Once Japan had been wrestled away from the efficient control of a large ruling class and safely returned to a single dictator under American influence and economic control, Tokyo went about the business of further expansion until the earthquake in 1923 pretty much wiped out half of the buildings and almost completely destroyed the Imperial Palace. The earthquake itself was not that destructive. Since Japan has always suffered large temblors, their architects and engineers wisely designed buildings to withstand quakes that would level the freeways of Los Angeles. What apparently was unforeseen was the immense conflagration that grew large enough to serve as a beacon for the interstellar vehicles gradually making their way to Roswell, New Mexico. After forty hours on fire the expanse of wood and paper buildings was no more.
Things were going pretty well for Tokyo until the US territory of Hawai’i, the pride of America’s unrelenting imperialist conquest, had the misfortune of being in the path of Japan’s unrelenting imperialist conquest. In addition to the 80,000 plus killed in the bombings of Tokyo, the Imperial Palace was once again beaten and battered. Hirohito was lucky enough to survive and witness two more of his cities laid waste by American (mostly German) ingenuity.
Today Tokyo is not so much a city, but a sprawl of several cities. Much like Los Angeles, but with an efficient public transportation network. There are almost 6000 people per square kilometer. That is about 15,000 people per square mile. That is pretty crowded. Los Angeles has about 3000 per square km. In addition to the aforementioned Imperial Palace, Tokyo is filled to capacity with the museums of Ueno and the shopping paradise of the Ginza. People who like to eat, and some do, can stuff their faces until they vomit in Akasaka, while Asakusa houses some of the world’s oldest traditions. I am referring to bonsai trees and Japanese calligraphy, not prostitution and man’s inhumanity to man. Those with an appetite for prostitution and illegal substances might want to visit Roppongi, and for pure surrealism Shinjuku is the place to be.
One could spend a month in Tokyo and still barely scratch the surface. So we went for three days. And since three days is really not much time to absorb such a massive city, we went to Disneyland. A few thousand years of history and culture just cannot compete with The Enchanted Tiki Room, Now Playing “Get The Fever!” (presented by Shinko Securities Co), which was closed that day.
Finding a hotel in Tokyo was easy. They tend to be pretty expensive and fill up rapidly during the summer season, but when your sole reason for visiting the country is to go to Disneyland you quickly separate yourself from the hoards of tourists and businesspeople there for more reasonable pursuits.
There are six hotels outside of the vast Disney complex at Tokyo Bay and one within each of the two Disney parks. Three of the adjacent hotels cater to Japanese and offer no English speaking staff or services whatsoever. The other two are among the most expensive hotels in Tokyo. The two hotels within the Disney parks are not actually that expensive, but there is a substantial waiting list. The final hotel to consider is a tiny piece of crap that sits beneath the on-ramp to the expressway and part of the JR station that serves Disneyland. It is relatively inexpensive and easy to book, but it is a tiny piece of crap that sits beneath the expressway and railway station. Beyond this ring of tourism are a very large bay and a lot of industrial property. Most of Tokyo’s hotels tend to actually lie within the city of Tokyo. We chose a hotel that had a free shuttle service to the park. I do not ordinarily like to give free publicity to hotels (and so far none have paid for product placement, oddly enough), but the Akasaka Excel Hotel Toyku is one of the best hotels I have ever visited. I have been to a few that should have been better, but for a reasonable price at the high season the Akasaka offered very clean rooms with bathrooms larger than a closet (not easy to find in Asia) and a friendly and efficient staff. It sits across the street from a JR transfer station, making it very easy to get to a wide variety of locations, and is in the middle of one of Tokyo’s many shopping and dining districts. The complimentary “Western” breakfast is not very Western, but it was pretty good. All this and only 30 minutes to Disneyland. They have an informative website, which I will post here as soon as they send me a check. I gladly accept Yen. Euros would come in handy, too. US dollars need not apply.
We took the first shuttle bus of the day to Disneyland, which is my only complaint about the hotel, although we easily could have taken a later bus. The bus arrives at the park one hour before it opens. There really is no need to be there a full hour before they let anyone in the gates. Even on a crowded summer day buying tickets does not take that long. Like every other Disneyland there are about a thousand ticket booths, so if you buy your tickets when the booths open you can look forward to waiting a good 45 minutes to actually get in the park. This tested the limits of my patience.
