disney?

i'll start in the middle - with our trip to disneysea adventures. not that there's much to tell. let me clarify: tokyo disneyLAND is just like anaheim's disneyland, so we didn't go there. we went to disneysea, which is an odd and startlingly beautiful conglomeration of "sea" countries. so there was an exuisite recreation of venice italy; a fanciful area of sinbad and all the minarets of the middle east; the sci-fi strangeness of jules verne's world, and the oddly familiar cape cod seacoast of the US at the turn of last century.

observations:

very few white people at disneysea (indeed, anywhere we went in japan); i kept seeing the same five white people over and over again.

we ARE indeed taller than most japanese people, as evidenced by the water show, in which the crowds pushed toward a railing so they could watch . . . and we just stood behind them and could see just fine.

disneysea was the only day we had a spot of rain and cool weather, so we were very lucky. also the crowd was small and the lines short.

all japanese people make the peace sign when getting their pictures taken. hence the white kids above, making peace signs. the blonde boy is my son Rylan, the goofball in the center is his friend, Matt, with whom we traveled (Matt, your shorts look like a skirt!) and Gabby, the girl on the left, is the daughter of a friend who joined us for the day at disneysea.

japanese version of mexican food in their 'el cantina' was mostly ground beef in tomato sauce.

japanese adults may be relatively quiet and polite in public, but their little children are just as noisy and fussy and screamy and run-around wild as any other child. i must state here that i really really enjoyed the quiet politeness of the japanese people and felt shocked and appalled when i got back to the states and there were loud, obnoxious people right away in the baggage claim area. culture shock. i prefer japan's sense of public behavior.

except for the night of the art opening when the police showed up .... that's another installment.