meiji Shrine, it was quite late. We entered the shrine and there was a message booming over loud speakers that the shrine was closed or at least that's what we thought it said. Meiji is quite large and the shrine itself is a decent walk from the entrance, so we weren't sure if we should be bothering to walk that way, as we might not be let in, but we had got in the main gate, so we figured we may as well keep going. It was only about 4pm at this point, on a Sunday, so note to anyone visiting Meiji, the shrine closes early.

Meiji is a Shinto shrine (the original religion of Japan) dedicated to the deified spirits of the Emperor Meiji (who reigned from 1852 to 1912) and his wife Empress Shoken. The shrine is relatively less ancient then many in Japan, being complete in 1921, however it is one of the most popular in Tokyo.

This is the main Torii gate, separating the ordinary from the divine.



The shrine itself is located fairly deep into some beautiful forest land, and everything seemed very peaceful and natural as you walked for about 20 minutes towards the main shrine.

Here is the Torii gate to the main shrine.



I was fascinated by the copper roof here, not just because it's cooper, but because it's actually copper coloured. Apparently the temple is undergoing a revitalisation process that is replacing all the old copper roofing, so that in places the cooper roof is bright orange and other places it's the greened colour of oxidised copper (like the Statue of Liberty, I have just googled and found out this oxidisation layer is refereed to as Patina).





Here you can see where they are up to with the replacement. One part orange, the other part green!



The shrine itself was simple, in the style of many traditional Japanese shrines. A lot of wood and simple natural colours make it far less majestic and intricate than a Chinese Taoist temple, and far less colourful, but still beautiful in it's simplicity.







As you can see from this picture, the shrine was surrounded by beautiful forest, which , in the heart of the city of Tokyo I found very peaceful and beautiful!















We left the main shrine and made our way back out into the forested area to the entrance. The sun was setting by this point, and all the beautiful lanterns had been turned on.







On the way in and out of the main shrine you walk past this giant wall of Sake. These barrels of Sake have been left as offerings to the spirit of the Emperor Meiji, who is said to reside in the Shrine. Emperor Meiji is particularly revered by the Japanese, as he was the emperor who led the Japanese people on a path towards Industrialisation, and since Japan is one of the most Industrialised nations in the world now (who produces so much of the rest of the worlds top electronics and automobiles) I guess the Japanese feel they owe him a lot, hence all the sake!





I really wanted a picture with the sake, so here I am



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Day 25 - Part 4 - Dancing with Kawaii Monsters!

After our visit to the Meiji Shrine we made our way into the Harajuku District of Tokyo, which was only a short walk away. Many of you may have heard of Harajuku, as it's known for it's crazy and over the top fashions and it's famous "Harajuku Girls". As we hadn't visited Harajuku on our previous trip it was on the list of places that I thought might be interesting to visit this time around.

I can't quite remember how I came across the place we ended up visiting in Harajuku, the Harajuku Kawaii Monster Cafe. All I know is in the course of some reasearch into things to do in Tokyo I came across the Monster Cafes website, and quickly decided it was a place we had to visit. From what I could tell from the website it was definitely one of those "only in Japan" places, and it seemed to epitomise all the craziness and wackiness that Harajuku is known for.



The place definitely did not disappoint in that regard either, as it was every bit as over the top and crazy as it was advertised to be. It seemed to me that the restaurant has been designed by Disney Imagineers on LSD, because while there was so much detail and depth to the design, it was completely crazy and ridiculous bright. I think I made the remark upon arrival that the place looked like it had been dreamed up by Willy Wonka, and decorated by Katy Perry!

I'm not 100% sure of the premise of the place, but from what I understood, we were dining at a restaurant home of two Kawaii (cute) monsters. From what I could tell it seemed liked these monsters enjoyed candy and chocolate, and it showed in the choice of design. The food itself as well had all been designed to be colourful and kawaii (cute), the kind of things that these monsters would enjoying eating (aka anything bright and colourful!)

