Ep. 482 - Dōmo arigatō: A Japan Adventures by Disney

[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's very, very meticulous. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:00:02] Speaker A: So you know, you had to sand just so and you had to chip just so and you had to glue just every heart. [00:00:09] Speaker C: So I think. [00:00:11] Speaker A: And they were very judgmental. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, they were very judgmental and universally. [00:00:17] Speaker A: Disappointed in all of our work. [00:00:30] Speaker D: Welcome back everybody, to this week' episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by my path Unwinding Travel. And first up, as always, is our five star review of the week. And this one comes from Matthew Kowalski, who writes all you cruise. All. All you cruise information in a fun listen. All your cruise. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Oh. [00:00:47] Speaker D: All your cruise information in a fun listen. I got you, Matt. I got you with the grammar. I got you here. All your cruise information in a fun listen. This show is great for those who love everything cruising. I wish I had found the DCL duo before I started cruising. What separates this show from others is all the various guests they have on the show as well as the positivity this show puts out. Well, thank you, Matthew. I know we interact quite a bit over on social media. We really, really appreciate you leaving us that review and to all of you out there, once again helps us out a ton. If you leave us a review over on Apple podcast, hit those five stars. Leave us a written review and we will read it on the top of the show or on the air at the top of the show, as we did with Matt's review. So thanks, Matt and Sam. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Thanks, Matt. [00:01:23] Speaker D: We got an exciting show tonight. Exciting. I'm really excited for this. [00:01:26] Speaker B: I know, Me too. Well, this is a repeat guest. We've had her on a whole bunch of times. Most recently, I think was actually, I'm not sure what the most recent show was, but the most memorable show was perhaps talking about the Egypt adventures by Disney with all of the mishaps that occurred on that trip. But we, you know, we're always. It was an adventure, definitely an adventure. But we're so excited to have you back to talk, I think, about a more enjoyable trip that you guys had on adventures by Disney to Japan. So welcome back to the show, Jennifer. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Thank you so much. Yeah, this one was much more seamless. We even had perfect weather. [00:02:08] Speaker B: So nice. Nobody got sick. [00:02:10] Speaker A: I hope nobody got sick the whole time. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Spoiler alert. This. [00:02:15] Speaker A: The flights were fine. I don't know. What can I say? [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Occasionally it all works out. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, my God, that trip. I. It's so funny because Egypt is still one of those places I do want to go visit, but like, anytime I like. Yeah, you just have the Worst luck Now I'm not going on an Egypt trip with you, Jennifer. [00:02:38] Speaker A: No, well, it wasn't me, but I know. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Anyway. Well, let's, let's talk about. You guys took like basically the trip of all trips to Japan. So it's not just adventures by Disney that you did. That's where we're going to focus our, our discussion. But because obviously we, we like to focus not on sort of parks content and we obviously cover cruise line and we like to cover adventures by Disney because we do feel like there are people who want to venture outside of Disney cruising to other land based adventures and adventures by Disney is very. [00:03:14] Speaker D: But Sam, let's get the full, let's get the full itinerary on the table so everyone knows what's going on. [00:03:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I do. [00:03:18] Speaker B: That's what I was going to do. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to do. But, but, but putting that aside, where we're going to focus our discussion, I still want to know, like, like I said, I think this is like the trip of all trips to Japan. What was your like overall itinerary? How many days at each part of your trip as well? [00:03:36] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Well, we'd been to, I'd always wanted to go to Japan. So we went to just Tokyo in 2019, right before the pandemic in November for Thanksgiving actually. So we basically spent maybe 10 days just in Tokyo, went to the Tokyo Disney Parks for a couple days. So I'd always wanted to go back and see more of the country. So this time that trip was fairly cold and rainy. So this time we thought, okay, we're going to do in the summer because the kids will have enough time off to do just over two weeks. But Japan also gets very hot and humid. We already have the heat, you know, and some humidity where we are. So we left basically the minute they got out of school, which was a little before Memorial Day. And so we were there the end of May, beginning of June, and we flew into Osaka and did a day at the Universal Studios to kind of ease ourselves in and adjust the time. And then we did a day just touring Osaka on our own. And then we hopped over to Kyoto where we met up with the abd. So that starts in Kyoto. And then we did the ABD, lasts about 10 days. And then we had another maybe four or five days where we spent a few of those at Tokyo Disney because we booked the trip well before the news came out. But our trip happened to coincide with the opening of Fantasy Springs, the big new expansion in Tokyo Disneysea so we were there for that and then we spent another, I guess full day in Tokyo and then we flew back out of Tokyo to San Antonio. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Nice. Awesome. Well, now remind folks how many Adventures by Disney trips you guys or how many adventures you guys have taken. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Oh, if you count our river cruises, maybe seven or eight. Oh, wow, okay, I've done eight. But my son and I went to Alaska. She was not on that one. You were doing something with that child prison. Child prison. Oh no, she was a camp. That was not correct. Which we referred to as child prison. Yeah, she went to a camp that summer that, yeah, was not so great coming out of the pandemic. And we, we were in, we went to the land base in Alaska. So yeah, we've done a few including the river cruises. So fairly good. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Awesome. And we have special guest Val is joining us sitting next to Jennifer as. [00:05:56] Speaker A: Violet, or sorry, Violet, my 16 year old daughter. [00:06:00] Speaker B: So nice, nice. Hi Violet. Awesome. Well, maybe, maybe she'll be willing to give, you know, chime in and give us the teens perspective on the adventure. I think that would be great. [00:06:13] Speaker D: And I realize we've done the thing that we always do, which is we assume that everyone knows what Adventures by Disney is. But if you're a new listener to the show, we have covered them sporadically throughout. We have taken one ourselves. We're looking forward to taking another one here hopefully in the future. But for those not familiar, Adventures by Disney, commonly abbreviated abd, is the tour the luxury tour arm of Disney. And so they do both land based adventures river cruises. They've done a private around the world jet tour for $100,000 a person. [00:06:42] Speaker B: River cruises. [00:06:43] Speaker D: Yep. But they are basically you contract with Disney to go on one of these trips. You get yourself to your home airport and over to the airport where they will meet you. And after that, pretty much everything is taken care of. They take care of all of the internal transfers between cities on the land based trips. The shore excursions on the, or excursions on the river cruises are generally taken care of. Most of your meals are taken care of. Not all, you know, everything is just you're in Disney's hands on an amazing tour. And the thing that usually sets them apart is that they send Disney cast members as guides. So you typically have like one to two, maybe more Disney personnel guides and then local guides that Disney has hired to join the trip. And so when you're out on an excursion, you've got these fabulous adventure guides with what they call the paddles of power that get you all the Access you need in and out of some really great sights and sounds. ABDs are not cheap, let's put it that way. But you know, if you're going to someplace, like I've always said, if you're going to Asia, I would not know the first thing about how to plan a trip over to Asia, where to stay, how to get the park tickets, all that sort of stuff. And so ABD I think has a lot of value in that kind of a trip. So that is what Adventures by Disney is. Go ahead, go ahead, Jennifer. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Oh, I was just going to say, yeah. At least Japan I think is. I mean, I don't know if I use the word easy place to travel because I think English is not super common. But everybody is so friendly and accommodating and willing to help. I would say from that perspective, luckily it's a great country to travel around. I mean, it's really one of the cleanest, friendliest, most orderly places she'll ever go. But usually for me, the reason I end up liking ABD is because if I can get like a 2 week block, for instance, you know, I like to plan and organize some things myself, but it's kind of nice to do that for a week and then have. [00:08:32] Speaker B: You know, them do the rest of. [00:08:34] Speaker A: It, travel for the other week. And honestly they often think of things that I wouldn't, you know, like we went into the Japanese countryside and I would not. It would be a hard for me to get out there on our own to, you know, ride bikes in the Japanese countryside and yeah, that would just take a lot more kind of planning and knowledge of the language, I think than I could do. I mean, I can manage, you know, Osaka and Tokyo because they're major cities. But. [00:08:58] Speaker D: Yeah, well. And the other advantage of ABD is if you've got younger kids, the adventures all have kind of a minimum suggested age or recommended age. But there are many of these trips that you're talking ages in like the 8 to 10 year old range. And if you're your first time going over to Europe or heading to Asia or wherever it is, one of the nice things is EBD can make it a little easier when you're traveling with kids. So that is, that is another, another benefit of Adventures by Disney for sure. Certainly we love that on the river cruise because we were able to bring our son Nathan and he was well taken care of and entertained throughout the entire trip. [00:09:31] Speaker A: So it's on river cruises otherwise. [00:09:34] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:37] Speaker D: Well, let's, let's dive into one. Is that because as a family of three too, we wouldn't. We'd had to book two rooms on a typical river cruise just to accommodate him. So the ABD enabled us to take less all in one room, which was kind of nice, but. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:49] Speaker D: Well, let's dive into this trip here, Jennifer. So where does the trip start? Does it start in Osaka or does it start in Tokyo? [00:09:55] Speaker A: The ABD starts in Kyoto. Actually, it's Kyoto to Tokyo. We started in Osaka because it's fairly close to Kyoto. So they suggested you fly either into the Osaka airport. I think you basically have to fly them to one of the two airports in Osaka. I'm not even sure Kyoto has its own airport. And then it's maybe 30, 40 minute drive or train ride away. It's not too far. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Plus you decided to go to Universal so that you could see Super Nintendo. Right. [00:10:21] Speaker A: They have Cool Japan, which is an anime event, which is really amazing because they overlay all these rides and they had. I don't know, we did something, what was it called? A Monster Hunter themed VR VR experience where you wore the VR headwear and backpack. And that was for my son. Right. Because then you felt like you're immersed in a video game and. And they had, you know, Demon Slayer overlays and restaurants and various overlays on the ride. So for him I thought that would be a lot of fun. And they had the most amazing stage show we've ever seen, which was called Monsters Rock. [00:10:55] Speaker C: Monsters Rock. It's amazing. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Dracula saying it's raining men. [00:11:01] Speaker B: No, it was. [00:11:03] Speaker A: It was hard to describe. Thoroughly entertaining. We have. We laughed quite a bit. That sounds good. So, yeah, it was just a really fun day. They have great themed snacks and it was. They also had Easter. You know, the Minions were dressed up for Easter. Yeah. So it was just like a blast and a good way to kind of like, you know, adjust to the time and keep ourselves kind of awake and entertained before the culture starts. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So you meet up in Kyoto. Do you. Is there like a particular hotel that they had you start at and you know, and stay at and is that where you're sort of meeting point for. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we. The first day, all you had to do was get there. So we met up at the Hyatt Regency in Kyoto and we kind of checked in with the guides and they usually ask you about, obviously food allergies, any kind of accommodation issues. And then once we touched base, we kind of went off on our own that day. We had a couple things planned. Like we had a class at a local restaurant where we learned to make ramen. And then we did a samurai experience, which, again, I thought my son would really love, which is amazing because they gave us real swords and let us, you know, chop down this bamboo. Yeah, I thought I was good. The kids were very good, but they're like real sharp swords. And I'm like, this might not be a great idea. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Terrifying. [00:12:23] Speaker A: So that was a blast, actually. And then we just. It's a. You know, that's a beautiful city. So just walking around and seeing the temples and, like, I mean, we got so lucky with the weather because it was really just, you know, 70s and sunny almost the whole time. We just had a little bit of rain in Kyoto, I guess. Yeah, a little bit and a little bit in Hiroshima, and that was it. I mean, it's great weather, so. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Wow, that's awesome. Perfect time of year, I guess then to go. Early summer. Yeah, early summer. [00:12:55] Speaker A: November. Not very crowded. But because our Thanksgiving doesn't mean, you know, is not obviously right. They don't have Thanksgiving, but it's definitely, at least for us, colder and rainier than. So. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's. Let's start with the. With the adventure. What's. What is. So I assume you had like a dinner or something on the first night, or is the really start the next day? [00:13:15] Speaker A: No, actually, that was the rare one where we did not have a dinner. It just started the next morning. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Because of travel issues with people. I don't know. But the usual plan is they don't have a dinner on that one. So we started that first morning. We went to. I think it's Arashiyama. [00:13:29] Speaker C: It's pronounced. [00:13:30] Speaker A: It's the bamboo forest. And we. They had a bunch of gentlemen who carried rickshaws. And so we rode around in the rickshaws and got to see the bamboo forest and then walk around the area where there were a lot of kind of outdoor vendors and snacks, which are. I mean, Japan is just the most amazing food, I think, at least for us, we love Japanese food. And so all the wacky snacks are a ton of fun. And I dragged the kids up to them. I made them walk up to see them. There's a monkey park. [00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:04] Speaker A: Fifteen minutes, you know, because we had a block of free time, and it was like 20 minutes of like, pure uphill. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:11] Speaker A: You get up there and there's just monkeys wandering around everywhere. But they weren't thrilled. We had to walk all the way back down. [00:14:18] Speaker C: It was hot. [00:14:19] Speaker A: That was like, the only time we were hot. It was pretty hot. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Did the monkeys Like. Like climb up to you and things like that. [00:14:25] Speaker A: No, I mean, they told you to stay. Give them space. I mean, they were just kind of walking around freely. But they had, you know, if you. I guess you would kind of park rangers up there kind of keeping an eye on everybody. So it was cool. But it was, you know, because we only had a set block of time, we were kind of rushing, so. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah. As Violet said, we could have shopped, but we did. We did have some. Some great snacks and we had a lot of fun, but. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, awesome. [00:14:56] Speaker A: The monkeys may have been a step too far. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah. What was the rest of that day or what did like? I assume so, as Brian mentioned, you know, these ABDs tend to be, I'm going to say, not all inclusive, but mostly inclusive. Were all of your meals included on this event? [00:15:17] Speaker A: Quite a few of them. That meal was for lunch. And then they gave us some on our own time and then we had sort of the afternoon free. So for us, we wanted to try. We had like, meal number, I don't know, four that day. So we went over to a place called Happy Pancake, which we were super excited to try, which, like Japanese, like souffle pancakes. So they're almost like. [00:15:39] Speaker B: Like a Dutch baby then. [00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a souffle kind of. They're really thick and fluffy and a lot. So I guess some people like and some people don't, but we love them. And then we went to the International Manga Museum because my son is into anime and manga, which was a lot of fun. