New Year's in Tokyo

Hey friend,

Launching straight into it today. So we left off with our little travelling band getting on a shinkansen in Yamagata prefecture. After some delays due to snow, we were whisked down to Tokyo and arrived quite late at night. I'd arranged to stay with my high school friend Risa, but that first night she was at a business dinner and it got complicated, so my friends very kindly let me crash on their Airbnb sofa. We traipsed across Tokyo to their accommodation and settled in.

Magical Disneyland adventures coming up; strap in.

The first morning in Tokyo, we headed out for some brekky at Starbucks with my enormous case in tow, as I was switching to my friend's place later in the day. We headed to Akihabara to try to find a locker for the case, but the station was all full - classic Tokyo, really. The next option was to try Tokyo Station, so I split from my friends and headed to another Starbucks to hang out and wait for Risa to let me know when to meet up. Then I headed to Tokyo Station and managed to store my case there, but only until 8pm, which would inconveniently mess with any dinner plans we intended to make. The whole day was a mess, really. 

Anyway, after leaving the case I headed back to Akihabara and met up with the gang, and we headed to Kanda Myojin, a beautiful red shrine that's famous for its anime character mascots, and for being a place to bless your technology. Not a joke; people take it very seriously. It was a beautiful day, and we had a lovely time wandering around there. It was late in the afternoon, which unfortunately meant that I had to split from them again shortly after, to go and get my case from Tokyo Station and make the trip out to Risa's station, which required a change at Shibuya. I did get to try some limited edition Christmas-themed Krispy Kreme on the way, though, so I suppose the day wasn't a complete write-off.

If you've ever watched School Idol Project, these are The Stairs.

Krispy Kristmas. That's almost dad-joke levels of bad. I'm not even sorry.

The next day was a lazy start. I'd sat up chatting late into the night with Risa (we only get to catch up once every few years or so, so yakking for hours every time is inevitable, really), so we had a sleep in then went to get some lunch. I really wanted to partake in the strange Japanese tradition of eating KFC at Christmas, so we headed for one near the station. It was my first KFC since moving to Japan, and it didn't disappoint! Fun facts: Japan is the third highest consumer of KFC in the world. The tradition of KFC at Christmas started in the 70s as a marketing campaign, and it stuck. It's very common for families to place an order for the "Kentucky Christmas" box, and to pick it up on Christmas Eve. So strange.

♥♥♥

After lunch, I met up with the gang in Harajuku, where we went shopping in all the crazy fashion stores, ate some of Harajuku's famous crepes, and had amazing Mexican for dinner. 

Harajuku's famous shopping street, Takeshita-dori, was absolutely packed during the New Year period. 

There was zero context for this, so I found it very confusing.

Renee's cocktail was literal fire and pain. Devil cocktail.

The next day was Disneyland day! We were up and out early, and I met up with the gang at the gates, after an hour and a half on trains. Tokyo is indescribably enormous. You really need to experience it to understand. Geographically, where Risa lives looks pretty close to Maihama, the location of Tokyo Disney Resort. But it's still three trains and a couple of transfers to travel between them. A complete loop of Tokyo's inner metropolitan line, the Yamanote Line, takes about an hour alone. So you really have to plan your sightseeing in Tokyo before you arrive; it's not the sort of city where you can just rock up and expect it to fall into place. It's just too big.

Anyway, tangent aside: Disneyland! In brief summary, Disneyland is long lines for exciting rides, amazing parades and character shows, delicious and adorable Disney-themed food and snacks, a million billion photo opportunities, crowds of genuinely joyful people, and tired feet at the end of the day. You can't help being in the best mood in the world when you visit, even if you were having the worst day to begin with. I love it. Now enjoy a bunch of photos (shout out to Megs for sharing a bunch of her pics with me!).

The character parade "Happiness is Here" actually somehow manages to fill you with the most ridiculous happiness you could possibly imagine feeling. I can't even describe it.

Mickey Mouse shaped food! (Tomorrowland Terrace, if anyone's Disney bound and wondering.)

Had to share this nightmarish snap of Pinocchio, because I just can't suffer this terror alone. It's like he's staring hungrily into your soul.

The "Dream Lights" electric night parade boasts millions of individual bulbs, which lavishly adorn a huge number of enormous, intricately designed character floats. Pretty impressive.

