Around the World with Kav P.

It was 2007, during my year studying in Tokyo, or as I liked to called it, my “year in a box“.

My friend and sister had come up to visit, and given my obligation to entertain them while they were here, I took them to Tokyo Disneyland, a wealthy child’s paradise.

Here’s me posing next to my unsuspecting sister at the resort entrance.

“Oh wow, Kav!” you say, “Tokyo Disneyland! I loved Disneyland in California. What does Tokyo Disneyland have to offer that I can’t get in the States?”

The answer to this question, quite frankly, is “practically nothing”. From my experiences at both parks I can safely tell you that Tokyo Disneyland is almost entirely a carbon copy of Disneyland in California except that the staff speak Japanese. Even the signage is largely the same English stuff from the States, perhaps to emulate an “authentic” Western Disney experience. Honestly, the biggest difference I found between the two parks was the insanely long waits for the rides, in some cases well over two hours:

Only 135 minutes to get on the Nightmare Before Christmas ride!

Nevertheless, children and adults alike flock to Tokyo Disneyland every day of every year, making it second in popularity only to the original in California.

I was going back through my photos from this particular trip, and I rediscovered an image that I feel really captures the wonder of a Disneyland experience as a child. There’s something about the famous Disney parade in particular that entrances children. All of their 2D heroes stroll down the road large as life, talking to them, singing and dancing. In that moment, for a child, magic is real.

That was certainly the impression I got as we tried to watch the parade while the little kid behind us, hysterical with joy, screamed out to all the characters as they passed by:

“Bazzu Raitoyaaaaa! Bazzu Raitoyaaaa!”

“Uddiii! Uddiiii!”

Guess which Toy Story characters those were. Yes, we found it funny too.

None of us turned around to see the kid as we didn’t want to embarrass him and in the process proverbially rain on his parade, but in a sly move my friend turned his camera around and, under the guise of taking a selfie, snapped this candid shot:

That, my friends, is the face of dreams coming true.