We entered and were shown to our table which, to my disappointment, was not in the colourful Mushroom Disco but the Milk Stand area. I had really wanted to eat in the Mushroom Disco (yes I had looked at all of the four seating areas in advance, and all of the crazy areas of the restaurant were named, in addition to the aforementioned there was the Bar Experiment and the Mel-Tea Room, as well as the "Sweets-Go-Round" entrance area). The place was already very busy at 5pm.



We could still see the Mushroom Disco easily enough behind us so I was pretty happy. As was Jared!



Anyway, before we ordered we heard something going on by the Sweets-Go-Round entrance area of the restaurant, so we headed over to have a look (we hadn't ordered yet, but it was early and we weren't too worried about getting food quickly). A show had begun on the Sweets-Go-Round Cake, a spinning platform where two adorable and kookily dressed "monsters" were dancing. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to this show, nor was there anything spectacular about it. The girls just wiggled in a very cute way to some monster themed pop sounding song, but for some reason the complete randomness of this adorable show was catching and soon everyone was clapping along and cheering as the Monsters "welcomed" us to the restaurant.









Before long, one of the Monster girls came down into the audience and the next thing I knew, she had grabbed my hand and I was lead up onto the spinning cake to dance along with the Monsters. I must have looked super enthusiastic, and hence I was chosen to join them. This became one of the highlights of our whole trip for me, as I got to dance crazily on a spinning cake with Kawaii Monsters, and how many people can say they've done that (unless perhaps they are Katy Perry!). It was so fun, lighthearted, silly and memorable!

Jared, as I was led onto the cake, began to freak out trying to both photograph and film the moment (on my iphone). He did an ok job I think! Below is the result (a video of my dance with the Kawaii Monsters and the photos Jared took).






This move that we all adopted at one point was some kind of version of the Thriller dance I think!





As I said, the crowd got really into it and I was cheered as I spun around dancing like a "monster", it was so much fun!

When we were done the Monsters asked me a few questions about myself (a very helpful staff member translated into English for me) including my name and where I was from and then the show was over, and everyone went back to their seats. I'm not sure how many times a night this cute little welcome show is performed, but all I can say is it really adds to the experience!

Before we sat back down to eat Jared took a few more pictures of the crazy, colourful restaurant.



























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Day 25 - Part 5 - Food, Colourful Food

Jared continued his photo tour of the crazy colourful fun Kawaii Monster Cafe.























When he was done I went to the bathroom, and after coming back I had to take the camera and go take pictures (which is a little creepy I know) because it was the most insane bathroom I've ever seen!





By this point we had ordered and were having a chat with a lovely American/Canadian couple at the table next to us about Japan, and all it's fun and wacky culture (we recommended they visit Robot Restaurant if they were enjoying the Kawaii Monster Cafe).

The food at the restaurant was just as colourful and crazy as the rest of the place, and every dish was designed in a way to make it cute and different. I ordered a salad that was probably the most normal dish on the menu (though it was called a Candy Salad, sadly there was no actual candy in it!) and these fabulous paint easel fries.



Jared ordered the colourful rainbow pasta (I believe it was a Fettuccine sauce)



We both decided to try the Experiment Cocktails (mine was non-alcoholic and referred to as a non-druggy experiment cocktail). These were basically the cocktail base and two vials of the other cocktail ingredients in a test tube that you got to pour into your cocktail while pretending to be a cackling mad scientist (well at least we did anyway!)











And then we got dessert! There were so many cool and colourful looking desserts it was hard to decide, but in the end we decided to share the Colourful Poison Parfait. I'm not normally partial to parfait or trifle or anything like it but this was honestly the best desert I have ever had in my entire life! There were so many different flavours it was like your taste buds didn't know what to do with themselves, even the decorative coloured creams were all flavoured differently! The ice-cream flavours were perfectly juxtaposed, and the fruit raspberry and cream mix at the bottom of the parfait was mixed with something that tasted a bit like special K (the breakfast cereal) and added a wonderful crunch to the whole thing. I didn't eat the cake or ice-cream cone (gluten) but Jared assures me they were also delicious! On top of that the whole dessert looked incredible, huge, bright, colourful, completely cute and definitely delicious!

