Right Down the Middle – Yokohama/Tokyo – [10/04/2012]

I’m walkin’ right down the middle of Main Street USA,
You know it’s no illusion
it’s a dream that’s here to stay
The place was made with a magical plan
And right around the corner is a fantasy land
I’m walkin’ right down the middle of Main Street USA

Tell your mother, she’s not to worry, ‘cause no one’s rushin’ there’s no big hurry
You’re never alone or left out in the cold.
There’s always someone there to pick you up!

A lot of people rolled their eyes at me when I announced that I would be heading straight for Tokyo Disneyland when the ship docked in Yokohama. After all the logical thing would have been to try for Mt Fuji, or some other once in a life time experience that can only be found in Tokyo. But not for me. It was only the people who didn’t know me at all that reacted with any surprise

Shaughnessy has a seriously deep connection with Disneyland, she always goes.

Tokyo Disneyland is the third largest of the Disney Parks family behind the two ‘main’ parks in the states. It’s one of the most popular theme parks in the world. I was terrified that I wouldn’t make it in as the park has been known to get so busy that it closes its gates at noon! Needless to say, I was packed for the day the previous night and off the ship as early as humanly possible! The hardest part of getting to the park was navigating the cavernous subway, not speaking a word of Japanese (except having recently figured out how to say thank you), I was extremely grateful when the universe sent me a guide in the form of a little girl in a red Minnie-mouse costume. Though I’m sure her mother didn’t understand a word I was saying, she figured out we were going to the same place and let me follow them through the vastness of Tokyo station.

Despite the fact that the crowds in Tokyo Disneyland have been known to be so heavy that the lines just to get in wind back for hours. The weather and the crowds both blessed me. I walked straight through the entrance gate with no wait at all! The weather was stunning (at least for most of the day, more on that later). In fact, it was almost too warm. It was overcast when I left the ship so I had played it safe and wore jeans. BIG mistake. The temperatures were in the 80s, it was like walking through California heat and glaring sunshine.

I feel compelled to mention that as I sit here scribbling in my notebook (days like this I always carry one with me), the full scale tones of a Disneyland brass band are screaming through the air behind me. Somehow Disney can even make something as simple as lunch have just a touch of magic. I didn’t want to stop for lunch at all, but I know this kind of heat well enough to realize that if I didn’t stop for breath I would faint. Besides, the scallop chowder was to die for.

Anyway…

When I got through the main gates the first thing I did was look for a telephone. My cell apparently doesn’t work in Japan and I needed to call home. This is my birthday trip and I’m only here by myself because the people who should be here with me don’t have renewed passports. There was no way I wasn’t talking to my parents.

After that I had to think to remember all the theme park strategies that my dad used when we went to Disneyland when I was little. Check the parade route (which I forgot to do) if there’s only one parade go to it, but save your camera battery, remember you didn’t bring a spare (I was a dolt in that regard). Hit the E-Ticket rides early when the heat hasn’t peaked and the crowds are still somewhat light. Know where the water fountains are, and always keep your map within reach.

But before anything else, there was one ride I had to revisit.

The tradition of going on Peter Pan’s Flight before any other in the park began long before I was born. At least, I remember it already being in place when I first went to the park as a child. It’s my mothers ‘Oh-my-goodness-we’re-really-here’ ride, and to this day I can’t listen to the soundtrack without crying. I was lucky, the line was comparatively short. You see, despite the fact that Peter Pan’s Flight is only a five minute dark ride and as such shouldn’t rank anything more than an A-ticket, it usually has E-ticket line lengths. There is something about this ride that draws people to it, though no one can ever explain precisely what sets it apart from the other traditional dark rides in Fantasyland.

Once I’d shed my tears and returned from Neverland, I set about finding my way through the rest of the park. Trust me, that was a bit of a challenge. It’s true that I’ve been lucky enough to go to Hong Kong Disneyland twice within the last year or so, but that park is small and laid out differently. I haven’t visited a ‘normal’ Disneyland park in a long time, even Eurodisney is laid out differently than the main three. Needless to say my magic kingdom navigational skills needed a serious refresher course.

