Screw it, I'm going to Disneyland

Callie just wrote a cute short post about her host family, and I envy her ability to keep her blogs short. As you all know, I tend to ramble on for far too long...but I'll try to control myself this time!

First off, two weekends ago. My friends and I went hiking, which at first I thought would be fun. Until I learned that to Japanese people, hiking is not making one's jolly and happy way up a slightly sloping trail to the top of a relatively small mountain. Heck, the road I went up El Yunque on in PR was paved, for crying out loud. And I remember wishing back then that we could go off the path and do some fun trekking through the woods...well, all I can say now be careful what you wish for. Because hiking in Japan is literally clinging to the side of a ridiculously steep path, clinging to tree branches to attempt to scramble up slippery muddy slopes. It also involves intense botany lessons from Japanese people who are overly earnest and think that you care (which you don't). But though this trip was vaguely reminiscent of hell, I don't regret it. It makes for great stories at the least.

Speaking of great stories, we have last weekend. You see, a while back when we were in Hiroshima, Christine (one of my friends here) suddenly declared that she really wanted a Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwich. And so we jokingly decided to go to Tokyo Disneyland.

And then, much to our own great surprise, we actually DID go to Tokyo Disneyland. We departed Kanazawa last Friday night at 10pm to arrive at the Tokyo Disneyland resort at 7am on Saturday morning. Then, due to the fact that the park is cheaper after 3pm and we knew we would be too tired if we tried to do Disneyland all day, we proceeded to waste the next 8 hours sitting outside of the humongous hotel there. At 3pm, we proceeded to join the masses (and I mean MASSES) of humanity in Disneyland. I was slightly shocked at how many people were there, and by the length of the lines. In fact, the lines were so long that we ended up not going on Splash Mountain or Thunder Mountain (and Space Mountain was closed, so that was out from the beginning). On the other hand, we did manage to ride the teacups, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Tours, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and It's a Small World After All (which I can now sing the chorus of in Japanese). We also saw the electric parade, which was surprisingly awesome. And, of course, we ate Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwiches (and I had a Mickey Mouse pork bun, which was well worth the ridiculous 400 yen I shelled out for it).

I have a few observations about Tokyo Disneyland that I feel the need to share with all of you readers at home. But you can skip this part if you want, because it's kinda random. First off, there were surprisingly few foreigners (white ones, at least) there. I think we maybe saw a total of 4 white people there. But despite this, ALL of the signs were written in English. Few had Japanese subtitles. In fact, the audio in the Pirates ride was probably 50/50 English and Japanese. An even more surprising twist: the only Disney princesses truly represented were Cinderella, Snow White, and Belle. The newer Disney films present were Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and Lilo and Stitch (only Stitch, really...Japanese people are OBSESSED with him)...aka, not human films (Lilo doesn't count because they only care about Stitch). I was genuinely shocked that only such old Disney princesses were there; where was Jasmine (or Aladdin, really)? Pocahontas? MULAN?? Even Ariel was surprisingly absent, though I haven't quite reasoned that one out yet. For all the others, though, there is a common thread: they are the "ethnic" Disney princesses. To make it even more interesting, during the parade, some of the characters spoke in Japanese and some in English. And being a linguistics major and assuming that there must be some reason for code switching before a majority non-English speaking audience, I began searching for a pattern. And then I realized: only the white characters spoke in English. The animals, monsters, inanimate objects, etc (even the Toy Story toys, who are white, but I hold that they fit the pattern because they are not actually human) all spoke Japanese. (yes, so did Mickey, which was a real mind trip.) I eventually decided that this is due to the fact that Japanese people do not think that white people should be fluent in Japanese. I do not think they have a problem with my less than coherent word vomit, but truly fluent white people are kinda not looked well upon (I think. I have little backing for this statement beyond what I know from Fear and Trembling, a Belgian movie I saw once). An interesting phenomenon, nevertheless.

In any case, after spending 6.5 hours in Disneyland, my comrades and I clambered back on the overnight bus and trucked back to Kanazawa, arriving exhausted but satisfied back in Kanazawa Sunday morning at 7am. While it would have been nice if there had been fewer lines, it was an epic journey by any standards. No regrets.

This weekend, we're going to trek out on a camping trip and then see a caligraphy thing on the national holiday (Monday). Apparently some dude is going to paint caligraphy on the ground with a person-sized brush (ala Hero, if any of you have seen that movie). I'm gonna get a 500 yen t-shirt, which makes it worth it.

And once again, I have gone on too long. Which is good, because it means I'll stop before getting all sappy and sentimental about leaving my host fam in a week and a half and Japan in a little over two weeks. But like I said, let's not talk about that.