I am not as ignorant as I appear. I knew there would be one or two children at Disneyland. I knew that I would be spending a good deal of the day waiting in lines with said children. What I did not anticipate was 45 minutes in one of those mass lines where there really is no actual line and thousands of Asian children with backpacks. I do not mean to generalize, but all Asian children are exactly the same. And they are the worst. African children are the best. If I have to be surrounded by hyperactive children I would prefer they be African. European children probably come in second. American children are harder to classify since they are the offspring of everyone else.
I really wanted to be more tolerant of the little people that day, but after a good half hour of some little shit hitting me with his backpack I used some words that not even his hoodlum friends can teach him. I should point out that giving Asians that look that tells them you are considering lighting them on fire if they do not stop kicking the back of your chair is completely useless. Politely telling them to fuck off when they jump in front of you at the post office is equally a waste of time. Even if you say it in their language they will look at you as if you are crazy to think that arriving first makes any difference.
For reasons I do not understand, every child at the park had a backpack. I somehow doubt they all brought their homework. I saw a child barely old enough to stand of her own volition with a tiny backpack. Whatever small item she had in there could probably have fit easily in her mother’s massive handbag. The offending child behind me was considerably older and his backpack much larger and heavier. When I stood all I could stand and could not stand any more, and having no spinach in sight, I grabbed his backpack and told him that the next time it hit me, it was mine. He had no idea what I was saying, but my tone of voice and the fact that I was taller than everyone in his party combined pretty much did the trick. He soon sat down, as many people already were, and was of no further nuisance. A good example of how different Asian and Western cultures are is that none of the three adults with this child had any noticeable reaction to this incident. If some foreigner grabbed an American child’s backpack and threatened him in a foreign language, every American parent would intervene enthusiastically. In some ways Asians are more polite. I rarely see anyone yelling at someone in public, other than their natural shouting form of speech. Conversely, most of them seem completely oblivious to the fact that there are other people on the planet. Their words are polite, and this is where that reputation comes from, but their actions can be extremely rude.
Tokyo Disneyland is eerily similar to California Disneyland. I do not have engineering specifications or any statistics in front of me, but I think it is significantly smaller. The layout is pretty much the same, although the Haunted Mansion is in Fantasyland for some reason and Main Street is called the World Bazaar. The park is actually owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company, but they have agreed to do things the Disney way and sell only Disney merchandise. And Disney gets a healthy piece of the pie. All the signs are in English and the only written Japanese I noticed was on menus and price tags. Other than some decidedly Asian food at the restaurants there was little indication that this was in Japan. And there was an unusual preponderance of American flags with 23 stars. Apparently Disneyland was founded in 1821.
Part of Adventureland at this park
The first ride we went on was the Pirates Of The Caribbean (presented by Kirin Brewery). Since the park had just opened there was no line. Everyone else turned right to Buzz Lightyear and Toon Town. We turned left toward the good rides. As our empty (other than us) boat curved right and passed the Blue Bayou restaurant I felt for a second that I was in California. It was a strange feeling. I have never felt homesick. Not that I consider California home. And this was certainly not that, but for a brief time I was embraced by a satisfying familiarity despite being in a country in which I have spent three weeks my entire life. Maybe it was the Disney Magic™. Maybe it was those bloated animatronic rapists and pillagers. Whatever the cause, it ended as I explained to Pi Chi what was going on. Apparently they do not study mid 20th Century American fairy tale revisionist histories of 18th Century European criminals in Chinese schools. But I was relieved to see that pirates were chasing women as they used to in California before someone realized that PC could also stand for Pirates of the Caribbean. This was the ride as it used to be, except for one glaring difference. It ended entirely too soon. We saw the pirates invade and loot the town, selling women as sex slaves and generally partying like it was 1799, but there was no fight for the gold and no stabbed skeletons guarding the treasure. It just ended. There was not even an ascent and that final, tiny dip, which was strange since we went underground for most of the ride.
Translating the Pirates Of The Caribbean was pretty easy. Point to the guy being dipped into the well and the singing donkey. Translating the Jungle Cruise (presented by Nippon Oil Corporation) was a little more difficult. As far as I remember it was the same as the original, but I could not say if the jokes were the same. Since this was in Japan, and the guide and all but two in the boat (including us) were Japanese, everything was conducted in their language. The guide seemed to be doing an appropriately exaggerated job, but the Japanese are probably not the best audience for a zany comedy routine. They are not exactly well known for their public displays of ebullience.
At one point he told some joke that required audience participation. He was waiting for the audience to react and glanced at me (we were sitting in the front). I said, “Can’t help you there, buddy” and he gave me a thumbs up before moving on. I have no idea if he spoke any English, but I got a sense that he knew I knew what was going on when I told Pi Chi that we were seeing the backside of water.