Since it was baking hot, I headed straight for the only water ride in the park that actually

serves to cool you down. I ended up braving an hour long line, as everyone else had the same idea! Not that Splash Mountain isn’t worth it of course, but I was smart and grabbed a fastpass for the next E-Ticket ride I attempted.

Since Hong Kong doesn’t have Splash Mountain I hadn’t visited Bre’r Rabbit or the other

residents of the Briar Patch since I was last in Anaheim (I think it was closed for maintenance when I went to Euro-Disney, because I don’t remember riding it). I’d forgotten just how steep the final drop is. Especially since they always stop you half way up,  as if to give you plenty of time to realize there’s only one way down!

This is what always bothers my mother about Splash Mountain, while you’re taking in all the colourful characters and humming along to the soundtrack, the back of your mind always knows that you’re moving up. Only when you hear the chain ratcheting up to pull your log flume up the final incline do you remember just how high that drop is.

Laughin’ place, we’ll show you a laughin’ place!

I’m almost ashamed to admit that the screw was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

But then we were back in the Briar Patch, and the rabbits, frogs and everyone else from Disney’s most conversational movie (all of the characters and the storyline of Splash Mountain hail from Song of the South), were warbling Zippity-Doo-Da…in Japanese.  Of course, I know that song so well that the English words just aligned themselves in my head

He’s had enough of moving on now
it’s where he’s born and bred in, the Briar Patch is where he’s ‘steadin’
Zippity Doo Da, Zippity –eh, wonderful feeling, wonderful day!

When I walked off Splash Mountain I found myself standing smack in a perfect spot for the afternoon parade. I would love to say that this was on purpose, but it was just one of those pleasant accidents. So I did what anyone else would have done: I sat down.

For the next 45 minutes I watched Mickey and Minnie and all the rest make their way down Main Street interspersed with dancers dressed as birds, flowers, animals and several nameless costumes (including what I think were supposed to be shooting stars) that could only ever be found in Japan. I didn’t film all of the afternoon parade, I had only one battery and I had something much more important to film later on, and enough of my precious battery power had already been wasted on a (failed) attempt to film Peter Pan. But I did get some of it.

As an aside related to the failed filming of peter pan – I really have to learn not to attempt to film dark rides. It never ends well.

Much to my surprise the line for Pirates of the Caribbean was almost non-existent, which is highly unusual for an E-ticket ride. So I spent an enjoyable few minutes watching black hearted buccaneers pillage Port Royale. This was my first time seeing the updated version that incorporates characters from the movie. While I’m still not crazy about the concept (why base a movie on a ride then go back and change the ride to fit the movie?), the changes have been made subtly and well. Besides Jack Sparrow never fails to meet with my approval.

Moving on…

To my own amusement I discovered that I know the script to the Jungle Cruise so well that I knew exactly what the guide was saying even though I don’t understand a word of Japanese.

Bottom’s up fellas I’m sure you’ll get the point…in the end

And up ahead we’ve got some lions, got some zebras got some gir

And now I want to show you something amazing, something spectacular, something you have never seen ever before in your life! Ladies and gentlemen: the back side of water!!

I must have watched my home videos too much, because I haven’t heard that speech in clear understandable English in a long long time. But some things stay in your mind, for some reason the script to that ride is one of them.

I missed the Halloween parade (sometimes one just has to make a choice! There’s too much to see!), in favour of attempting Space Mountain but even with most of the crowds at the parade the wait time for the normal line was still 40 minutes. So I grabbed a fast-pass to reserve me a time for later in the day instead. Having already missed half of the parade and too blocked by the massed crowds to get a good view of it anyway, I drifted over to Captain EO instead.

Yes, you read that correctly, this park still has Captain EO, or rather they have it again. I’m

not sure why they brought it back, as far as I know no other park has, but there it was, unchanged from 1987 when the then state-of-the-art film wowed the world with brand new 3D technology.  Today the technology doesn’t nearly measure up to some of the other attractions, like Mickey’s Phil-Harmagic that owe Captain EO their existence (3D had to start somewhere!), but I remember the first time I sat through what is essentially a really cool 3D Michael Jackson music video. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen at the time. Now it gives me a pang of nostalgia. Sitting in that theatre I was instantly transported to when this was the cutting edge of technology. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago. Odd that they should have such a blast from the past in the ‘land’ of the future.

