A weekend being a tour guide in Nara

On Friday, I headed up to see Josh, after 3 weeks out and around in Japan. We had planned a relaxing weekend, but his brother decided to come down to Nara. Its great as he was bringing some new collegues who have just moved to Japan. So, on Saturday morning, Josh and I got to play tour guide!

We took them all around the deer park, and got to feed lots of deer, before taking them to Todaiji (one of my favourites) and making them attemot to get through the Buddahs nostril! One of them was even successful! After, we went to Osaka and had dinner with my friend Pete, which was nice to see him, before watching the new GI Joe movie (which was awesome!) Sunday was equally as busy, as we went to Josh`s NARA JET cultural festival, where he taught us line dancing all day!

My school Festival

In Japan, the students prepare for months and months to hold a school festival. Some of them run stands, or games...its can be an art project or a dance, but they all do something. This year I knew a little more about what was happening, after last years disaster of information lacking, so I invited Lil and Sarah over. Sarah arrived on the Saturday night, so we had a nice dinner and then ice cream. I was so happy that they came to explore the school with me. One of our favourite rooms was a room filled with balloons that you could play in! Who wouldnt enjoy that! We hung around in the morning at school, before having Thai food and gelato for lunch, and then chilling out and having girly chats at my house - it was so fun!

The Happiness Year

The very last thing we did was visit the big statue which was made especially for the Happiness Year. The Happiness Year is just celebrating 30 years since Tokyo Disney opened its doors. Its pretty scary to think that it has been open my whole life! I remember coming here as a tiny, little kid when we all lived in Tokyo - and coming back as a 23 year old is really so much better. I have now discovered, that this was my final Tokyo Disney Trip - at least while I still live in Japan. I hope we can come back to Japan once were married and have our own kids. It was such a big part of my life in Japan that Im so sad that it wont quite be the same!

A Castle and a Dwarf

Sometimes it can be hard to see any characters at Disney. You don't often see recongizable ones out on the street, in that case they are simply just mobbed. Instead, they tend to be inside, where people can line up for hours and hours to see them. We were quite lucky, that as we were leaving the Magic Kingdom, and heading towards the Haunted Mansion, which we also had fast passes for, and we ran into not one, but all 7 of the dwarves from Snow White and the seven dwarves! Heres the thing about characters in Japan, they

tend to be from older movies. Im not sure all the Japanese people know who they are...in fact I think its more often than not a "oh, hes cute!" rather than remembering the movie at all. Its been a long time since Ive even seen Snow White, mainly because it is so old nowadays. I had to have my photo with Dopey, who I like the best, and Sam had hers with Grumpy!

Toontown at Tokyo Disney

I hadnt really gone to Toontown until my last visit to Tokyo Disney, never before until then. It was pretty cute, and made me reminice a lot about my times at Disney in Orlando when I was a little kid! I knew that it was so adorable, and that I had to go and show Sam too. Armed with yet another bucket of popcorn, (this time Honey) we headed over there with the intention of seeing Mickey or Minnie. We were pretty dissapointed with the huge, 2 hour lines, so instead we went and checked out Chip and Dales house.

We got a great dinner or pizza (shaped like Mickeys head) and some Mickey shaped ice cream sandwiches too! I think those are one of my favourite foods at Disney! We explored a little, and went inside Daisy's house (or ship) this time, which was lots of fun. There arent any rides for adults in the Toontown area, but it's still a lot of fun, if not a little different than the rest of the park!

Tokyo Disney - Tommorowland

I made my very last visit to Tokyo Disney less than 2 weeks after my big weekend with Josh and out friends Sophie and Russ. This time, it was with my friend Sam, who I've travelled with before, and who I know from London. Sam got us a really great hotel close to the park, so we got in there really early.

We managed to get a fast pass for a bunch of the rides, and even got some awesome caramel popcorn. She had wanted to ride Star Tours, and it was much better than the last time I rode it! Also in Tommorowland, there were these cool keychains especially for the 30th anniversary that you can personalise with the character and letters, so mine is pretty adorable, and adorned with a T!

Another day at the Deer Park

After coming back from Disney, we were pretty tired and exhausted, so we spend our next weekend visiting Osaka with some friends and having nice dinners. We found time on Sunday morning to go visit the Deer Park in Nara, one of my favourite places. We didnt get long, because we went and had dinner with Josh's teacher, but we still got time to go feed them some deer biscuits!