The Haunted Mansion (presented by Dai Ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co) is an interesting concept in East Asia. To Westerners a haunted house is a frightening place where dead people make the walls bleed and steal children through television sets. In most East Asian cultures the dead are not to be feared, but revered. If the spirits of your ancestors are hanging around your house it is a good thing. Calling Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, both of whom would need an extra large backpack these days, is not necessary. A haunted mansion simply does not have the same effect as in Western cultures. Maybe that is why the Japanese put it in Fantasyland, the original kiddie land.
The Haunted Mansion also ended prematurely, as did a number of rides. Perhaps they did not have enough space to build the full ride, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of the rides that went underground never came back to the surface. Instead of an escalator in the exit or an ascent on the ride, many of them seemed to gradually return to the ground floor through the course of the ride.
The only other ride we went on in Fantasyland was it’s a small world (presented by Sogo Department Stores). Pi Chi loved it. I am sure she has never seen anything like it before. I found it oddly decorated. It was bright and colorful, and all the plastic children were singing and doing their respective cultural thing, but the ceilings were ominously bare and provided a jolting juxtaposition to the goings on beneath.
The first time I went on Star Tours was when it initially opened in California. The line for the ride was four and a half hours long. Being young and defiant, we skipped ahead in the line somewhat. One or two decades later the line for Tokyo’s Star Tours (presented by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co) was practically nonexistent. And this was mere months after the final Star Wars movie was released. Apparently the Japanese are unimpressed. While we were in line I told Pi Chi how to combat any motion sickness she might feel. I was being the self-proclaimed expert doing my public service for the less knowing. Like most self-proclaimed experts I was just making an idiot of myself. When we left the ride Pi Chi said that it was nothing compared to a motion simulator they have in Hong Kong.
Fewer than California Disneyland
The weather had my interest most of the day. When we arrived at the park it was typical Tokyo summer heat. Throughout the day it got cloudier. Some of the clouds were pretty dark and eventually there was no blue in the sky at all. I was certain that it would rain, and neither of us brought an umbrella. Being my usual penurious self I did not want to buy one at a Disney shop. It never rained and actually, although cloudy all day, was very nice weather. The clouds took away the heat and a good percentage of the crowds.
The Japanese are not known for their dry wit, so I would imagine the sponsorship of each ride was matched on purpose. In addition to a beer company sponsoring Pirates Of The Caribbean and a life insurance company sponsoring the Haunted Mansion, the Western River Railroad is sponsored by a company that makes toy trains, Alice’s Tea Party by a housewares company, the Grand Circuit Raceway by a tire company, and Star Jets by Japan Airlines.
Lest this become more tiresome than it already is, I have no intention of detailing every ride we experienced. I am pretty sure that we did not go on all the rides anyway. Some of the rides at California Disneyland were not here, like the Indiana Jones thing. It is next door at Tokyo DisneySea, which looks like it might be better than Disneyland. It is not a waterslide park. It is the same size as Disneyland and is unlike any other amusement park in the world, Disney or otherwise. We did not have nearly enough time to go there. But we did spend a good deal of time in the Disneyland shops. I am reasonably sure that California Disneyland has a few souvenir shops, but I cannot say I have been in most of them or that I have ever spent much time in any of them. I can say that I have been inside every single shop in Tokyo Disneyland. The World Bazaar (Main Street) is nothing but shops and restaurants, and we went inside each and every shop. Every land has its own shops based on a particular theme and we looked at all of them. It may be needless to say, but I will say it anyway. We did some shopping. When we arrived in Tokyo our luggage was probably half full. All the shopping at Disneyland and in Tokyo itself left our bags flowing over. Those of you with young daughters named Alison can expect to see a really kick ass gift this Christmas/birthday. I have not decided which.
The best moment of the day for me was during their version of the Main Street Electrical Parade, although I had resisted wasting my precious time on it as best I could. They have no Main Street but the parade still carries the name. The medley of every trite Disney song ever written was a recording, but it was amusing to hear familiar Disney characters speak Japanese. I had forgotten we were even in Japan by that point. As the sun set in the Land of the Rising Sun, the lights of the parade shone bright and Pi Chi and I stood there watching what was actually a pretty impressive display. The music, the lights, the soft breeze, and Pi Chi helped make this one of the most romantic moments I have ever experienced. I almost proposed to her right then and there.
Call it a momentary lapse of reason.