I’m not quite sure when night began to fall, but suddenly I looked around and it was twilight. The park began to glow as all the lights on main street came to life. This is when I finally started to realize that I wouldn’t have all day. I still had to catch the last train home, and the park would eventually be closing. But still, I was in no hurry. I wandered through main street and finally purchased something from The Glass Slipper, the exclusive crystal shop that every park has that I’m usually afraid to breathe in. But you only turn 30 once, and Mom and Dad had said they wanted to get me something precious that I would remember. So I did. Originally I was going to get the Tinker Bell crystal image, as everyone – including myself – always associates me with Tink. But the Tinker Bell image didn’t have a nice enough face, and right next to her was Ariel. It seemed somehow more significant that on this particular birthday, I get a mermaid. Since all those years ago when I was wondering who I was and where I was going, my self-portrait was always a mermaid on a rock staring a ship.

Cliche as it sounds, I suppose I always did relate to wanting to be part of someone else’s world.

It was then that I realized I hadn’t been on the carousel. The carousel here is Cinderella themed, so is the castle, so there was no King Arthur’s sword to pose with this time, but the carousel is beautifully lit at night and somehow that always seems to be the right time to ride it. Also, the line is much shorter as by this point people have already started drifting home or have already started to stake out seats for the parade.

The carousel always seems to be moving slower than it actually is. When you’re outside it you can see how quickly it actually spins, but once you’ve mounted a horse it seems like time slows down.  I had a moment when my heart did a flip as I looked to either side of me and saw that the two horses next to me, carved hooves rearing and manes flaring, were empty. There’s a reason why riding a carousel alone always makes me miss my family, but it’s a bit much to explain.

That’s about when I looked at my watch and realised it was 6:45pm.

At this point I did something this trip that I have never before done: I ‘camped out’ for a full hour waiting for the parade to start.  When I was little my Dad would pick the spot we would watch the parade from, but somehow he always managed to find us a good spot without ever having to wait for an insane amount of time. When I’m by myself it’s something of a requirement to station myself along the parade route early otherwise I’m going to get trampled and end up seeing nothing. But I’ve never claimed my spot an entire hour early before.  Actually I spent most of the hour writing about the rest of the day! Which was a challenge given the dim lighting. But this parade was very very precious to me, precious enough that it was worth sitting on the hard sun-baked concrete for an hour. Time dragged, I thought that hour was never going to end. They strung rope barriers up in front of us to prevent anyone from running into the parade route, and several cast members were making their way up and down the street trying to ramp up the crowd. Every fifteen minutes there would be a park wide announcement reminding anyone who wasn’t smart enough to come early what they were going to miss if they didn’t get themselves to main street right then.

And thank you Dad, for teaching me precisely how to find the sweet spot for viewing a parade, even when I didn’t really realize I was looking for it. I was sitting right at the curve of the main fantasyland causeway. Nothing blocking my view, and with an unobstructed line for the video camera.

And then suddenly, all the park lights went out. Not dimmed. Went out. Main Street became dark except for the tiny green lights that indicated the parade barriers. And an electronic cascade of notes rippled through the air, and a voice I hadn’t heard for seventeen years echoed through the park. Altered only slightly (so that it referenced Tokyo specifically and the specific name of the parade) from the original version I had played and

replayed so many times.

Ladies and gentleman boys and girls, Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular pageant of nighttime magic and imagination, in thousands of sparkling lights and electrosynthomagentic musical sounds – the Main Street Electrical Parade!

And then the tears came. I’m pretty sure you can hear me crying on the video I was taking. The floats have been updated to incorporate newer movies, and some of the classics from the original aren’t there. For example, in Tokyo Alice rides a giant grinning Cheshire Cat instead of sitting daintily on top of a giant mushroom, and obviously Tokyo has no use for the old ‘celebrate America’ finale float, but never the less, the music is still the Baroque Hoe-down and Pete’s Dragon still glows the same bright green. Only now he turns invisible every so often. And the parade still opens with the Blue Fairy, leading a giant lit-up version of the Casey Jr circus train.

No matter how much it changes, this is my parade.

