Ohaiyo goasaimasu!

Good morning from Japan! T and I are here for a week checking out Tokyo Dizunee Randuruu (Disneyland) and Tokyo. We arrived yesterday and have already discovered that the little Japanese we learned in anticipation of our trip is far too little! Everyone here is very kind and polite though, so we have been able to muddle through fairly well so far! We've been taking photos at nearly every step of the trip, so we'll try to post each day! Starting from the beginning! We flew National in DC to Toronto before catching our flight to Narita. We had about an hour and a half layover, so we had lunch at an interesting bike themed little restaurant. T was hungry and I wasn't, so he got a full meal with sandwich, salad and soup and I got bruschetta with cheddar cheese. It was all very good! On our 12 hour flight to Narita, we had special, lactose free meals. They were all quite good! See my Flickr for more photos and info about our special meals. We were served 3 meals! Once we arrived in Narita, customs was quite expedient and then we were on our way to look for the Airport Limousine Bus to the Tokyo Disney Resort. Luckily for us, it was quite easy to locate (right outside the baggage claim area in the South Wing) and had a giant orange sign. :) We bought our tickets for the last bus (phewf, didn't realize they stopped running after a certain time) at 17:10. They were 2400yen each. The bus ride took about 40 minutes; but T and I slept through the whole thing. We woke up to find it was drizzling and we were at the first stop; the Disneyland Hotel. There, the bus stopped at a bus depot type area, where disembarking passengers had to get off into the drizzle and walk over to the hotel. Second stop was us; the Disney Ambassador Hotel. Fortunately for us, the bus pulled right into the covered area in front of the hotel. We were greeted by a bell hop lady who took our bags from us super strength style and carried them (not rolled them), one in each hand! We checked in and then waited for our bags to re-appear with a different bell hop who showed us to our room and toted our bags on a cart. He did his best to explain everything to us (including taking time to show us the emergency exit). After a shower in the bath-room, (see photos - of the hotel room, not us - here), we headed off to Ikspiari, the Downtown Disney equivalent. Turns out is is HUUGE - 4 floors and loads of ways to get lost! We explored a little, happened upon the ticketing center where we bought our park tickets (~$375 for 3 days for the both of us) and then went off in search of some dinner. On the way, we stopped at a little tea shop where we tasted and then bought some delicious tea - oishii! (From now on, we will be using our own oishii scale of deliciousness - maximum of 4 !s - oishii is Japanese for delicious) Our dinner: Click for more photos and description of our dinner and explorations in Ikspiari! Ok, it is now 8:11am here (we've been up since 5:30(!) but had to wait for the lounge to open to get wifi) and we are headed to the park! We get to go into Disneyland 15 minutes early as guests of the Ambassador hotel. :)