Here it is!







I still sometimes have dreams about eating this dessert, and I would go back to the Kawaii Monster Cafe in a heartbeat, regardless of all the other fun and whimsical aspects of the place, just for one of these parfaits!

Sadly all good things must come to an end and before long dessert was finished and it was time to leave. Before we left I had a few photos with the Monster who'd pulled me up on stage to dance :) We did some fun "Monster" and "When in Japan" poses.







We headed out into the night, back onto the train to Shinjuku, extremely happy with all we had seen and done on our tour of places you can find "only in Japan"

I'll pick up in my next post for our very final day of the trip, and our visit to Hakone.

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Day 26 - Part 1 - Changing Plans

For our final day we had booked a tour through our favourite Tokyo based touring company, the Backstreet Guides to Tokyo. This tour was a full day trip to Hakone, a mountainous area which is part of the Hakone National Forest, that is about an hour and half our of Tokyo city and which is a very popular getaway destinations for Japanese from the big city. Our guide, Rie, was to meet us at our hotel in Shinjuku at 8:30am. She was a lovely lady, super talkative and very interesting. She had lived in Australia (on the East Coast) for about a year, as well as in the US and the UK, so her English was excellent, and she was far more outgoing than the average Japanese person, a point which she herself pointed out. Under her guidance we made our way to the Shinjuku Train Station, chatting along as we went. Part of the guided tour included all your train transfers for the day, so Rie had all our tickets, and we just had to follow her lead. We made our way to the Limited Express to Hakone platform for a trip aboard the "Romance car" (I kid you not, this was the name of the carriage!). The Limited Express trains are akin to Shinkansens in that you do need to book seats in advance for most of the cars. This was already taken care of for us, and so we found our seats easily. I asked Rie about the significant of naming it the "Romance Car", was it because people tended to feel romantic on a trip to Hakone, or was it because of some story we didn't know about a romantic incident that had happened on that train line. Sadly the answer was not as exciting but simply that the Japanese like the way certain English words sound (Romance is associated with classiness apparently) so that's why the train carriage was named the "Romance Car".

It took about 1 hour and 40 minutes on the train to get to Hakone region (or one of the towns in that district anyway, don't remember the name of it at this point as we simply transfered through). We then boarded another smaller local train to a town called Goza. This local train actually traversed the steepest and most winding track in all of Japan! When we arrived at Goza we were supposed to take a cable car over to the main Lake (Lake Ashi) and then take a boat ride on the lake. Unfortunately for us, the weather had been growing darker and more ominous looking the higher we climbed, and when we got to Goza Rie was informed that the Cable Cars were no longer running, and that all the boats had been cancelled, at least for the time being, thanks to the wind.

We were disappointed of course, but Rie said not to worry, we could easily adjust our plans and find some other fun things to do. Our main disappointment was that it looked like, thanks to the awful weather, we wouldn't catch a glimpse of the fabulous Mt Fuji, which is usually very obvious from most angles on Lake Ashi (the lake around which most of the towns in the Hakone area are situated). Rie said we could still see the lake on foot, catching a bus to one of the more southern towns and walking around the edge. We were all hopeful that the weather might clear up so we decided to leave that for the afternoon and for the time being, enjoy a tour of a garden in Goza. Goza was almost on the side of a giant hill, and a tram traversed from the bottom to the top of the town. The garden itself sloped down the side of the hill, so we caught the tram up the hill in order to make our way back down it (going down being much more preferable than hiking up!).

When we got to the top of the hill the weather was still looking menacing, but there was small blotches of blue sky, which made us hopeful. I have to apologies a bit for the quality of the pictures for these Hakone updates. Jared had, while fiddling with the camera the day before trying to get the auto focus (which was still playing up) to work, somehow switched the camera to take only JPEGs rather than RAW files, which means we couldn't edit these pictures as much (or as well) as we would have been able to do with a RAW image.





