Back from Tokyo

There are holidays and there are holidays. This trip was not quite my type of holiday. My wife, my kids and myself, basically made up our minds that this will be the last time we will do this.

Imagine, 2 days in Disneyland, 1 day in Disneysea. The 1st day, we spent 110 minutes waiting for Space Mountain ride and we thought it was crazy. On the 2nd day, Disneysea was REALLY crowded! The 3rd day at Disneysea, we spent 200min waiting for Splash Mountain ride! And in order not to waste time going back to the hotel, we hung around the theme parks and walked the whole time. We walked till the legs were aching. In the mornings, in order to avoid the crowd, so we had to force ourselves to wake up. So by the end of the 3 days with Disney, we were dead dead tired.

The only good thing was this: Fast Pass. Even then, there are limited number of rides per time slot. And for the popular rides, the Fast Pass runs out very very fast. And every Fast Pass we get, we will have to wait another 2 hours to get another Fast Pass for another ride. In the end, we managed 3 Fast Passes for 3 different rides. And because we did not want to queue for too many rides, we missed many good rides. And for those hitting Tokyo Disneyland, avoid Monsters Inc and Buzzlightyear rides if you are looking for thrills and spills. These are meant for young children, no matter how popular they seem.

Well, the kids had their share of Disney. They had fun, no doubt. And now they have some bragging rights about their experience there. But the idea of having to wait in the queue for 3 hours plus is just not my type of relaxing holiday. It just gets too tiring. In all my holidays, they have been fly-drive ones. My wife and myself just dont like to rush through. This is the main reason why we dont do packaged tours too. They may be cheaper, but hell, we get to dictate what we want to do!

Make no mistake. Tokyo is a nice city. The culture, the people, the service standards are great! But urban holidays are just not our cup of tea. Having been brought up in city Singapore, built up areas just do not appeal to my wife and myself. On the first day at Shinjuku, we found ourselves in Meiji Shrine, also known as the Yoyogi Park. It was a park with trees and much peace. And we liked it there! So we have all concurred, we are back to our type of holidays - rural sight seeing, architectural and historical visits are more meaningful to us, even our kids.

I will be heading to Japan again in June - but for a different reason - for my 2nd Ironman race. There is no leisure this time but I am assured of an even more tiring experience. But I sure am looking forward to it!