The last time I saw the Electrical Parade was when the original ‘faded away’ in 1996 in California. I was 13, and my family made the trip specifically to see the parade one last time. The final season proved to not be truly final, as the parade was returned to Disneyland Resort when California Adventure opened. It was supposed to stay there, but it was (for reasons unknown) ‘loaned’ to Florida for one of their seasonal celebrations and last I heard it was never coming back. But back in ’96 everyone believed that the parade was gone for good. The public reaction was massive. The park sold out, having to close its gates for one of the few times in its history, the crowds were just too much. I wrote letters to park management begging them to change their minds, I bugged them so much that the responses I started getting stopped being form letters and started being actual responses.

But none of that is really why the parade is so very dear to my heart. That light-bulb driven trip to California was the last trip I took with my family. Something went off-kilter somewhere along the way after that , and I grew up more quickly than I expected. There were bills to pay and responsibilities to handle and before I knew it, the trip that is so carefully preserved in our family scrapbook was far too long in the past. But I remember sitting on that curb on Main Street nearly seventeen years ago, watching the great golden-lit bald eagle that serves as the final float in California retreat one last time, crying like I didn’t know how to stop. Maybe I knew that a very precious part of my life was changing in that moment, maybe I didn’t. I’ve never been quite sure. But somehow, it’s all tied up in that parade.

I never in a million years honestly thought I’d see it again.

Half way through the parade my video camera memory ran out, and I frantically had to delete something, anything, to make room for the important stuff. In the meantime, I had my still camera, and some of the shots I managed to get actually almost came out clear. I suppose that’s an improvement from the camera my family carried last time, which never did respond fast enough for the shots not to come out washed out.

That parade alone made this the best birthday ever.

Swept up in the crowds after the parade, (though I was tempted to follow it, as many people often do), I found myself directly in front of the Haunted Mansion. Currently it’s not actually the Haunted Mansion at all, it’s The Haunted Nightmare Before Christmas Mansion, something that all the parks do every Halloween season. While I had heard of the make-over lots of times, this was my first time actually experiencing it. Unfortunately I can’t say I’m a big fan. While it is impressive that they re-do the entire ride every year, adding several high-quality figures to depict the new storyline, I’m not a big fan of Nightmare Before Christmas to begin with, and the make-over takes a really good classic ride and makes it just silly and cheesy. I mean the whole point of the Haunted Mansion is that it’s supposed to be a little bit camp, but a little bit spooky too. From the moment I saw that the make-over featured a grinning Jack Skellington staring down from the ceiling of the stretch room where there is normally a hanging victim, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. Thankfully the make-over isn’t permanent, it’s just a Halloween thing. The mansion will be back to its normal ‘creepy crypt’ in November.

After managing to get some truly amazing shots of the castle by night (something that is not easily accomplished trust me!),  I headed  for the Mark Twain riverboat at around 9pm. The riverboat was sitting all lit up on the Rivers of America like something out of a dream. The Twain isn’t a hugely popular attraction as its slow moving and quiet. It loans itself more to the older visitors to the park, and to those of us who need a rest after running around all day but aren’t quite ready to leave yet. There’s an incredible sense of peace that comes when you’re standing at the stern with the steam billowing over your head and the sound of the paddle-wheel against the water far below you. Disneyland by twilight remains one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had. From the deck of the Mark Twain you could see the entire panoramic skyline of the park, the rose-coloured castle just rising over green of adventure land.

Linesman sound off!

Mark one!

Mark two!

Maaaaark Twaaaaaaaaaain!

I felt very at peace with the world in that moment. Still a little lonely, but subtly content within myself. This is who I am, I said to myself, who I was, and who I ever shall be, and if someone doesn’t like it – well…I suppose that isn’t my problem.

It was then that I felt the first droplets of rain.

At first this did not concern me, it was only a light drizzle, and a little rain wasn’t going to hurt me. It was actually a nice change after the scorching heat of the day. However, by the time the riverboat had completed its loop around the rivers of America and I had descended to the lower deck to disembark what had been a gentle drizzle had become a very heavy rain indeed. Still it was nothing worse than a bad rainstorm at home. The problem was that I didn’t have a coat. Plus the rain was surprisingly warm, so wearing a coat wouldn’t really work anyway. So I bolted across the park to make the time slot for my fast-pass to Space Mountain. But by the time I got there, the rain was getting substantially harder, I huddled under an umbrella provided by the couple in front of me who were – as people always are – shocked that I had attended the park alone.