We made our way down into the garden, which was a beautiful French garden that sat overlooking the beautiful mountainous region that makes up much of Hakone. The pictures will really tell the story better than me here, so here they are:











The garden did look quite sparse, it being winter and all, but since we don't have many deciduous trees here in Australia we found it rather fascinating. And the views from the garden were just spectacular (and I imagine would have been even more spectacular had it not been so damn overcast!)



This fountain was my favourite part of the garden. It was huge, and created a beautiful foreground from which to view the mountain ranges behind.













I wanted pictures in front of the fountain, of course. We had informed Rie that we enjoyed photography so we'd probably delay her a bit doing that and she said that was fine, she was someone of an amateur photographer herself and had bought her Canon along with her to take photos too!



It was so nice to have a guide, for many reasons, they know the best places to go, and things to see, and how to salvage your day if every planned activity gets cancelled, but the one of the best reasons (I think) is to have someone to take photos of the two of us together! We never get that when we are normally out and about on holidays!

Here I am with our lovely guide Rie :)







Moving further down the hillside we came to the traditional Japanese garden. For us, this was far more exciting than the French garden, because we were in Japan and we wanted to see Japanese things, but apparently the locals preferred the French garden as it was foreign and different (I get that, I avoided the Australian section of the Flower Dome in Singapore because it was boring to me!).











The Japanese garden was beautiful, and looked a lot more wild than other Japanese gardens I've visited, though apparently the whole thing had been designed to look that way (according to Rie). Inside the Japanese Garden was a traditional Japanese Tea House, which wasn't actually open this particular day to serve tea, but which we were able to take a tour of none-the-less.

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Day 26 - Part 2 - The Skies Clear

When we arrived at the traditional Japanese Tea House it was closed, but it's matron advised she would show a group of us who had come through around, and give us a history of the place. Obviously the tour was in Japanese, so Rie translated for us. It was absolutely fascinating. Tea houses in Japan were originally not public spaces, but were owned by the wealthy as places to bring and entertain guests. This Tea House was one such place, and though it was now open to the public, the tea ceremonies that took place inside were once only shown to guests of the owner.

Of course, we did not see the tea ceremony, as the tea house was not actually open. However our guide did explain the ceremony (which Rie translated) to us, but of course I have forgotten all she said. I do recall that there was a bathroom in a basement style room in the tea house. It had no running water, and was mostly carved out of stone (a stone long drop and bath tub was what the room consisted of), however the bath would have had hot water piped from local hot springs that Hakone is famous for. This made this bathroom unique from other bathrooms of the same era, and the bath itself was larger than you'd expect, and overlooked an open window looking out over the mountains.

The architecture of the Tea House was beautiful, it was the epitome of a traditional style wooden Japanese structure, right out of Japanese history, and we felt really lucky to have been able to see it (we wouldn't have seen it had our plans not been altered by the weather).







The views out the windows of the Tea House were incredible!







Heading down we entered the last area of the garden, the tropical hot houses. It was like we were in Singapore all over again!



The weather in Goza was looking a bit better, so we were feeling a little more hopeful about our chances of seeing Mt Fuji as we headed out of town.



Our hopes were quickly dashed as we took a bus trip towards Hakone-Machi (the lakeside town where we would have taken our boat tour of Lake Ashi from). The weather seemed to have gotten greyer and mistier as we made our way towards Hakone-Machi (on the southern tip of the lake). We were a little disheartened but we decided that we should just eat lunch and then wait and see if the boats were running again after we'd finished. To that end we found a lovely restaurant overlooking the lake (though the views weren't that great with all the clouds and greyness - so I have no pictures). I enjoyed a really yummy stew, and some waffle fries, while Jared and Rie both had hamburger steaks (a really common thing in Japan, they like to serve hamburger patties without the bun but lots of gravy and call it a hamburger steak!). The food was wonderful, and we enjoyed having a great conversation with Rie over lunch. When we were done the weather still looked dismal, and it was obvious the boats were still not running, so we decided to take a walk around the lake to our next location, Ashigarashimo.

