Tokyo Disney Resort 2023 May

Our butler had never visited Tokyo Disneyland before so we decided to drag our butler out of their cave and generously treat them to a week long vacation in Tokyo. On the fair condition that they pay for the flight, accommodation and all snacks and souvenirs we might want. Letting our butler book our hotel was a mistake as they were being stingy and booked a non-Disney hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Mystays Maihama. The hotel was within walking distance of  Tokyo Disney Resort. The room was nice with a leg massager. The breakfast buffet was also included. 

Our room at Mystays Maihama.

Mjau, the journey to the hotel was a bit eventful. Our butler tried paying the bus ticket at the airport but the credit card did not work. Mjau, we could not get in touch with our bank so we used our debit card and withdrew the maximum amount as we could not recall if we had paid for the hotel in advance. Mjau, at check in they informed us we had already paid. Mjau! More spending money for Disney Souvenirs! After checking in to the hotel we walked around Ikspiari and sat outside the Disneyland Hotel listening to the music for awhile. Such a beautiful hotel. In the lobby we found a dollhouse with many Disney details. How fun! Mjau, we also went to their gift shop. So many cute things! We found lovely It's a small world Minnie Ears that were the perfect size for us siamese cuties. 

Tokyo Disneyland Hotel!

Dollhouse

Adorable cutie with new Minnie Ears!

Tokyo Disneyland celebrated the 40th anniversay so they offered free fast passes on the app. Mjau, the wifi was only available at the entrance so we had to walk there for each pass. There was also special snacks for the anniversary. Our favourite was the chicken bun. The ears in particular were scrumptious! We ate other delicious snacks as well. We had Mike Wazowski Melon Pan, tiramisu ice cream sandwich, little green dumplings, churros and tipo torta to name a few. Mjau how embarrassing for our butler, they accidentally bought a souvenir case with the little green dumplings. No matter! More souvenirs for us!

Delicious 40th anniversary bun!

Delicious chicken filling in the ears.

Mike Wazowski Melon Pan

Sweet melon custard filling!

Tiramisu Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich

Not Mickey shaped, but a picture of Mickey. 

Little Green Dumplings

We mostly ate snacks in the parks. But we also went to The Teddy Roosevelt Lounge and had the Sandwich Plate and a cocktail. Refreshing in the May heat. We did not expect it to be so hot in Tokyo as it was still a bit cold and frosty when we left Finland. 

Mjau, waiting for our drink!

Mjau, our butler has been to lazy to help us update our blog so we are writing this post two years after our trip to Tokyo. Therefore it is a bit difficult to remember all the details. Mjau, we do however remember how magical our trip was. We also remember Eeyore bumping into us while we were trying to take a photo of Winnie the Pooh. Mjau, all the rides were wonderful. The Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast ride was magical. The queue inside the castle was fun as we got to simultaneously tour the castle. Mjau, sometimes we could hear the Beast roaring and see its shadow so it was a bit scary. Visiting Beast's castle after dark makes the experience even more spooky. It would be wonderful to visit during halloween! We also really enjoyed Journey to the Center of the Earth, we only wish the ride was longer. Soaring: Fantastic Flight has a wonderful queue inside a museum. We would prefer if all the Soarin' rides would differ from each other more. Usually only the pre-show and ending is different. We still remember how disappointed we were that Soaring Over the Horizon in Shanghai Disneyland was the same as in Epcot as the pre-show was so different. 

On our way to kill the beast! Just kidding...

Au riding the Castle Carousel.

Au riding Caravan Carousel on a camel.

We mostly just walked around the parks and admired the design and theme. Tokyo DisneySea was gorgeous. We could spend hours and days walking around taking pictures. Mjau, we especially appreciate the Duffy photo points. It is a fold-out stand for plushies to sit on while the butlers take their photos. No more sitting on conveniently placed trash cans! Thank you Duffy!

The Duffy photo point makes for picturesque photos.

Mjau, so comfortable having our picture taken. Goodbye dumpster photos!

Another place to take wonderful pictures is at Toontown. You can tour the houses of Minnie, Donald, Goofy and more. 

Goofy's whimsical house.

Donald's boat: Miss Daisy

Minnie's House. She has a wishing well!

Minnie's kitchen. She left some tea for us. How nice!

It was so hot in our lovely costumes we almost fainted while we were in Toontown. Mjau, our butler advised us to remove our costumes. Mjau, we did not want to take them off as we still had many places to take photos of. Au got so hot in her Winnie the Pooh costume she thought we were in Epcot for a bit. Mjau, a heatstroke! We ate some Tiramisu ice cream to cool down.

