Birthday Weekend! The big 24.

This last weekend for my birthday we had the opportunity to go and celebrate in Tokyo. We took the girls to the Studio Ghibli Museum, the Tokyo tower, and Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. We had such a fun weekend, but not before starting out on the wrong foot. We left our house Friday afternoon to go and stay in Yokohama with our very good friends the Griffins. I was so happy because we were making really good time and then I realized when we were about 45mins out side of Tokyo; I had left the tickets to Disneyland and the Studio Ghibli Museum at home. This was a very costly mistake. So we pulled off the expressway to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to drive all the way back home with the girls because they would have been so sad and confused. And driving all the way back home was expensive for not only gas, but paying the 80$ toll for the express way again. So we ended up putting Lane on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and he went back home by himself to the tickets. We got to the Griffins that night at 10pm and he got back to our house at 12 am. Just so you know the distances from our house to Tokyo it is about the same as the distance SLC is from St. George. So I was so mad at myself. I could not believe that it happened. So instead of Lane meeting us at the Griffin’s house he met us at the Studio Ghibli museum.


The Studio Ghibli museum is a very popular museum in Japan. You have to buy tickets in advance and it’s for a certain time so I was worried when Lane called the next morning and told me that he miss the 8 am train and couldn’t get to the museum until 1pm. Our tickets were for noon. So I navigated my way through Tokyo with the girls and I never got lost. I was proud of myself. Lane ended up making it to the Museum safely and they let us in. We had a wonderful time there. Now the Studio Ghibli is hard to explain so here is the link to the wikipiedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghibli_Museum Hayo Miyazaki is the most famous anime movie maker in Japan. He has made great films that our girls love. They are also becoming very popular in America. One of his recent films won an Oscar. So basically we were very excited to come here.

That night we met the Griffins for dinner at Outback steak house. It was so good. I really miss American food. Tokyo is about the only area in Japan that has good American restaurants. I got the Alice Springs Chicken. It was probably one of the best meals I have had all year. After diner we went back to the griffins and had birthday cake. It was so good.


On Sunday we left the Griffins house to head into Tokyo and on over to Disneyland. We spent most of the day at Tokyo tower (Japan’s version of the Eiffel Tower). They even built it 300m taller just despite the French. It was neat and had great views of the city.




At about 3pm we headed over to our hotel in Chiba for a nice relaxing evening before our big day at Disneyland.
On Monday morning we headed out to Disneyland. To save money we decided to take the train. What an experience might I add? We had to catch the train going into Tokyo and boy was that crazy. The trains were packed with people, so packed that the train conductors were pushing people into the trains so that the doors would close. I could see people’s faces just shoved against the windows. So we ended up wait for a couple of trains to go by before we got on a less crowed one. We finally made it to Disneyland an hour later and had a wonderful day.



The girls were awesome and had such a fun time. Grace is tall enough and still free so she can go on all the rides. She loved thunder mountain railroad and Space Mountain. Sophia loved the Jungle Cruise and of coarse meeting all the princesses and different characters. She is just in love with anyone dressed in a costume. It’s funny because Grace is terrified of Mickey and the other characters.





I am so glade that we have little girls to take to such a fun place. Lane who use to be against Disneyland now loves it because it makes his little girls so happy.
After the long day the girls so graciously left with us and fell fast asleep on the train. I don’t think they complained once the whole day or even cried. They were awesome troopers.

On Tuesday we took them to the Disney Sea Park. It is a whole other park next door that is geared towards an older crowd. We went and it was so fun. They had a little mermaid themed land and the girls loved it.

We got to meet Ariel and that was the high light of the day. My favorite part was the tower of terror. It was so fun. I really loved this park better then Disneyland. We didn’t have to wait in line for anything and it was just so much fun. If anyone comes to visit us I am taking them here. They have the Mediterranean Harbor which had gondola rides which was so cool. Each themed land was so brilliantly done. I felt like I was in Arabia and America. It was great. Unfortunately our camera was about to die here so I was really skimpy on pictures so google this park for better pictures. Well it was an awesome trip and I wish I could go back again soon.