We had pretty much given up any hope of seeing Mt Fuji at this stage, and had consigned ourselves to bad weather for the rest of the day when, miraculously, as we walked towards the boat dock the clouds suddenly began to clear and blue sky could be seen! The boats that take tours on the Lake are themed like pirate ships for some reason, and are really beautiful up close. So we took a whole pile of photos of them.





















Some low hanging cloud was still blocking any views of Mt Fuji from this southern tip of the lake, but we were a bit more hopeful we might see it as we walked around the lake a little. Rie had an idea for a place where the view of it would be beautiful (if the clouds had moved by the time we got there) so we made our way towards it.



The location Rie had in mind was a house that and garden that had belonged to the Imperial Family, and was now open to the public. The house was set right aside Lake Ashi, and had a second level balcony with beautiful views over the lake. The whole thing was set in beautiful gardens, and this was the walkway as we made our way towards the house.



So, did we get to see Mt Fuji? All will be revealed in the next post!

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Day 26 - Part 3 - Miraculous Mt Fuji

So you may have guessed from the heading here, but as we approached the lake and the house from the gardens we could immediately see the beautiful Mt Fuji! I was so excited at this point (almost ridiculous excited because an hour early it was so grey and cloudy it seemed that it would be impossible that we'd see the mountain) that i think I was squealing. Rie was enjoying our excitement and was really glad that we'd got our wish to see the majestic point (the tour does specifically stipulate they don't guarantee you will be able to see Mt Fuji!).

There was an annoying wisp of cloud just over the Mountains peak, but we could still see most of it, so we were pleased! The contrast between the foreground (which was darker) and the snow capped mountain made these photos (that were only JPEGs) quite hard to edit, and so they didn't come out as brilliant as I would have liked (you'll find the ones of us with the mountain behind us a pretty bad for that reason, oh well! If you are an aspiring photographer, always take RAW pictures and edit them yourself, it makes for a much better photo!).



We headed up into the house and out onto the balcony for some fabulous views. I had to take a picture of this adorable carved owl first though!



And here is the wonderful, and somewhat miraculous, view!



As you can see the boats were running again (we didn't really have time to go back and catch one if we wanted to make our train home but it was good to have them out on the water for pictures).




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The sky was now completely clear! We couldn't believe it! We decided to make our way around to Ashigarashimo stopping for any nice views over the lake.



On our way, we saw this hilarious signage, which bought to mind images of Gandalf and a Balrog and the caverns of Khazad-dum inside the Mines of Moria :P :P


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Day 26 - Part 4 - Hot Springs!

Walking around to Ashigarashimo we came across another beautiful view of Mt Fuji.





This area of the Lake also overlooks the Hakone Shrine, also known as Hakone Jinja. You can see its floating water Torii gate in the next picture.











We would be catching a bus from Ashigarashimo back to the station where we would catch the Limited Express back to Tokyo, and we had about an hour until the bus arrived, so Rie suggested we enjoy a cafe that overlooked the lake, which had a bench out front with a foot spa that was filled with water from one of the Hakone hot springs. She had told us earlier in the day we could do this, time allowing, and we thought it sounded like a great way to experience Hakone's hot springs without having to actually get in our bathers and jump in one in the middle of winter! The hot springs are apparently very good for you, and your skin, which was an added bonus!

The entrance to the town itself sported a torii gate (not sure why exactly as they are usually placed to separate the everyday from the divine and I'm not sure what was divine about this carpark before the entrance to the town!





We were able to grab three chairs at the hot spring spa seating area of the cafe, and Rie and Jared went to order us some drinks and desserts we could enjoy while we sat! This is the hot spring 'bar' at the cafe:



And this, was our view as we enjoyed our drinks and desserts!