Mjau, why is it so hot!

Mjau, Spaceship Earth?

Toontown!

We are standing by a wishing well.

It's a small world after all.

Flying with Dumbo!

Mjau!

Mjau, we can see the castle from here!

Inside the ship is a restaurant and lounge!

After spending five wonderful days at the Tokyo Disney Resort we stayed in Asakusa in Tokyo for one night. The day we checked in we walked around Sumida Park and Senso-ji. We had some takoyaki at a shop. It started raining quite a bit so we quickly stocked up on snacks from the convenience store and stayed in our room watching Top Gun: Maverick the rest of the night. We stayed at the APA Hotel Asakusa-Ekimae. The next day we left our luggage at the hotel and our butler got us a day pass for the public transportation so we did quite a lot of sightseeing.

Our hotel room; a bed, chandelier and TV. Sometimes that is all you need.

The view from our room.

Si at Senso-ji.

The golden poo... and the Asahi Flame. MJau!!!

Enjoying some delicious takoyaki.

We walked around the Imperial Palace East National Gardens to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the city. We walked to the Tokyo Tower. Mjau, the tower felt underwhelming. Maybe the experience is better if you go all the way up. However we prefer not to pay the fee so we did not visit the observation deck. We walked the Shinjuku crossing and visited the Disney Flagship store. Mjau there were so many people it was a bit stressful. We did some shopping at Shibuya, although all we bought was Lindt chocolates and cold medicine for our pitiful butler. There was a mall, Tokyu Plaza Omotesando Omokado, that had a wonderful garden on the roof where we ate our chocolates. We also went to Harajuku shopping street. We were fairly disappointed and prefer Ximending in Taipei.  

Imperial Palace East National Gardens.

Tokyo Tower

Harajuku

Disney Flagship Store Tokyo in Shinjuku

We wish we had more time in Tokyo and plan on going there again someday soon. There is so much to explore and it was too rushed for just two days. We will definitely visit Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea several times in the future. It is one of the best in the world. Although Hong Kong Disneyland might be our favourite park to visit overall. It was recently announced that a Disney Resort is in the plans for Abu Dhabi. It would be interesting to see and experience. Hopefully it will come to fruition.

Destination Unknown: Part 14

 

After several relaxing days in Kyoto it was time for us to head to our next destination: Okinawa. We were really excited to visit Okinawa as we have heard people describe it as being similar to Hawaii. The first couple of days we stayed at Solvita Hotel Naha. We wanted to stay somewhere close to the monorail so we could explore Naha easier. We really like riding monorails, we just wish all of them would stop at Disneyland mjau. We visited Shuri Castle, however it was under construction so we could not enjoy the castle fully. It was still interesting to see how they build the castle as they had windows for observing the construction. When we were in Naha there was a basketball match between Finland and Okinawa so we saw a surprising amount of Finnish tourists there. Mjau, most locals asked if we were there for the basketball match. Mjau, we were not even aware of a match happening!!

Shuri Castle

Bu at a garden i Naha we unfortunately forgot the name of.

Shuri Castle

Au riding the monorail

We visited other historical sites such as Hacksaw Ridge and the Urasoe Castle Ruins. We mostly ate sashimi and umibudo seaweed from Aeon and baked goods from Little Mermaid Bakery. We also bought a bottle of Zuisen Shuzo Yukuru Peach Flavor Liqueur as we could not resist the cute kitten on the label. We visited a Dessert Lab Chocolat that had delicious pastries and cakes. We tried a chocolate mousse and hazelnut cake as well as a purple sweet potato cake.

Needle Rock

Hacksaw Ridge

Urasoe Castle Ruins

Dessert Lab Chocolat

Mjau, we also did a day trip to American Village. It reminded us a bit of Seaport Village in San Diego. We took the local bus there and it took a little over an hour. We got some baked goods from Little Mermaid Bakery and had a picnic at Araha Beach. We then walked around the shops at American Village. We also went to Blue Seal and had some delicious and interesting ice cream. We tried the Okinawan Salt Cookies and Ube flavours. We also got some iced americano at Zhyvago Coffee Works while enjoying the wonderful view of the ocean.

Picnic at Araha Beach.