We all managed to drip dry somewhat as we made our way to the Space Mountain launch station. The fast-pass bypassed the worst of the 40 minute lineup, and let us board our rocket in perhaps twenty minutes. Considering that this is probably the most popular ride in the park a twenty minute wait isn’t bad.  I do love Space Mountain, though I was never allowed to go on it when I was little (I was TOO little). I think I have adopted my mother’s reason for loving the ride. The whole time you’re flying around in that building, all you can really think is

Total faith in the machinery; just have total faith in the machinery

That’s why I don’t care for the version in Hong Kong, because you can actually make out the tracks, and that kind of takes away some of the fun for me. This time though, was exactly like I remember the original being.

By the time I got out of the ride though, what had been just rain was something well beyond a torrential downpour. I have never seen rain like this in my life, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face! You could barely see across the street to the nearest shop, and people would make mad dashes in groups over there because the shops sold rain gear.  I never thought I’d be so grateful for a disposable rain-jacket.

Amusingly all I could hear in my head as I sloshed across myself was the voice from the tram right at Universal Studios in California:

Uh-oh, it’s raining and when it rains in California we get FLASH FLOODS!!!

In all seriousness, it was then that I realized the answer to something that had been puzzling me all day. The park has no ‘streets’, well, it has streets, but no curbs, not even along the parade route. The entire park is built almost completely flat. This was very puzzling at first. But when you’re up to your ankles in water and the rain shows no sign of letting up, it becomes very clear why the streets have to be flat. If the park had ‘real’ streets it would be susceptible to very real floods. The rain is also why the World Bizarre (which is just Main Street by a different name), has a massive glass roof over the top.

This is probably the only time in the history of my going to theme parks that I have been scared. Not just scared, outright terrified. You see, there is almost nothing worse than being in a torrential rainstorm when you wear glasses. You can’t see with your glasses on because of the rain, and you can’t see with your glasses off (because if you could you wouldn’t need glasses in the first place!). While part of me wanted to look at being caught in the rain as a big adventure, the part of me that was only aware of the fact that it was night-time in a foreign country and she couldn’t see somewhat won out.

Especially when there was a gigantic flash (which I wish I’d seen properly as I’m pretty sure it was right behind the towers of the castle) and thunder growled across the soaked park like an angry tiger.

In another moment of absurdity I was suddenly reminded of Mary Poppins, ‘what a shame Bert, all your fine drawings’…

My mind does strange things.

Eventually I did manage to find my way to the train station. This was when I realized just how amazing Japanese culture really is. They will go out of their way to help a total stranger without any consideration for the fact that we don’t speak the same language, that we can’t really understand anything the other is saying, just because it’s obvious that that person needs help. If it weren’t for the constant assistance I got from locals today I don’t know if I would have even figured out how to buy my train ticket! Let alone navigate my way to familiar ground.

As torrential as it was, the rain only lasted about an hour, by the time I managed to make my blind way to the subway station it had already started to let up, and by the time I returned to Yokohama the only sign that the storm had ever been was the glistening wet pavement. I found my way out of the cavernous Yokohama train station and managed to find directions to a taxi. I admit that it felt nice to just sit down somewhere dry!

When I arrived at security the officer on duty just looked at me, obviously trying not to laugh.

It rained…a little..

I can see that

Never before have I been so glad to slip into a hot tub!

Despite the rain, despite the moment of getting lost, despite the fact that at the end of my day every muscle in my body was aching, I think this goes down as probably the best birthday ever.

One thing became very clear to me though, as I was walking around Adventure land in the evening. I’ve been lucky enough to visit all but one (two if you count Toyko DisneySea I suppose) of the Disney resorts. They’re all different; they all have their own unique character. But in my heart, no matter how many times I go to Hong Kong, or Tokyo or wherever else I might visit Mickey, they’re all pale shadows of the real thing.

One of these days, I really need to get back to where it all started…

I think, for me, it still comes down to what the afternoon parade this season was themed on…in the end of everything, no matter where you are, your heart will lead you home.