I don't have any other photos because we were enjoying ourselves relaxing, and we put the camera away! It was such a perfect moment on which to end our amazing trip, our last activity before all the travel began! We thanked Rie so much for a beautiful last day of our trip, and for showing us Hakone and it's beauty, and being able to change plans so we could appreciate it even without the cable car and boat rides.

Sadly, it was soon time to make our way back to the bus stop, and back to the train into the city. At the train station Rie decided to check if we could get any money back due to the cancelled cable car and boat experiences (something we hadn't even thought to ask) and the Hakone tourist guide people just gave her a whole pile of cash which she passed onto us!! You have to love the Japanese (they did not argue or banter they just handed over the money!)

We did a little souvenir shopping before getting back on the train and then made our way back into the city. We had really enjoyed seeing some of the natural side of Japan in Hakone (her forests and mountains and lakes) and felt like we'd had a really rounded experience of Japan, her ancient culture and traditions, her wacky and fun and silly side, and now her natural beauty too!

Of all the countries we visited in Asia, Japan was hands down our favourite. The culture, the vast array of things to do and see, and the Disney resort there are such wonderful things to experience! I also love the Japanese people, their customs and their culture. The Japanese we met during our stay were always so courteous, helpful, polite and warm, and their culture is one of mutual respect and courtesy that is so contrasting to China's culture.

That pretty much wraps up our trip. I didn't make any notes regarding our travel back to Australia. We made our way that evening to the Tokyo Hilton at Narita Airport, where we spent our final night and we flew back to Singapore the next evening, arriving in Perth in the afternoon the day after that. We flew in Business Class, so we were extremely comfortable and there were no travel dramas from what I can recall.

Overall, we had an incredible time on our Asian Disney Adventure! The Asian parks are incredible, and have so much to offer that is different from the US parks. We enjoyed immersing ourselves in other cultures and experiences how other nations 'do Disney' and we loved getting to experience cities and towns so completely foreign to us. Asia is a wonderful place, and doing all three parks in one trip is so easy, because of how closely situated they all are.

I hope that you have all enjoyed coming along on this trip with us. I've been ever so grateful for all your wonderful encouragement, comments and feedback. I do hope that the stories of our travels inspire some of you to take your own Asian Disney Adventure one day.
 
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I have been lurking along and felt compelled to say thank you for sharing your amazing beautiful photos of your Asian trip. I have enjoyed your style of writing. Makes it so interesting to read. Can't wait until your next adventure. Thanks again.
 
A wonderful trip report! Thanks so much for sharing! I've thought of visiting Japan many times and your story definitely makes me want to go even more :)

Thank you so much for reading along - I'm glad I have inspired you to want to give visiting Japan a go, it's a wonderful place

I have been lurking along and felt compelled to say thank you for sharing your amazing beautiful photos of your Asian trip. I have enjoyed your style of writing. Makes it so interesting to read. Can't wait until your next adventure. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for the kind words, I really appreciate them! I'm really glad you've enjoyed reading along! I hope we have another adventure soon but it may be a little while (we are hoping to get to the US parks in 2020 or 2021 with our niece as we've promised her we will take her) but nothing planned until then (we've decided we should adult and do some investing and grown up things like that!)
 
Every time I plan a trip I intend to do a trip report but I never end up completing it. I have to say thank you for all the effort you put into this, you've done an enormous amount of work! I've been reading along and eagerly checking back for updates and you never disappoint! I am hopeful that someday I'll get to head to the Asian parks and this report has ben so helpful and entertaining. Thank you so much for sharing!
 
Every time I plan a trip I intend to do a trip report but I never end up completing it. I have to say thank you for all the effort you put into this, you've done an enormous amount of work! I've been reading along and eagerly checking back for updates and you never disappoint! I am hopeful that someday I'll get to head to the Asian parks and this report has ben so helpful and entertaining. Thank you so much for sharing!

