Japan, the land of Arabian Sorcerers, Mermaid Princesses, fibreglass fairytale castles and the Rainforest Cafe.

[Greg]:  After Hong Kong, we made a quick trip to Tokyo.  This involved flying from Hong Kong to Korea, staying at a hotel in Incheon Airport, then flying from Korea to Tokyo the next morning.  Katherine got culture shock when we arrived back at Incheon Airport because the Koreans, unlike the polite and friendly Hong Kongese, started pushing, elbowing, staring and generally making life as difficult as possible from the moment we stepped off the plane.

The main reason for visiting Tokyo was to take in one of the cultural highlights of Japan, a must-see attraction for all visitors and one of the wonders of the modern world - obviously I'm talking about the Tokyo Disney Resort.

We'd been led to believe by Koreans that Japan is a country full of barbarians and savages and that Korea is infinitely superior in every possible respect.  This turned out to be untrue.  The Japanese were incredibly friendly, polite and well-mannered and actually queue up to get on trains and planes.  Now it was my time for culture shock after 6 months of living in Korea.
One thing Korea does beat Japan for is prices.  Everything is ridiculously expensive in Japan, unlike the value-for-money motels, public transport and just about everything else(except toasters) in Korea.  It's definitely the UK of Asia.

Because of the high prices, we stayed in a capsule hotel.  Despite what she might now say, this was actually Katherine's idea, not mine(although I was whole-heartedly in favour).  The hotel was actually really nice(for a capsule).  It was small but it had an excellent mens spa and a so-so womens spa and the man on reception was incredibly helpful.

On the first evening we took the train to the Disney Resort and bought our 2-day Magic Pass tickets for Disney.  We'd be visiting Disneyland(the traditional Magic Kingdom-esque park with all the usual stuff) on the Thursday and Disneysea(a unique, amazing, maritime-themed park) on the Friday.  Then we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe(delicious and not too expensive considering it's Japan) before heading back to our capsule.

On Thursday morning, we were up and out early to go to Disneyland.  We arrived just after opening and the park was busy but not packed.  We had sausage pizza for breakfast in Tomorrowland and then grabbed a fast pass for Monsters Inc Ride and Go Seek before joining the queue for Space Mountain.  Unfortunately we didn't quite master the use of Fast Passes at Disneyland(although we more than made up for it at Disneysea) so we ended up queueing 60 minutes for Space Mountain and also queueing over an hour for Splash Mountain(twice) but apart from that the queues were minimal.  We saw various characters, enjoyed 16 rides, caught some of the parade and were amongst the last to leave the park at closing time.

Both of us thought that nothing would top the magical day we had at Disneyland.  But Disneysea did - by miles!  The park is huge(and I should know - I still don't think my feet are fully recovered from running round the entire park multiple times to get fast passes whilst Katherine practiced sitting on a bench - although she did use some of her alone time to buy me Duffy Bear chocolates from one of the overpriced gift shops so she gets away with it) and unbelievably well-themed.  It has some of the best rides we've ever experienced and just walking around the different lands within the park was awe-inspiring.  Everything about the park was immense.  And because I'm King of the Fast Pass, we managed to get on 21 rides, although there was one hairy moment where we waited for the longest 10 minutes of our lives to pass so we could get a ticket for our second ride on Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a roller-coaster-esque ride through Disneysea's own volcano.

Katherine also achieved one of her lifetime ambitions when we got to meet Ariel at her grotto.  She was as charming as you'd expect from a mermaid Princess although, owing to Japanese modesty, she was more covered up than we were expecting.

Disneysea had a land themed to the Little Mermaid(Kathy's favourite Disney film) so she was over-the-moon and there's also an Aladdin-themed land(my favourite Disney film) so I was pretty pleased too, even moreso when I got to meet Jafar!!!

We were at Disneysea for the gates opening and, like Disneyland the day before, we were amongst the last to leave the park.  Our feet were destroyed and we were both exhausted but it was undoubtedly the best 2 days ever!

We ended our trip to Tokyo with a morning of rushed Tokyo sightseeing which took in the Tokyo Tower, a bullet train and the Pokemon Museum before boarding our flight back to the land that manners forgot.