I will always be willing to line up for 2 hours just to enjoy Splash Mountain. ♥

Cute osusume (special, limited item) matcha dessert in a souvenir glass, with unique Japanese New Year's designs.

Stunning Frozen float.

Chicken nugget, for clarification.

Would like someone to explain to me why the Disney princesses are riding a giant swan. I don't remember a giant swan character in any of their stories. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

Mickey burger is actually extremely delicious, for park food. Definitely recommend it!

Hilariously failed castle backdrop jump. Please note how astonishingly elevated Lacusta somehow managed to get. He's like a rocket to the moon.

And then a fireworks finale, as if the whole darn place wasn't already magical to the point of nausea.

The next day was New Year's Eve, and it was a slow start. I met up with the gang again and we bounced over to Shinjuku for some dinner at an izakaya, followed by video games and purikura at SEGA. After hanging out with the giant Godzilla head and watching him shoot lazers for a bit, we wandered over to Golden Gai (via a cat cafe for a quick visit) to enjoy some drinks before the countdown. Golden Gai is a rabbit warren of tiny bars, all packed in and crouching over narrow twisty lanes. Each bar only seats about six to eight people. I learned a bit about them when I visited later with my parents. They were originally constructed to entertain American soldiers after the Second World War, and also to provide jobs for the struggling locals. Gradually they were reclaimed for the locals, who started to increasingly frequent them during the era of the economic miracle. Anyway! We took our friends to our favourite little bar, an upstairs gem that plays cosy jazz and always has friendly bartenders, to enjoy some drinks and watch the famous New Year's Eve performance (loads of Japanese stars participate; it's kind of like Carols by Candlelight). 

Matchy-matchy New Year's outfits. Matchy-matchy is the Thing To Do in Japan. Whenever an opportunity arises, I will gleefully partake in this weird and delightful modern tradition.

I've said this before, but I feel strongly about it so I'll say it again. Fried Camembert should be illegal. It's just unfairly delicious.

These weird cocktails required you to pour a packet of popping candy into the drink before consuming. I can't remember if I thought it was nice or not.

Popping candy. It's name is "Pachi Pachi Panic", and this one is grape flavoured.

Quick fix of animal love before the party continued.

At about 11 o'clock we jumped on the train and hopped over to Shibuya, where we joined an enormous crowd being directed by police officers down from the platform, through the station and outside. We joined the throng and flowed down into Shibuya's famous Scramble Crossing. I couldn't even tell you how many people were there. Thousands? Tens of thousands? We had zero control over where we were going. It was like being in a strong current. We went down as far as we could and thought we were in the clear to settle in and prepare for the countdown, but people kept coming down behind us and pushing us all further and further down. We ended up squashed in an enormous crowd and started getting crushed. It got scary when we realised we couldn't move anywhere, and we had no control over the strength of the swelling around us. Sometimes we would be pushed so fiercely in one direction that our feet would leave the ground and we'd almost fall. The danger, of course, was that if we fell we would instantly be trampled, so we fought back as hard as we could to stay upright. 

I will forever be impressed that a bunch of Italian guys managed to climb up poles like this and sit up high over the crowd with their legs dangling. How did they even get up there?

The countdown was a wild blur of cheering and confetti. Then the crowd got rough. Eventually we were actually forcibly separated and I was isolated from the others. I forced my way to the edge and grabbed onto a street pole, where I clung for a while until the crowd dissipated enough to be able to walk normally again. When we finally found each other again, Megs had lost a shoe (we never found it) and everyone was a bit shell shocked. We left quickly and slowly made our way back to their Airbnb, which took forever because half of Tokyo was trying to use the trains. In all, New Year's at Shibuya Crossing was an extraordinary experience, but I don't think I'd be up for it again anytime soon (read: ever).

Trying to get into Shibuya Station was one of the worst experiences ever.

People waiting on the platform for the next train.

We slept most of the next day, then crawled to Maccas for lunch. Even though none of us had gotten drunk the night before, it was like we all had the worst hangover in history. I think our bodies were still in a bit of shock from the crowd. So it was a slow one. After lunch we made our way to Asakusa to experience hatsumoude, the first official and important shrine visit of the year. There were loads of people at Senso-ji too, but the crowd control there was great, so even though we were in a big crowd again, we were constantly flowing along, so it was fine. There were so many people there that the police were only letting in a certain amount of people at a time. Nakamise-dori (Senso-ji's market street, leading to the main shrine) was literally a river of people; you couldn't get into any of the stalls. You just had to keep walking. 

