Japanese Ice Ouca

Last week I went to one cute dessert store in an area called Ebisu. Me and my friends saw this cute looking small dessert and decided to give it a try, since sometimes in front of this store, usually have a quite long queue which make us curious about this shop.

It only takes about 5 minute walk straight from JR Ebisu station which is very convenient, I think.

Although the store is quite small and can only fit around 10 people to dine in, the nuance is very nice! I always amazed by how the Japanese can décor such a small place into a very cozy surroundings.

The menu itself is not very hard to read even though still, most of it are in Japanese. But don’t worry the staff sometimes can speak English too! They sell variations of savory and sweet ice creams (with the taste of quite you-can-never-find-in-other-store kind, such as pear, melon, grapefruits, karintou, etc), japanese traditional dessert and dessert drinks. The price range is not that expensive too, ranged from 390 yen to 490 yen, and 600 yen for the special menus such as dessert of the season whatsoever which usually came in a big portion.

We ordered Dango Ice for 390 yen, with the normal standard sauce. Actually we can choose the red bean sauce but we were afraid with the ice cream it will be super sweet so nevertheless we go for the normal savory sauce one. And we can choose the ice cream flavor too! I chose karintou (Japanese friend dough) at that time and it taste awesommeeeeee. Not very sweet and got this savory taste a little bit. The dango itself is warm, chewy, with a perfect balance of sweet-savory-soy-sauce taste like sauce over it cannot be more perfect than that.

Another menu we ordered is the red bean glutenous rice jelly dessert for 470 yen. I forgot the name precisely though, but still it was very nice! It’s not very sweet like I imagined it will be. That’s what I think as the plus point for this store. They mix jelly, red bean, dunno bout the yellow thingy though but I suppose ot was some kind of sweet potato ball, and a syrup topping. Yums!

And then, because the karintou ice cream was soo good, we went back there again several days later just only to eat the ice cream <3

And they didn’t forget to put a little bit of savory dry seaweed to balance with the ice cream even though we didn’t need it though, as the ice cream itself was in the tight level of sweetness.

And so I can say I have a full dessert satisfaction level for the week!!

Tokyo Disneysea (October 2014)

Finally!!! After 1 year of hard times finding the best time to go to Disneysea, Finally I went there on previous week. I went there with my friend from Singapore and Malaysia, Yuan, Celina and Steph. I’ve met Celina and Steph just that Sunday, however they are such a fun girls I have a great time with them!! Too bad they leave Japan so fast, I will miss them a lot.

From Maihama Station, I took Tokyo Disney Resort Liner to Disneysea. It cost around 240 yen one way I think, If I’m not mistaken. From the station onward, we were welcomed by Disney's majestic orchestra music background which set the mood to the max! 

Mickey train come! 

Steph, Celina, Yuan, Me.

Talking about best times, that day actually it’s not the best-est time that I can get. Heavy rain poured full one day as a beginning of Monday’s typhoon so we kinda cannot take so much great photos. However, the great thing is, less crowds, less queue and we can catch quite a lot of attraction in one day!! And all of them mostly the most recommended of all.

Reached, we quickly amazed by all Halloween festive season's decoration!

And from the entrance, the view of Mountain Prometheus really stand out. Haiyah. I almost believed it's a natural mountain until they told me it was man made. Jesus Christ.

However, sorry again for bad weather, I couldn't take photo's properly at that time so I only can describe a little bit of what I found interesting about the attractions.

We went to these attractions by order: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones Temple of the Crystal Skull, Sindbad Storybook Voyage, The Magic Lamp Theatre, 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, Broadway Music Theatre and Tower of Terror.

From all of them, My 3 most favorite by order is Indiana Jones, Broadway Theatre, and Tower of Terror! All must try!

Indiana Jones gave us a very pleasurable effect and pumping enough adrenaline, everything combined perfectly, not too much, not too less. Broadway Theatre, where Mickey and friends dancing accompanied by great jazz performance (If you like it!), makes me sit in awe of how can a character that can’t speak express a lot using music and gestures. The performance shocked me because It exceeds my expectation. And the last is Tower of Terror, great settings and opening story, not too high above an better be taken on night, so you can be enchanted by the pretty Disneysea’s view from above high (in case you can handle the free fall, of course).

This is one of the photo taken from Indiana Jones. Interesting expressions!!

and tower of terror. I remember this one was taken right before the drop.

And next are the lousy attractions from my pov.

Surprisingly I found the Journey to the Center of the Earth which is the main attraction of Disney Sea, quite unsatisfying. It’s a roller coaster, but the drop is only once, we kinda over expected it to be at least 2 or 3 drops, however one drop and it’s over. Booboo. 20.000 leagues Under the Sea too!! Nothing’s there. Only sit in a capsule, with a little bit shaking and vibration, bubble effect, and it’s over. I read in a blog it’s top recommended, however, thank you for raising my expectation above acceptable level. Lucky we didn’t need to queue for this (we amazingly just went in!!) or else will be heart broken...

Aside from the lousy ones, the other attraction is nice too. Actually we wanted to try Toy Story Mania and Storm Rider however because even until late night they still have quite a long queue (it’s great, I guess?) we decided to back off and shop.

And of course we don’t forget to mention about the food! We ate our lunch on Yucatan Base Camp Grill. They serve Halloween Special Set for 1450yen. Look how cute this is!

2 hours after lunch we have a quite “heavy” snack time on a restaurant near the entrance andddd forget the name of the restaurant but since they serve cute dessert with Mickey plates and stuff, we went in. I forget the price too, cause we share all of it between 4 of us.

During our stroll, we brought Curry Popcorn too!! (OMG). The smell is so obvious we can directly tell it's curry. 

The cute thing is usually every popcorn stall sells popcorn buckets that you can refill popcorn and it comes on so many different characters, but several that I see the most is Mr. Potato Head and the three cute kiddo Alien from Toy Story. However the bucket itself quite pricey (I remember it was around 2000 or 2500 yen included the popcorn, price is different per bucket). I tempted to buy but since I know I will only use it once, I backed up...  And bye-bye Mr. Potato Head.

And here are several additional photos that I managed to take:

We played around with all the cute hats and masks and take photos without even the staff bother to shoo us!! Take all the photossssss!!!!

And here is the photo while we were queueing for Indiana Jones. Raincoat is kinda become our dresscode that day..

Mike eat my head!! But I'm happy!!!

And several souvenirs that I brought for myself.. (yes I'm greedy about Monster Inc.)

I realized now why people said go here for 1 time will be not enough. If you want to explore to the details, I think it needs around 2-3 full day to explore, take proper photos, eat a lot, experience all attractions, since the queue itself can be quite long and take time. Even people queue in front of the restaurants and cafeteria, it’s unbelievable.

What makes me amazed is that how big is this theme park. For whole my life, the most proper theme park that I’ve been visited is Genting Highland, and Universal Studio of Singapore. And I realized that Disney Sea is 3 times bigger than USS. I spent USS, everything, took photos, attractions for half day only, while here on Disneysea, I went 12 hours from 10 to 10 and it’s haven’t finished yet. Craycraycrazy.

And other magic things are they create everything almost outdoors. You can see the full open sky with all these setting of docks, marine yacht, mountain, and all of it combined together you feel like you are out of this real world. They take imagination to another new level. I don’t mind to go there every day If I can, at least I can feel free from all the problem that I have with this lousy world.

After all, it’s where all the dreams come true... It’s true.

Say hello to Disney Sea holiday blues...

Nb: promise myself to go there again if I can. And take proper photos of course!