Au at Araha Beach

American Village

Zhyvago Coffee

Blue Seal Ice Cream

American Village

After spending a couple of days in Naha we took the bus to or next destination: Best Western Okinawa Kouki Beach Hotel. We wanted to stay somewhere a bit more secluded and quiet. We also wanted a room with a balcony and ocean view and according to our butler this hotel also fit within our budget. Mjau, what is a budget, we wonder? The view was wonderful and the breakfast buffet that was included in the price was delicious. There was a FamilyMart in the same building so we could buy snacks from there. Although, not as many options as in the city. One day we walked to the nearby hotel, The Busena Terrace for afternoon tea.

 

Best Western Okinawa Kouki Beach Hotel.

Breakfast at our hotel.

Afternoon tea at Busena Terrace

Our hotel room.

After our stay at Best Western Okinawa Kouki Beach Hotel we were meant to take the ferry to Zamami Island. Unfortunately it was so windy outside the ferries cancelled the routes. We did not know what to do so we booked a one night stay at APA Hotel Naha. While trying to figure out what to do next we decided the storm was a sign from the universe for us to go to Disney instead. We booked a flight to Tokyo for the next morning and made reservations for APA Hotel & Resort Tokyo Bay Shiomi. We went to bed excited. Soon it we eould be in Disneyland. We took the monorail to the airport and while waiting for the flight we bought tickets for two days. One day in Disneyland and one day in Disney Sea. They were still celebrating their 40th anniversary so we got to eat the delicious chicken bun again. They were slowly starting wh the halloween season so we got to try delicious halloween themed snacks. The first day we went to Tokyo Disneyland it was raining quite a bit in the morning. Mjau, our butler had to buy new socks and change into them in the bathroom. We refused to share a purse with dirty wet socks so we made our butler throw them away. Mjau, they complained about wasting money. Mjau! We do not care! On the second day we went to DisneySea and the weather was much better. It was so sunny outside the water was shimmering. We bought a Electric Railway hat as a souvenir. Mjau, we all have to share one hat. Our butler was probably trying to make up for the financial loss of throwing that one pair of old socks away, mjau. We did buy a second Electric Railway hat for our darling sisters as a Christmas gift.

Dessert trio at Tokyo Disneyland

Tokyo DisneySea

Our favourite snack! Can you spot Miss Bunny?

Mjau, so sunny outside!

Mjau, trying some halloween snacks.

Bu with our Electric Railway hat.

After Tokyo Disneyland we flew back to Seoul for our final leg of our trip before flying back home. This time we stayed in a hostel in Hongdae. Mjau, we were very impressed by Hongdae and wish we would have stayed there during our first visit to Seoul. So many interesting cafes and shops. One of our favourite cafes i Offer Bakery Cafe, the crunchy salt bread is so delicious. We also went to a Harry Potter themed cafe. The theme was nicely done, however the cake was not anything to write home about. We also went to cafe that looks like you are in a drawing. We mostly went for pictures as the cakes did not look interesting and were overpriced according to our stingy butler. We only had an iced americano as is the custom in Seoul, mjau. Along the Gyeongui Line Forest Park and Gyeongui Line Book Street are several wonderful cafes. We went to a wonderful floral cafe and had delicious sweet pumpkin pie. Another favourite cafe of ours is Yeonnamdong Cherry Blossom House. We like how the rooms are decorated and it is a bit reminiscent of Tee- ja Kahvihuone Helmi. During the evening there is usually live music performers in Gyeongui Line Forest Park. We usually get a snack from Tous Les Jours or 7-eleven and sit and listen to them. We wish they would play Disney songs though.

Offer Bakery Cafe, crunchy salt bread and earl grey scone.

Sweet pumpkin pie.

Yeonnamdong Cherry Blossom House

Yeonnamdong Cherry Blossom House

943 King's Cross

On our last day in Seoul we walked around Haneul Park. We could hear music playing so we followed the sound. It turns out they had a music festival in Nanji Hangang Park. We found a bench near the venue were we had a good view of the screen broadcasting the performers. No need for tickets, mjau. We wish to go back to Seoul again! They have so many clothes and accessories for plushies in the stores, especially Artbox. They have so many fun trinkets there, mjau! The Line Friends and Kakao Friends stores also had fun and cute plushies and plushie apparel. Mjau, we really wanted BT21 plushies but our butler said they were a bit too expensive. Mjau, we want them! Our butler is probably still bitter over the old socks. Mjau, we will just convince them to come to Seoul again!

Gyeongui Line Forest Park

Gyeongui Line Book Street