The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Yes, there is a Disneyland in Tokyo, but there is also Disney Sea: https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tds/?darkschemeovr=1

How and why did we end up there?

Our flight from Europe landed at about 6am and we were at our hotel a bit after 7am, but our room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm. Thankfully, they could hold our luggage.

Too bad we forgot to change (or never really had a chance) out of our flight socks, change any clothes, brush our teeth or take a shower. With some breath mints in my backpack, we considered walking around Tokyo, but that’s the plan for next week when our friend joins us for city exploring.

Since someone recently suggested Disney Sea was different and unique, we set that as our goal for the day, plus figuring out the Tokyo subway… jet lagged, still wearing flight socks as it started getting warmer outside.

Thankfully it never got above 70F today, and it never really rained either.

The park is quite unique, and while it wasn’t too crowded, there were still lines for all rides, many restaurants, and all but one popcorn vendor. The popcorn is different flavours, with the first one we saw being Garlic & Shrimp. Ick. Just ick. We ate ice cream most of the day, because nobody stood in line for that for some reason. We did find a popcorn vendor with no line, and as luck would have it, it was Mocha & White Chocolate. We loved it.

We lasted from about 10am until about 3pm, which is pretty good for us at any amusement park. I think the people watching was as good as the design of the different themed areas of the park.

This little forest area that we often walk through is covered in blue bells right now, otherwise known as Hyacinthoides non-scripta

Keukenhof is one of the biggest flower gardens in the world and is the number one place in the Netherlands for tulip displays.

While working in London this week, here’s what I got to see along my walk.

A few photos of our new (100 year old) house between Haarlem and the beach on the North Sea. It’s the end unit of a 4-plex. No, the horses are not ours, but we see them quite often when walking around the neighbourhood. Plus the cows.

The day started at -4c and warmed up to 0c by 3pm, but the cold dry air was good for walking around and popping into cafes and bars.

Late running trains from Amsterdam meant we didn’t get to see much on our first day, but so far it seems to be a very picturesque European town with interesting buildings and restaurants.

We plan to see what we can discover on Saturday by taking some long cold walks around the town.

After about 30 hours of travel chaos, we have finally arrived in London. Just in time to relax a bit before New Year’s festivities begin.

Saturday morning was supposed to be an early Eurostar trip from Amsterdam to London, but all trains ended up being cancelled for the day. This was due to a broken pipe in the Thames river (not the English Channel) that was filling the tunnel with water.

There weren’t going to be any trains on Sunday from Amsterdam and there were high winds, so we weren’t confident that flights would run either.

So, we took a train to the big Eurostar hub in Brussels, spent the night in a hotel… after quite a few failed attempts to book a new train for Sunday.

Sunday morning started early with a queue growing well before employees started working. Everyone’s goal is to get to London today, but of course the trains were probably already booked for people who were planning on travelling today.

Hopefully the next post will be from London for New Years Eve celebrations.

We took a short hike up to the famous observatory in LA today. Look at all of the movies it has been in and the science at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_Observatory?wprov=sfti1#