It was a beautiful evening; blue skies and crisp winter air. The striking red of the temple looked stunning against the sunset. Megs and I bought some omamori (lucky charms), then we wandered the street food vendors set up like a festival behind the temple. 

Visiting Senso-ji together and buying omamori was our dream for so long. Achievement unlocked. ♥

Daruma dolls are a Japanese tradition, and they help you achieve your goals! You come up with two goals, one for each eye, and when you achieve one, you draw one eye in. The idea is to give him two seeing eyes, obviously.

Orange juice from inside a literal orange seems exciting until you only get a mouthful and a half of orange juice for five hundred yen.

Lucky cats (manekineko in Japanese) for sale during the New Year's celebrations at Senso-ji.

We finished off the day with a quick visit to Ikebukuro, where we shopped at the enormous Pokemon Center store in Sunshine City and feasted on Japanese curry at Coco's Curry House. Knackered, we called it a night early and headed for bed.

Is there such a thing as too much Pikachu? Asking the big questions.

Japanese pork katsu curry from Coco's Curry House.

The next day we had an early start, because we were heading to DisneySea. It was my first time visiting and I was so excited. They say Disneyland is more for children, and DisneySea is better for adults (you can drink beer there, for example). Unfortunately I had a terrible start to the day. Risa lives about half an hour from Shibuya Station on a local line, so I'd gotten up early to get a train in, only to get to Shibuya and realised I'd left my wallet back home. So I had to get a train back out, run back to Risa's, grab my wallet, run back to the station again, and get another train to Shibuya. The first time I'd been lucky and had scored a rapid service, but the second train was a local. So it took me ages to get back to Shibuya. There, I changed to the loop line and caught that for another half hour to Tokyo Station. There, you have to walk through the station to the Keiyo Line, which takes about fifteen minutes (no exaggeration). Then it's another half hour to forty five minutes to Maihama Station. 

Long story short, I spent literally my entire morning on trains and didn't get out to DisneySea until midday. I was not a happy camper. 

Luckily, the rest of the day at DisneySea was amazing. It's hard to describe DisneySea. It's a bit of a bizarre place. A lot of it seems irrelevant and unrelated to Disney at all. But then they also have the most amazing sets for the Little Mermaid and Aladdin worlds. Seriously amazing. The effort put into DisneySea is unparalleled. Again, we had to wait hours to ride the best attractions (but it's definitely worth it), the food is cute and wonderful, there's tons of photo opportunities, and heaps of souvenirs. DisneySea, however, whoops Disneyland when it comes to evening light shows. Disneyland has the big Dream Lights parade and fireworks over the Cinderella castle, but DisneySea has a fantastic light show on the harbour, with barges carrying the characters, transforming sets (complete with flamethrowers), and huge fireworks. Hands down best night show I've ever seen. I'll stop raving on. Have some more photos.

The train connecting the Disney Parks together has Mickey Mouse windows! Disney doesn't skimp on the attention to detail.

Hello, Venice. What brings you here? (No, really, why are you here? I'm confused and don't understand.)

'Sup, Rafiki? (This one's for my bro.)

Ship, for reasons.

The Indiana Jones ride was actually quite excellent.

Duffy, the mascot of DisneySea, lives in this town, apparently.

My excitement was very difficult to contain. The Little Mermaid sets are just beautiful.

There's a gift shop inside that enormous whale.

Shell-shaped burger from Triton's Kingdom.

I think Agrabah wins best set design. Good lord, it's amazing.

Caramel popcorn, a Disney Resort tradition.

I don't think the giant Woody head that consumes park-goers is meant to be terrifying, but it definitely is.

The most amazing, stunning light show. Words can't describe it. You just have to go and see it.

And we still managed to watch the Disneyland fireworks from DisneySea. Perfect end to the night.

And that's it for our New Year's celebrations in Tokyo! After that we headed south, so that will be coming soon. Hope you're well! I heard the harshest winter in decades is coming to Australia, so keep warm! If you're curious about what I've been watching lately (not sure why I always bring it up), I finally finished Gossip Girl for the first time (let's not talk about how weird the second half the final season was...) and am currently working my way through Friends, which is bringing me endless joy. Anyway! Talk soon. x