Bottles of Mana

Our adventure began at an un-godly hour for any human being to be alive: 5:45 AM. My friend and I lived about an hour and a half away from Disney Sea by train, so if we wanted to spend all day there from opening to close and get our $62's worth, we would have to become inhuman and wake up that early. 

It was raining and very cold that day, out of all the days we could have gone but decided not to. Everyone tried their best not to text one another and ask  if Disney Sea was really happening. But it was. There was no stopping Disney Sea. I swore it would be fun no matter what.

The entire country of Japan decided to be at the train stations at 7 AM, so moving up the stairs to each platform was probably the most time consuming process. The crowd was moving as if everyone forgot they had legs and wanted to become snails instead.

Luckily, the closer I got to Disney Sea, the more excited I became despite the shitty weather. By the time we got there, I was no longer phased by the rain or cold wind, and ran to the entrance like a 5 year old. However, this did not go the same way for everyone else. The rest of my friends were still pissed at the rain and continued to contemplate what on earth had lead them to think that going to Disney in the rain was even kind of a good idea. No one could fathom what source of energy I could have possibly stolen from.

We lost our friend Tomo some how at the ticket booth. Even though he already bought an online ticket which allows you to go straight through. Which made no sense. How we lost him was also a mystery, considering he is more than 6 feet tall.



After re-acquiring our friend Tomo, Tower of Terror was our first stop! It is the most popular ride at Disney Sea, so anytime other than the time we chose to go would have been impossible. Unfortunately for us, everyone at the park thought the same exact way. 

Japan is very serious about their Disney. Locals told us we needed to be prepared for being at Disney like we needed to be prepared for war. We didn't believe them though. Nothing could be worse than America, we thought. We were wrong of course. The cold wind and rain phased no one. High School girls wore their school uniforms for discounts on tickets. Food was bought prior to the wait in line. Everyone had their Mickey Mouse ponchos from years ago. I know this because I really wanted a poncho with Mickey Mouse ears on them like everyone else, but the cashier told me they were from another year and that the design was old and outdated. These people with their outdated designs were thoroughly prepared and kept their stupidly cute ponchos. I glared at them for a while in jealousy.




Meanwhile, the six of us suffered as our optimism was slowly devoured by the sharp cold teeth that was the cold wind and rain. At the beginning of the line, we were ready to stand for a million years if we had to. We were going to get on this ride even if we had to beat people up for a spot. An hour later, the rain and wind got stronger than we had expected it would, and our will to senselessly beat people if we had to came to a freezing halt (ahaha....) We were about 2/4 of the way there and none of us were dressed for what we thought was weather coming from Russia. Which we found, out of sheer boredom, is coldest place in the world.

3/4 of the way there while still outside, I began to create scenarios of how worse things could have been to try and make everyone feel better.





It was not very effective. 

In the 3 hours that we waited, my friends eventually figured out what happens when I haven't eaten in more than 5 hours.




 My previous excitement and immunity to the rain and wind were no longer a thing. Jokes were no longer funny. And I started to space out more than usual. It didn't take long for one of my friends to figure out I was just hungry, so he started to plan out where we should go and eat after the ride. My ears perked like the hungry dog I was and my spacing out about how hungry I was turned into spacing out about all the food I would be able to eat once this ride was over.

Everything after the eternal wait of that line seemed like a piece of cake. Nothing could stop us. We proceeded to go on every single ride after that (stopping for snacks of course. I even had a strawberry churro!! Only in Japan will you ever find a strawberry churro...unless there's more places with strawberry churros??? I must find these immediately.) We waited 3 hours! We were now fit to climb mountains if we wanted to. We all felt invincible. 

Triton's Kingdom was my favorite area to be in.



I walked into this beautiful grove of lights, rides and ocean designs and stood there with sparkling anime eyes. We went on all the baby rides and I took lots of pictures 8^) The best part was Ariel's theater show. I can't tell you how hard I laughed while I watched this show. Ariel was played by a foreigner, which wasn't really all that surprising but the catch was they had her lip sync Japanese. It would've been cool if her lips actually matched the Japanese recording. You would think that maybe if she was working there long enough she would have at least tried to make that happen. Instead, she just kept moving her mouth even when there was no sound.

The real catch was the story the characters all played. It started out with the song "Part of Your World." Mind you, this song was sung with the English recording. Why? I think that was every Japanese audience's question. A little girl in front of us asked her mom what Ariel was singing or saying and the mom had no idea. Japanese Ariel complained about wanting her human feet, and wanting to go up with the humans. So, as the story goes, Ariel goes to Bi-lingual Ursula for help. Ursula asks her to sign the document to get her brand new human legs. Sebastian then comes and says "Ariel! Why would you want to go up to the human world?? Look at all your friends here! *points to the audience* They will miss you!" Ariel pauses for a second.




"You're right Sebastian! What was I thinking? I'll stay here, where I belong!"

                    

Every piece of this movie from my childhood was shred to pieces. Could you imagine if the actual movie went through that route? "Oh! Sebastian's right. Never mind!" THE END. My laughter was one of pain.



The rest of the day was magical because I was wearing this hat:


When we walked into the park I saw everyone wearing this hat. I told myself that is the stupidest hat I have ever seen. These people have no idea how ridiculous they look. Have fun walking around the park in your weird looking alien head Minnie Mouse hats. A few hours later I found the stupid hat in one of the many gift shops. I put it on and found that it was quite warm. But I still thought it was stupid.

It was at the 5th gift shop we went to where I tried the hat on again. I found myself walking around the store with it on as if I had been wearing it my whole life.

In the end, I bought the stupid hat. I love that stupid hat. It kept me warm, it brought me joy, and we even watched fire works together. The stupid hat became my best friend.














Disney Sea was beautiful despite how random all the attractions seemed to be. As random as they were, everything we saw was very detailed and beautifully designed. This park was definitely different from the Disney Land's we have back home. It was time to say good-bye to our lovely adventure. But before we left, there was one more thing I had to do.  BUY SOUVENIRS.

I struggled with this part a lot. I had to get something for the boyfriend. But what the hell do boyfriends want from Disney??? I am neither a relationship guru of any sort, nor am I the best at figuring out what people like to receive as gifts. All I am ever happy with is anything that has to do with food. Unfortunately this doesn't apply for anyone else but me.

Cell phone charms were a quick no. If I gave him a phone charm I would have to take rash measures and super glue it to his phone. Otherwise that charm would never see the light of day. I contemplated boxers. But something about having the Genie's grinning face on your boxers felt uncomfortably wrong. I settled for another stupid hat. This is perfect, I thought, We will both have the stupidest hats in the world in our inventory. We will match stupidly and look stupidly cool at EDM concerts. This logic was flawless. I went to pay for the hat and my Minnie Mouse hoodie with Minnie Mouse ears on it, and as my card swiped through the machine, I saw the future. It was a vision of me giving my boyfriend the stupid hat.




The amount of regret and shame I felt as I came out of my That's So Raven Vision was intense. I quickly debated everything in my head and realized that the regret and shame I felt was too powerful to ignore on my train ride home. I ran and grabbed the Mickey Mouse version of my hoodie for us to match and returned the stupid Mickey Mouse hat I had mistakenly bought.