You are more than welcome - honestly to me doing these trip reports doesn't really feel like work, it's a great way to relax and re-experience my trip, and I always enjoy doing them, so I'm glad people enjoy reading them too!

I hope you get a chance to experience the Asian parks one day too!
 
Hi
I Have been following your trip report from the start ( lurking ).Just to let you know that it has been an enjoyable experience your writing has been great and Jareds photos have been excilent complimenting your report. Looks like Japan is a must do place to visit sometime in ones liftime.Thanks for taking the time to give us an insight into Tokyo Disney,Shangai Disney and Sinapore.Tokyo looks like the place though.Thanks for writing it.
 
Hi
I Have been following your trip report from the start ( lurking ).Just to let you know that it has been an enjoyable experience your writing has been great and Jareds photos have been excilent complimenting your report. Looks like Japan is a must do place to visit sometime in ones liftime.Thanks for taking the time to give us an insight into Tokyo Disney,Shangai Disney and Sinapore.Tokyo looks like the place though.Thanks for writing it.

Thanks for saying hi! I'm really glad you enjoyed reading along . You are right, Japan is a wonderful place to visit and I think a must do! I really enjoyed Singapore too and was really surprised by how much I liked Shanghai. Thank you for reading along
 
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your trip report and the visuals again stunning. What wonderful memories the two of you have made. Goodluck with your planning for your next trip in the distant future I will keep an eye out for your return.

Also as sad as it was to hear about your loss. You will both make wonderful parents when the time comes. I hope that sharing your personal story here has helped with your grieving. I wish you both continued happiness that we saw in this trip report- as they say the camera never lies, and we all saw the joy you experienced on this trip which is awesome. Thank you for the detail and time put into this trip report. It was fun while it lasted following along with some fellow Aussies:)
 
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your trip report and the visuals again stunning. What wonderful memories the two of you have made. Goodluck with your planning for your next trip in the distant future I will keep an eye out for your return.

Also as sad as it was to hear about your loss. You will both make wonderful parents when the time comes. I hope that sharing your personal story here has helped with your grieving. I wish you both continued happiness that we saw in this trip report- as they say the camera never lies, and we all saw the joy you experienced on this trip which is awesome. Thank you for the detail and time put into this trip report. It was fun while it lasted following along with some fellow Aussies:)

Thank you for your lovely and encouraging words! I really do appreciate the support! I'm really glad you enjoyed following us fellow Aussies on our Disney tour (I always love finding Australians who love Disney as much as we do).

Thanks for the kind words about our loss too. We are well on our way to healing, I think that sometimes it's easy to forget in the day to day business but we do look forward to, God willing, being parents one day. We have really appreciate the support given by people on the DISBoards, and elsewhere, as we've processed it all.

I do promise we will continue to be happy, as I believe happiness, despite circumstances is a key ingredient to a satisfied life. And I also promise there will be more trip reports in the future!!
 
Thank you for your lovely and encouraging words! I really do appreciate the support! I'm really glad you enjoyed following us fellow Aussies on our Disney tour (I always love finding Australians who love Disney as much as we do).

Thanks for the kind words about our loss too. We are well on our way to healing, I think that sometimes it's easy to forget in the day to day business but we do look forward to, God willing, being parents one day. We have really appreciate the support given by people on the DISBoards, and elsewhere, as we've processed it all.

I do promise we will continue to be happy, as I believe happiness, despite circumstances is a key ingredient to a satisfied life. And I also promise there will be more trip reports in the future!!

Good to hear and yes happiness is the key.
Looking forward to it.
 
Thank you for the wonderful and informative report, I finally was able to get back and finish it. Each time I tried the Dis would kick me off many times ugh!! Loved reading all about your Asian adventures!
 
Thank you for the wonderful and informative report, I finally was able to get back and finish it. Each time I tried the Dis would kick me off many times ugh!! Loved reading all about your Asian adventures!
I'm glad you really enjoyed the report and I know what you mean about DIS boards - I can never use them between 4pm and 6:30pm Perth time as they are always down!
 

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