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:56] Speaker A: We took some bizarre pictures of my son, but. So that was a lot of fun. And then we all met up for dinner as a group. We went to see a geisha perform, which was wonderful. And she sort of talked about, you know, what all in, what all went into the training and how rigorous the lifestyle is and strict and so it was very interesting. And then she was gracious enough to kind of take pictures with everybody. Yeah, I'd say the only thing, it's obviously hard to please everybody. So abd, they try to do a mix of. They do do a lot of Japanese meals of various types and then throw in an American meal now and then to kind of give people a break. I mean, I think for us, we would rather just have the Japanese every time. Yeah. But I do get why they do that. I mean, our trip didn't have many young kids. Actually. It was mainly one kid that was. [00:16:49] Speaker C: Younger than me, one kid that was the same age. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Everyone else was an adult. Yeah. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Pretty Adult heavy. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah, heavily adult, which I think was just luck of the draw, maybe because we were at the tail end. Most. A lot of kids are still in school at the end of. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, we're still in school into like mid June, so. [00:17:07] Speaker A: And we had adults on the trip that clearly, dietary wise, you know, wanted more American food. So I think they do try to do a pretty good job of keeping it pretty varied. So. Yeah, but that being said, we had some really interesting Japanese meals. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Well, when they do take you for Japanese meals, are they taking you for like omakase sushi? Are they taking you for more like ramen teriyaki, like stuff that is more American friendly, let me put it that. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Way, American friendly hot pot. [00:17:39] Speaker C: We had konamiyaki. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Okonomiyaki is what was in a. That's a specialty. And Hiroshima, which was like a fried. [00:17:47] Speaker C: Noodle with cabbage and sweet sauce. [00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but more like a stir fry. So it's not that, not that far off. [00:18:00] Speaker A: A Buddhist temple in the countryside where it was, the monks prepare an all vegetarian meal, which was lovely actually. But obviously that's not going to appeal to quite a few American palates. [00:18:13] Speaker C: Barely any raw fish, if any. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they really didn't do much in the way of sushi. We had quite a bit on our. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Own, but sure, yeah, I feel like, I mean, I feel like a lot of Americans eat sushi, but there are certainly some that don't want to eat any raw fish. And so that's where I feel like that that's the thing they need to sort of cater to. That might be a little bit harder. But it sounds like they did a decent job in getting like a cooked stir fry type dish is not that odd for Americans to eat. [00:18:47] Speaker A: I'm just going to pop my dinner out of the oven. Violet, answer the next question. I'll be right back. Sure. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Now. Okay. So how was the geisha performance, Violet? What did you think of that? [00:19:01] Speaker C: Oh, I really enjoyed it. It was really beautiful. And her costumer outfit were very interesting. She also, as my mom said, she did a talk afterwards about training to become a geisha and the different rules that you have to follow as a geisha. And that was really interesting as well. You can't drink caffeine, you can't have your phone with you at all. You have to live separately and stuff. So that was really interesting. And she talked about how very few women actually complete like the geisha training because you have to really, really want to do it. And it's very demanding. It was a really Lovely performance. She had a lot of more performances that night, which was also interesting. So very busy. But it's a hard lifestyle. It can be really difficult. But yeah, it was a beautiful performance. She had really great. I'm like the least flexible person on planet Earth, but she had really great, like core strength serve. Like he would like really slowly go down, up. It was really impressive. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:00] Speaker C: But yeah, it was amazing. Like the athleticism, like the performance took. [00:20:04] Speaker A: It was really nice. And they're allowed no technology in their life and so, yeah, it was. [00:20:09] Speaker B: That would be. Yeah, I mean that's very difficult in the modern world now. So I can understand why a lot of people would not. Would maybe start the training and then sort of give up at some point just of how rigorous and different of a life it is now. Yeah. And Japan is obviously a very modern country. It's not, you know, it's. [00:20:30] Speaker A: I think again, that's something ABD does well, is that you certainly. There's lots of opportunities, I think, to see a geisha perform. And we saw a lot of people who were obviously paying to, you know, dress up like them and kind of walk around town and whatnot. But to kind of sit and listen to her talk about, you know, her life and what it means was really lovely. [00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's talk about day two then. So it sounds like that was sort of the evening for day one. What was day two like? [00:21:02] Speaker A: So day two, we took a boat, I guess what would you call it, like a. We took a short train ride and then a ferry. Okay, that's fair. We took a ferry. So Violet was fine because it was a slow moving ferry. That's true. To Miyajima, it's called. It's in western Japan and Hiroshima Bay. This was sort of our really long day. So they kind of warned us this is going to be a really long day. And so we started out on this island, which was amazing. I mean, just wonderful food and shops. And they sort of said the two specialties here, they kind of let us go for a few hours in the beginning once we got there. And so the two specialties were a certain type of eel oysters. So the kids both love those. [00:21:44] Speaker B: Wait, the best food ever. [00:21:45] Speaker C: Violet, love Gila, my son loves raw, underappreciated food. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Wow. [00:21:52] Speaker A: We were thrilled. [00:21:53] Speaker B: So. [00:21:54] Speaker A: But there were obviously you could get like fried chicken on a stick and lots of snacks, so they should get you. Yeah, we went and had the local food and then walked around and did some shopping and snacking. Yeah. And then we Went over. I'm just making sure I know the name of them. But we saw there were. The famous Tory gates are in that bay, so that you see at Epcot. The red gate with the black top, the island parts of it. The water level goes up and down. So it was amazing because when we were there, the water was up. Fair enough. So it looks like a floating Torii gate. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:22:28] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:22:29] Speaker B: I love that our frame of reference, though, as Americans, is like the one at Epcot. [00:22:34] Speaker A: That's what it's based on. And then it was beautiful. There were deer kind of wandering around, which was lovely. And then I think the other thing I really love about Japan is each city or town you go in seems to have its own snack, like its own characteristic snack. So, yes, this one had. It's called Momiji Manju. It's like a sponge cake, and it's shaped like a maple leaf. And then it can be filled with various, like little kind of custards. [00:23:01] Speaker B: That's delicious. [00:23:03] Speaker A: So that was fun to try the whole soup. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Our favorite Japanese restaurant, like locally here in the Seattle area, is actually called Momiji. So that. [00:23:13] Speaker A: There you go. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:14] Speaker A: I wonder if it says. That must be the maple part of it, I guess, right? [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Actually, it does have like a flower, as it has like a. Some kind of flower, I think, as it's like design. So I wonder. But I never. I never even really thought about what, like, oh, what does momiji mean in Japanese? It just never even. Never even occurred to me. It's delicious sushi. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Yes. And then each place you go, there's like a local guide as well. So the guide here kind of walked us around the temple and talked about the difference between Shinto. The Shinto, Most people in Japanese kind of practice the parts of the Buddhist religion and parts of the Shinto religion. And so Shinto was shrines, I think Buddhists is temples. So we saw some of both and kind of. They taught the kids about that, which was fun. And then they gave us a little more time on our own. And then we headed over via train, I think, to Hiroshima itself to see the Peace Museum. And at first I was kind of like wondering why we kind of. They organized the day this way, because we basically get to the Peace park around 4pm and the museum itself around 5, and it closes at 6. But it's. That museum is sort of infamous, really, for just terrible crowds, crushing crowds. And this was great, actually, because when we got to the park, you know, it was really quiet and kind of serene because it is Sort of a moving, serious experience. And then when we got to the museum, you know, the crowd had really died down, and so we actually got to kind of see things. And then during the park, it may have just been happenstance, I guess, but I think it happens fairly often. When we got to the part of the park where there's the monument to thousand cranes. Yeah, the thousand crane monument to the young girl who developed leukemia, you know, after she was exposed to radiation and made. She was told, I guess, make a thousand paper cranes. If you make a thousand paper cranes, your wish will be granted. So she started making these cranes in hopes of surviving. And then a choir from one of the local schools of. It looks like kids, maybe about your age, I would say teens, came and stood by the memorial and sang. And. I mean, I'm choking up now. We were all really teary from it, and it was just really moving, so. And then we all placed a crane, you know, at the memorial. And then you get to go into the museum and see, you know, her. The young woman's cranes that she made. So. Wow. I don't know if you have anything, but I thought that was. It was a long day, but it was lovely. And then we finished by eating the okana miyake at a restaurant in the train station, actually. They had these huge tables where they were making it at the table. [00:25:59] Speaker B: Wow. [00:26:00] Speaker A: It was kind of a fun experience and a good. Kind of lighter weight and what otherwise might have been a little bit of a heavy day. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a heavy day. And especially, I think, you know, as Americans, like, it would be a heavy day knowing that it was our feelings. Right, right. Knowing it was our country that did that. Right. Like that. That dropped the bombs there. So. Yeah, it's really. It's. Yeah. And thinking of the devastation that it obviously did to society there. Yeah. Wow. I. I take it. So then you took the train back, or do you have to take a ferry back? [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah, then we take the train back. I think at least my son passed out that. Pictures of you and I taking pictures of him pass out. Yeah. And then we. Then we obviously all went back and crashed at the hotel. The next day was the only day where it sort of went a little bit off the rails. We were supposed to take a floating. Wasn't really a boat, though. I think we just said, like a float down the river. Right. But the water levels were quite high because they had had a lot of rain recently in Kyoto, so they had to pivot. Obviously, Violet was devastated. [00:27:13] Speaker B: The one who Gets really seasick. Yeah. I'm sure she was perfectly happy to. To have to go on a boat. Yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker A: So, I mean. But I think, you know, obviously things like that happen and you just make the best of it. But we went instead to the shrine of air travel. Yes, a Shinto shrine. It was called the Kamigamo Shrine, and it was. It's supposed to be the shrine for travelers. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Oh. [00:27:37] Speaker A: So that was sort of fun. And it's our. One of our guide who was from Japan, that was her favorite shrine and then. And it was nice because it was a very quiet shrine. There weren't a lot of tourists there. The weather was beautiful. There was a young couple who happened to be getting married while we were there, which was fun to see the traditional dress. And so, yeah, I think, you know, they made the best of it and we had it. [00:28:00] Speaker B: Now, you mentioned your Japanese guide. How many adventure guides did you guys have? And how big was your group? I don't mean, obviously, I know your traveling party is the three of you, but, like, how big was the overall group? [00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I was about to say the max is 40, I think, and we were 39. We were pretty close to that. You always have two guides, generally, and then they. The local ones come and go. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker C: Her Disney guide was Lauren, who was sort of the one that did a lot of the like. Like, played all the Disney songs on the buses and, like, the Disney fun facts. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Kept you entertained. Yeah. [00:28:36] Speaker C: Was Azusa, who. I really loved her. [00:28:39] Speaker A: She had a very dry sense of humor. So we. We really clicked. [00:28:43] Speaker B: You got along well. [00:28:45] Speaker C: So. [00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's one of the. Yeah, that's. But that's one of the great things about adventures by Disney is that you have your adventure guides depending upon how big your trip is. If you have river. If you're on a river cruise, you have like four or five guides. We had five on ours because obviously it's over a hundred. It's almost 200 people. It's like 160 people or something like that. On these smaller adventures, you have two guides, usually, and one of them is usually local. Right. And then one of them is typically American, maybe British, something like that. And then you also have local tour guides that meet you at the different locations that Disney has hired, and they are, you know, with you for the day or for a couple of hours, depending upon what the. You know, what the circumstances. And I think that's. It's great because you already have, like, a Japanese person with you who is also sort of a guide, but then you have Guides who are specialized in whatever location you know you're going to see. [00:29:45] Speaker E: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation. Great news. The fabulous team over at MyPath Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable, and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. Mypath Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOYpathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks. My Path Unwind. Thank you Winding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode. [00:30:44] Speaker B: Okay, so what was. So tell us about the rest of that day. [00:30:48] Speaker A: Well, we made bento boxes, which. [00:30:50] Speaker B: Oh, fun. Yeah. [00:30:52] Speaker A: So I think Violet was hoping for more artistic freedom, but we were given the supplies to make Mickey Mouse. And then we had. That day was when we went up into this kind of temple in the countryside, which was the monk residents. And. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Oh, cool. Were they made to the vegetarian food drum lesson? [00:31:14] Speaker A: You know. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Right, the big drum like they play at Epcot. I love it. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Yes, thank you. That's. So we did. We did that. And the instructor was. He was fabulous because obviously he demonstrated, you know, his skills and taught us how, which was a lot of fun. And then we had the vegetarian meal, and then they gave us sort of the evening off. No, that was a different vegetarian meal. [00:31:37] Speaker C: Was a different. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Oh, okay, my bad. All right, so. But they gave us the evening off. And so the kids and I went and had. And had sushi because there's so many great places where these just amazing chefs are sitting there at these counters that seat, I don't know, six, eight people, and you just go sit down and they give you the 10 or 11 pieces one after the other. I mean, it's just amazing and it's wonderful. And luckily, the kids love sushi, so. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Well. Yeah, I was Going to ask not just you, I obviously you like sushi, Violet, but, like, are you adventurous to the point where you're like, put whatever in front of me and I'm just going to try it. [00:32:17] Speaker C: I always try to try everything. I regretted that occasionally I do. I have a very low spice tolerance. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Generally. [00:32:26] Speaker C: If it's like really, really spicy, there wasn't a lot of super spicy food there. Or you could get something that wasn't spicy. But generally, yeah, I'd like to try everything. And my brother tries literally everything. [00:32:36] Speaker A: My son loves wasabi, so. [00:32:38] Speaker B: Oh, so he's a spicy. [00:32:39] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just not. Versus Violet was sort of like. But most of the chefs are very accommodating. If you say, oh, can we just have a little less wasabi? They're fine. And she does avoid a couple of shellfish items. [00:32:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I'm allergic to a lot of nuts, and I have an adverse reaction to. [00:32:58] Speaker A: A lot of shellfish. But they're very accommodating. If you just say, hey, you know, no, or I gave it to my brother, or that's true too. Everything goes in. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's actually. That's actually something that would be helpful to kind of talk about food allergies. Right. How. How accommodating did you find for. Particularly for nut allergy. Right. And shellfish allergy? Did you find that they were able to accommodate and did. Or are you not so sensitive that if there was a contact. Right. Like a cross contamination issue, you'd be okay? I mean, I'm just curious because this is definitely something that we know Disney Cruise Line is very good at, and it varies a lot with adventures by Disney on what country, what places you're going, all of that. [00:33:47] Speaker C: So I don't have, like an anaphylactic reaction. So there's no. I don't need. Like, it's not super bad for me, but I think we told them about at least my nuts or, like, at least walnuts, because that's one that I have a lot of trouble with. And last time we went to Japan, had some issues with it, and they do a very good job. The only thing I would say is sometimes, especially if you don't have a really severe one, like, sometimes they give you a different menu or you can't eat things that you can be fine with. So you just have to be very clear about it not being a cross contamination issue and what specific things that are. Because there's definitely a level of over caution. Just because obviously I don't want anything to Happen. But I. I mean, my dad has a very bad shellfish allergy, and it was. That's never been a problem on past trips. And I think overall, they're. They're very good. [00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they do a good job. I. The one issue with Japan in general is they're very. I don't want to say dogmatic, but they just. [00:34:43] Speaker C: You get what you get. [00:34:44] Speaker A: You get what you get, and you don't get upset type of thing. Like, the menu is set. Right. Even if you're at, like, a McDonald's, you order the item and it comes that way. Right. [00:34:51] Speaker C: Like at Starbucks, you can't customize. [00:34:53] Speaker B: You can't customize anything, really. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Ketchup, add mustard. You know, that's just. You order. And so it keeps things moving. It's very efficient. I think they're all about, you know, efficiency and. [00:35:03] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's a cultural thing. It's. That is very different, though, because, I mean, I would have trouble even at McDonald's because I don't like certain things on my burger. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Right, exactly. So that's. So for us, luckily, you know, we like Japanese food. It's not an issue. But that was at Tokyo Disney last time we ordered just a cheese pizza for her. At this one place we were at, it came with walnuts, and it had walnuts on it. And we were like, we did not expect that. [00:35:29] Speaker B: What? A pizza had walnuts on it? That's the weirdest thing. [00:35:33] Speaker A: Well, there's a lot of weird food at Tokyo Disney, specifically. You've been warned. Some of it's great, but some of it is just weird. [00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that is very weird. [00:35:43] Speaker A: And so I thought, oh, I'm just going to brush them off, which was not my finest mom movement. I had a little bit of a reaction, and, you know, I had to get the Benadryl out. But. [00:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, it's. It's good that her reaction is not, you know. [00:35:58] Speaker A: No, luckily, she doesn't have. Her dad has anaphylaxis, but she just. [00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah, hives are on discomfort or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But your. Your. Your throat's not going to close up and you're not going to be able to breathe. That's. That's. That's good. All right, so, okay, so you. Have. You had dinner on your own that night? That's. Was there any other evening activities or is that it for the night with the. [00:36:24] Speaker C: No. [00:36:24] Speaker A: I mean, I think one night they did karaoke a little later in the trip. But you were. We were just usually pretty wiped out. By the end of the days because we're. We also when they did give us on our own time, we're not the type like we don't go back to the hotel and relax. [00:36:38] Speaker B: Right. You go and do. Yeah. You're not gonna waste time. Go, go, go, go. [00:36:42] Speaker A: We want to see stuff. So. [00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So what was the next day? The next day we're on what day? Like 4 or 5. [00:36:51] Speaker A: The next day we saw probably the most famous side in Kyoto which is the. I think it's called Fushimi Inari shrine. And those are the thousand Tori gates. You know where you see red gate, red gate, red. But we just walked through, I would say the beginning just because you know they're. As often happens they're trying to pack a lot in and you. You could spend all day, you know, at this one shrine. But we had. It's beautiful weather. We got some great pictures. Of course I would walk all thousand gates probably. I mean the kids were like, okay, you know, we're good. [00:37:26] Speaker B: We've seen three. [00:37:31] Speaker A: So we did that and then we basically headed on our one long drive of the trip in the bus out to the countryside. But we stopped on the way at a sumo museum which was actually really hard. [00:37:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:45] Speaker A: And saw a lot painful sumo demonstration with some guys who probably just a few years older than you. They were in their college sumo club. Wow, that was really fun. They did a. They. I don't know what you call it, Wrestled, battled each other and then we got to take some pics with them. And they. They of course talked about the sport a bit. [00:38:08] Speaker B: I'm always curious about what they actually eat. That's. I want to know how many outlets. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Were more average looking. They were like college guys. But yeah, they were the biggest, the big champions. And then we went up to the Buddhist. That was the day. Yeah. We had the vegetarian meal which we really enjoyed. [00:38:26] Speaker C: I liked it a lot. Yeah, they had really good mushroom fried rice. [00:38:31] Speaker A: And we stopped at a couple of big convenience stores because in Japan some of the best food you get sometimes is at the convenience store. It's really impressive. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Really. What kind of stuff are we talking about? [00:38:44] Speaker A: They have flavor. Everything from chicken skewers to matcha ice cream to box snacks. I mean it's really impressive. [00:38:53] Speaker D: So it's like though this is like going to. This sounds like it's going to like Bucky's in Texas, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker A: I love Buc EE's mom is not quite. I'm imagining I'm not a Buc ee's fan. [00:39:05] Speaker B: I have never been to a Buc ee's, Violet. So I don't even. I wouldn't. [00:39:08] Speaker C: Texas school field trip. I think it's a requirement that you go at least once on the way there. [00:39:13] Speaker B: And that's true. I. We're gonna have to come. We're gonna have to come down to Texas and see this place. Because literally, I've never. I keep hearing about BUC EE's, but I have never. I've never been to one. [00:39:26] Speaker A: It's something else, so. And then we ended up getting to the hotel quite late. I mean, it was basically an all day. [00:39:32] Speaker C: That was the karaoke day. Yeah, we did. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Oh, that was karaoke. Nice. I can't believe I did any. I wonder if anyone actually went to the karaoke. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they had some of the adults. One. Yeah. [00:39:43] Speaker B: Wow. [00:39:44] Speaker A: Have a good time. So it would have been something otherwise we would have done. We were just kind of wiped out, I think. Sure. You know, we medicated for the bus. So she was pretty wiped out, which is. Yeah. The countryside, which. [00:40:00] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Now, did you guys stay in the countryside, like, overnight or was this just. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the only hotel that I would say was. Was not great. But there's. But it's. You're limited. Right by. Yeah. That clearly housed all the big tourist groups. It was very Americanized, so. Yeah. Sort of an American compared to the. [00:40:24] Speaker C: Contemporary at Disney World, I think. [00:40:28] Speaker A: I don't. [00:40:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it wasn't similar, but that's what the adventure. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Guys. Okay. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Well, that's funny. [00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah. But it was fine. And. And the country. I mean, it was beautiful. I was just. You forget how varied Japan's topography was. I mean, it was just green forest everywhere you look. I love talking. Yeah. [00:40:48] Speaker C: I really like cities normally. [00:40:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Violet's is urban. Urban child all the way. But we all enjoyed this. We took a bike ride in the morning, which was really fun because we tend to do that. Yeah. It was light rain, but it was. We had a great time. Yeah, it was beautiful. [00:41:04] Speaker C: The rice fields was really pretty. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not something we just ever really do as a family, you know, here. So that was lovely. And then they gave us some time on our own, so we found a great ramen shop, which was wonderful. [00:41:15] Speaker C: That's one of my favorite. [00:41:16] Speaker A: Yeah, we tried a lot of ramen. That was a good one. And then they did sort of. Your brother bought an enormous cotton candy. [00:41:24] Speaker C: Cotton candy that was like. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Oh, like. [00:41:27] Speaker B: Is like. Okay. Yeah. So our listeners can't see your Demonstration. Yeah. But your arms with. You're showing me, like, I don't know, 3 to 4ft wide. [00:41:41] Speaker C: Average adult male's upper body. [00:41:44] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Okay. So average adult male's torso. Okay. [00:41:47] Speaker A: The way they did this day, they structured is half the group did the bike ride in the morning if they wanted, or they could take a stroll around town. And they gave us some free time. So we had, you know, lunch and snacks. And then in the second half of the group, we made the local doll. It's called a cerubo, which translates into monkey baby. And it's a little doll, which I think it's the mascot of the Haida region, which is also where Haida beef comes in. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:42:17] Speaker A: And so we got to decorate it, which was really fun for people of all ages. And then they. We did a little mini food tour. We did a lot of eating, this thing where they walked us around the town, and we tried sake and some of the local snacks, and then we finish by eating yet another meal. But it was. Honestly, I think it was one of our favorite. It was hide of beef. We got to cook it. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:42:44] Speaker A: On our table, on these little grills. I mean, it's good. We didn't have really young kids because they basically said, hot rocks in front of us. Hot grills. [00:42:53] Speaker C: One of my pieces caught on fire, and I thought blowing it out made a bigger flame. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Bigger. Yeah. [00:43:00] Speaker A: But it was hilarious because the guy, I guess, that owns the restaurant was, like, coming around all the tables and, you know, chatting with people, and, you know, he was kind of demonstrating and he's like, you know, cook, cook and then eat. Yeah, it was a really fun night. So everybody. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Now, did you guys stay more than one night in the countryside or there, too? [00:43:32] Speaker A: The arrival night, which was late, and then we stayed this night, and then I think we headed out. Yeah. [00:43:40] Speaker B: Where was your next journey to and how. Were you on a bus again, or were you on a train? [00:43:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we took a bus to. I think this was on the way to Tokyo we stopped at. It's called Shirakawa Go. It's a village that's on the. What do you call it? It's declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There's the word I'm looking for. Because it contains all the villages, still has these thatched roofs that are handmade. [00:44:08] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:44:09] Speaker A: So it's sort of like walking back in time a little bit. But it was gorgeous. I mean, the village was beautiful. We kind of walked around, snacked. [00:44:18] Speaker C: There was a museum. But if you want to Go to the museum. Go early, because there's a long line. [00:44:22] Speaker A: Yeah. That got busy, but we just kind of snacked and enjoyed ourselves. And then we took the Shinkansen, the bullet train, to Tokyo for the afternoon. [00:44:32] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome. And now, did that take up the whole afternoon or did you guys actually get to do something once you got to Tokyo? [00:44:40] Speaker C: It's two hours. [00:44:42] Speaker A: It was pretty late when we got to Tokyo, so we drove through the Shibuya Crossing, the famous crossing which we had walked through on our last trip. This was more. The bus kept driving through it. They drove through like two or three times. And everybody was like, like, okay, that's enough. That's enough. [00:44:58] Speaker B: We've seen it. Thank you. [00:45:01] Speaker C: Oh, we went to the Kill Bill place. [00:45:02] Speaker A: Yeah. We had dinner at Gunpachi, which is where the scene from Kill Bill. If you ever saw those movies for the adults where they have the samurai fight and it looks like the restaurant, and it's just sort of a fun atmosphere. I would say it's super bustling. There's a million people there. They're, like banging a gong every now and then for some reason, you know, bringing out food left and right. So it was just sort of a party. Yeah. Kind of wild. So it's a good. Actually having us having been to Tokyo before. It was a good introduction to Tokyo. You drive through the Shibuya Crossing, which is, you know, the busiest intersection in the world or whatever, and then you kind of have this wild dinner. And it was pretty late by then, so I think everybody was wiped out. And then you. They now stay. It's actually a change of hotel. The Shangri La in Tokyo. And it was gorgeous. I have to say. I'm kind of a hotel snob. And it was beautiful. So they picked a great one to end in. [00:45:59] Speaker B: That's awesome. What was the next day in Tokyo then? [00:46:04] Speaker A: Let's see, the next day. We started by going to the Tokyo Sky Tree, which is. [00:46:10] Speaker C: I got sick. If you're motion sick, you can get. [00:46:13] Speaker B: Sick at the top of the top. [00:46:19] Speaker A: You go up to the top of the sky tree and just being that high, and you. The floor is slanted. The fly guy. Kind of vertigo. [00:46:28] Speaker B: She did. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Did fine, but she did. I could tell she was skimpy a little. [00:46:32] Speaker B: She was having a rough time. [00:46:34] Speaker A: A little green. But we were just there, I'd say not for too long. And we had a local guide, which was fun. And then they walked us over to. And that's actually still, I think, an active broadcasting station, the Skytree, which was kind of cool. But anyway, so then they walk us over to The Asakusa district, has its own temple, which, if you see it, most people, I think, would recognize it called Sin Soji. So they talked a little bit about the temple, and then some people chose to go in that temple. I figured the kids said they like to joke I'd always take them in churches. So they tippled out. [00:47:11] Speaker C: We did a European trip, and at least twice a day we went to. [00:47:16] Speaker A: A trip, we saw them. [00:47:18] Speaker B: I mean, that's what you do in Europe, Violet. That's just what. [00:47:21] Speaker A: There is a lot of museums. [00:47:23] Speaker B: Museums and churches. Exactly. [00:47:26] Speaker A: So we just decided to. We walked around, we grabbed some lunch. I think you guys had more yule. And then we got some snacks. And then the afternoon was sort of a weird activity. I'm not sure how they ended up picking this. It's this gentleman who. [00:47:43] Speaker C: He was amazing. There's this guy, okay, he repairs broken pottery. Repairs broken pottery. But apparently, at what point he has a wildlife journey. He's un. Like, 18amazing jobs. He was like, the CEO of a. [00:47:55] Speaker A: Company at one point. I was like. [00:47:56] Speaker C: Anyway, he was amazing. He was also, like, 65 and looked 20. [00:48:00] Speaker A: Max. He may have been a vampire. [00:48:03] Speaker B: He may have been a vampire. [00:48:05] Speaker C: He had a broken plate, and we were supposed to repair it, and it was a lot harder than I thought repairing a broken plate would be. And I got this glue all over my hands. I had to peel off over the course of, like, three hours. Wear gloves or be more careful than me. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Well, I think, like many Japanese things, it's very, very meticulous, right? So you had to sand just so, and you had to chip just so, and you had to glue just so, I think. And they were very judgmental. [00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah, they were very judgmental and universally. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Disappointed in all of our work. So it was pretty funny because we spent, God, at least an hour repairing all these. And then they take us back to hotel, and literally, I step out of the elevator of the hotel, and Violet drops. [00:48:58] Speaker C: And mom gave me her plate to carry, and I fell over and. [00:49:01] Speaker A: Dropped, and that was the end. [00:49:06] Speaker B: That's hilarious. I mean, that's just like. It's just like. I don't know. It's. I feel like it's Murphy's Law, right? You've just repaired a plate. So now. [00:49:17] Speaker A: I mean, it was like. It was an experience, but I. Look, I'm not quite sure an artistic. [00:49:22] Speaker C: And meticulous soul would enjoy it. [00:49:24] Speaker A: We are not bride, but. And then they gave us the evening off, and actually, we gosh I think we had our favorite meal of maybe our lifetimes. We went to. We walked over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and we went to a place called the Molecular Tapas Bar. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:49:43] Speaker A: A gentleman from Vancouver who is of Japanese heritage and he moved to Japan Maybe he said, 10 years ago, and taught himself Japanese. And he wrote a book. He writes and illustrates books basically every six months or so. And the book, you read through the book as you go through his experience and it's molecular cuisine. So it's a lot of. I mean it was magic and art and I mean it was. [00:50:10] Speaker B: And food all at once. [00:50:12] Speaker C: Like the entire plate was food. [00:50:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You think it's just a plate, but it's secretly food. And I mean it's just. And then he brought out like a robot at one point which talks to you. And it's hard to even describe, but it was, it was a wow. It was entertainment as well as amazing cuisine. [00:50:30] Speaker B: Well. And I imagine. I mean the Mandarin Oriental in London is a beautiful fancy hotel. So I imagine that the one there in Tokyo is amazing too. [00:50:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really amazing. So. So that was a great end to that day. So. And that was an. On your own meal so you could kind of. [00:50:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Whatever you wanted. [00:50:48] Speaker B: So they. They didn't take you to a molecular gastronomy place. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Some of the people would not have liked that meal. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that was. We're. We're foodies. So for us that, you know, that was sort of what we wanted to do. But. But they would help people if somebody wanted a recommendation. I know they gave a lot of people recommendations for great places in town and you can't go wrong in Tokyo. [00:51:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, what was the next day? We're getting close to the end here. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Yeah. This may have been our last full day. I think it was. Yeah. Which Violet took the morning off to relax a little bit. And then Garrett and I went to the tea ceremony. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Where the. A woman taught us sort of how to make a traditional matcha tea. And we saw the tea gardens a little bit, which was lovely. And then they gave us a little time off and so we went to what was a Michelin starred ramen shop, but it was just this little, little place, so. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Oh, like a little hole in the wall. I love it. [00:51:45] Speaker A: It was a chicken ramen sprayed. Very inexpensive actually. So that was a lot of fun. And then we did a little. Little shopping in the. They have a lot of fun wacky stores in the basement basically of the Tokyo station right there. The train Station. [00:52:02] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:52:03] Speaker A: And the kids and I did a make your own sushi class, which was fun. So we always stay really busy. And then we had our farewell dinner, which was always great because they put together a slideshow of everybody. And then they had a very sweet gift for each family where little to our knowledge, they took a picture of everybody at the beginning of the trip. And then they had an anime artist make a. It's sort of like the character caricature photos. [00:52:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:35] Speaker A: An anime style. [00:52:36] Speaker B: An anime version of you all. Oh, my God, you're showing us the picture. That's awesome. [00:52:41] Speaker A: It was super cute. And my son was mortified because he looks very young in it, for sure. I mean, when I say treasures, it is a real treasure. [00:52:54] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. [00:52:56] Speaker A: So fun and really a sweet gesture. So it was a lovely kind of party gift. [00:53:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well. And then you guys transferred over, obviously to Tokyo, or actually to Tokyo Disneyland at that point. Right. [00:53:09] Speaker A: They supply buses for people, which was really nice. So we slept in a little bit and took a taxi, basically. But most people took the shuttle they provided. [00:53:19] Speaker B: So that's awesome. Well, it sounds like it was a great trip. You know, I've got to ask. You guys have taken now several Adventures by Disney trips. I gotta ask you which one. We're not gonna do like a formal rapid fire. Cause, Jennifer, we've had you do rapid fire a few times. I don't. I don't wanna repeat it all, but I do wanna ask you just like a couple of sort of favorites questions. Like which one? And I wanna ask each of you. And you don't have to answer with the same answer. Right. Like, I wanna ask your individual favorites which one has been your overall favorite Adventures by Disney Adventure. I want to start with you, Jennifer, and then we'll pass it over to Violet. [00:54:02] Speaker A: Okay. Well, I mean, Japan is still my favorite country I think I've ever been to, but I think my favorite adventure was still. Which I guess was our first one, the England and France. But it was the guides. Like, we just had Louis and Cesc, and they were. [00:54:19] Speaker C: They were the. [00:54:20] Speaker A: I think they were best friends. And they were just like. It was like a comedy duo. And then the group. I think we just happened to have a group which we really. I mean, we always meet people we enjoy on every trip, but there was just something magical about that particular group of people. I don't know. [00:54:39] Speaker C: That's a really good answer. I probably can go to the Danube. Christmas Market River, Christmas. [00:54:45] Speaker A: That was a good thing. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:54:49] Speaker C: We had Another great guide named Byron or Brian. [00:54:54] Speaker A: Brian. [00:54:54] Speaker B: Brian. [00:54:55] Speaker C: And he was on the Brian one, too. [00:54:56] Speaker A: Maybe it was Byron. [00:54:57] Speaker C: It was either Brian. We had another guy that was either named Byron or Brian as well, so on the Rhine as well. And he was great. And I really loved the shopping. I prefer cold weather. I love seeing Germany a lot. I like all the food there. [00:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:14] Speaker C: I had a good friend on that cruise. [00:55:16] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, that's. [00:55:17] Speaker B: That makes a difference, too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. [00:55:20] Speaker A: Violet really clicked with one of the teens. So that was. [00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah. What would you say is your. Is your favorite city that you have visited? Violet, let's start with you on this one. [00:55:30] Speaker C: Tokyo, but close second. Paris. [00:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I thought you were going to Paris. [00:55:34] Speaker B: The home of cheese. The cheese. What about you, Jennifer? [00:55:39] Speaker A: And Paris has the best cheese. [00:55:41] Speaker B: Oh, Turkey is the best shopping. Paris is the best cheese. I understand that. [00:55:44] Speaker C: All right. Shopping. Not like clothes, makeup, like, not that kind of shopping. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Like. [00:55:48] Speaker C: Like small. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Like trinkets and stuff. Yeah. Fun. Like fun and weird stuff. Right? Yeah, I love that. Jennifer, what about you? What's your favorite, favorite city that you've visited? [00:56:00] Speaker A: I think it has to be Tokyo. It's just the wackiness. It's so clean. I mean, you couldn't find a trash can if you tried. And so you have to appreciate New. [00:56:11] Speaker C: York as well, which is doing something. [00:56:13] Speaker A: Else, but they are not doing cleanliness. [00:56:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. What about a favorite excursion? Like, so when we think of excursion as like a favorite outing, right. Like, it would like visiting, you know, the Monkey park or whatever. Right. Like, I'm sure you're not going to pick the Monkey park, but what would you say on an Advent. On an Adventures by Disney Adventure, what was a favorite excursion? Jennifer, we'll start with you. [00:56:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's tough. Wow. There's been so many great ones, I think. I mean, it's probably one of the activities that you don't expect, you know, when you go craft something. Not the pottery per se, but not the pottery one. It's always like something I would not have planned myself. Like the bike, I mean, it was torture for me. But the bike ride through Versailles when we were in Paris, like, Violet raced, raced this grandfather who beat me to die. But they had the best time. I was pushing my son on like a, you know, a bike with training wheels half of the time and running back to get my bike and then catching up with them and, you know, so it was sort of exhausting. But that was a lot of fun. And probably, honestly, really the best one was Maybe when we were in Italy, we did. We went to the Sistine Chapel before it opened to the public. [00:57:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:57:36] Speaker A: The only ones in there. Our group, you know, and we could. We were allowed to talk and. And you know. [00:57:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that just exclusivity. Yeah. I mean, that's being able to do that. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. What about. [00:57:49] Speaker B: What about you, Violet? [00:57:51] Speaker C: Arisa, sounding like a stereotypical teenager. The museums and churches and Sistine Chapels were less of my favorite activities. [00:58:00] Speaker A: It was also 4pm and yeah, we were up very early. [00:58:03] Speaker C: But I would say, I mean, both the bike rides, both the one at Takayama and the one at Versailles I remember very well. [00:58:12] Speaker A: You don't normally like to bike and. [00:58:13] Speaker C: I get motion sick biking. So enjoyed both of those. I love the Christmas markets, I think. I mean, this is definitely like recency biased, but I. I would probably. I really liked the travel shrine that was. That we weren't supposed to go to. [00:58:34] Speaker B: Because that's a true. Yeah. [00:58:38] Speaker C: It's not a church. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of like a church. It's a shrine. [00:58:42] Speaker C: There's significantly less dust. It's outdoors. [00:58:49] Speaker B: It's a religious site, but it's not a church fair. Okay. Yeah. [00:58:53] Speaker C: Okay. [00:58:54] Speaker A: Shrine has like an animal often associated lucky. And then they will sell little small ones and you can buy one and place it at the shrine. [00:59:03] Speaker C: And you always need love with air trap. [00:59:06] Speaker A: That's true. [00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Or maybe it helps. [00:59:09] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, then I'm going to ask my last question. This is going to be. I want to ask the bucket list question. What is the bucket list? Adventure. Adventure you haven't been on that you really, really want to go on. Maybe you have it booked, maybe you don't have it booked, but it's one that you really want to do in the future. Violet, let's start with you. Where do you want to go? [00:59:30] Speaker C: I just want to go to like Scandinavia and Norway. We went to Canada for like two days. And I want to spend more time in Canada. I like. I like cold places, but I really loved Canada when we're. And I'd really like to do Wampus Adventures by Disney. And second. [00:59:44] Speaker A: Or maybe first. [00:59:45] Speaker C: Tied for first. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Probably Norway. [00:59:46] Speaker C: Scandinavian. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Cool. All right, Jennifer. [00:59:50] Speaker A: I think for me the two top ones would be China, although it's brutal because there's a lot of internal flights and that's. That's hard for kids, I think. I mean, it's a really exhausting trip looking at it. Or New Zealand, I think. I mean, I would love to. It's just the optimal time of year is winter for us and that's right. It's so hard to get. It's such a long way to go and to get that amount of time off, you know, when the. With school and everything is a challenge, so. [01:00:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:00:19] Speaker A: But those would be my two awesome. [01:00:21] Speaker B: Well, sounds like the Japan Adventure was fantastic. Sounds like you have some great maybe adventures in your future. I know Brian's gonna want to ask you the next question, so I'm gonna let him do that. [01:00:33] Speaker D: Well, what's next? [01:00:36] Speaker A: Well, next for us, we don't have any adventures plan per se with Adventures by Disney rather. But we have. We're gonna be on the Maiden for the Treasure with us for Christmas. Yes. We're very excited for that. And then we have one other big cruise coming up. We're gonna try our first. Well, we've been on Celebrity. I guess I should caveat that once. But we're gonna try the Royal Caribbean over Thanksgiving. We are. And we're go big or go home. We're gonna try the Icon of the Seas. [01:01:09] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:01:09] Speaker D: Oh, wow. [01:01:11] Speaker A: With my parents. So it should be. [01:01:13] Speaker C: Grandpa's already worried about getting lost. [01:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:18] Speaker B: The signs are good. They have good signs. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, this age with the kids, like there should be plenty to keep us busy. [01:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [01:01:29] Speaker A: And we just figured it's such a spectacle, you know, it's kind of. You're just going for the see the insanity. But. And then. Yeah. Our next summer, what we have planned so far is we're going to do a river cruise on AMA Waterways. It's not an Adventures by Disney, it's just with my extended family, we're going to do one on the Rhone, like. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [01:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Which does some, you know, wine tasting element and hopefully lots of cheese eating and you know, kind of Parisian countryside. [01:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Cheese eating for Violet, obviously. [01:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:02:01] Speaker C: Legal drinking age is much lower. [01:02:07] Speaker A: At least I'll be with you. [01:02:09] Speaker B: Maybe a little bit of wine tasting as well. All right, well, lots of cheese eating, maybe a little wine sipping. [01:02:14] Speaker A: We had to find something that everybody's been many places but not many of them overlapped. So it was like hard to find something we all haven't. [01:02:23] Speaker B: Haven't done yet. [01:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah, all kind of haven't and wanted to do so. Yeah. [01:02:28] Speaker B: Awesome. [01:02:29] Speaker A: That's what we finally agreed on. So. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Well, we hope that you'll, you know, of course, come back and join us because you always go on such great trips and have such interesting stuff to report back. So thank you, of course, for coming back on the show. Jennifer, thank you for joining us today. Violet, this was really fun to have you and kind of get your perspective. I would say it's the teen perspective, but it's also you're really adventurous when it comes to food and it's really interesting to hear that perspective. Yeah. Because they're really, I mean, I would say our son Nathan is a good eater. I mean, he's, he's only ten and a half, but he's a good eater. But he's not nearly as adventurous as you are. Although he might like stuff a little bit spicy than spicier than you. He might be a little bit more adventurous in that one area, but not adventurous with raw food and with sushi and things like that. Even though he will eat, he'll eat crab. [01:03:22] Speaker D: Decidedly not. He likes crab. [01:03:23] Speaker B: He likes, yeah. [01:03:24] Speaker D: Pressed white fish, crab sticks. [01:03:26] Speaker A: Well, you never just have a moment where switch flips and it clicks. But yeah, no, I'm very lucky, which is great because we like to eat or try new things. I'll say. [01:03:40] Speaker D: Well, thank you once again, Jennifer. We really appreciate you coming on. You've been a great guest and have loved having you on to hear all about your many, many adventures and hope to have you back in the future. And of course we'll see you on the maiden voyage. So that'll be fun in and of itself. [01:03:52] Speaker A: Super exciting. Super exciting. [01:03:53] Speaker B: Yes. [01:03:54] Speaker D: But thanks for taking some time. We appreciate. [01:03:56] Speaker A: No, I appreciate it. [01:04:02] Speaker E: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dc or email [email protected] so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us. The best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here at least, and a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email us@info duo.com or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company or the Disney Family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at My Path Unwinding Travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo. [01:06:04] Speaker D: Good night.