Halloween is a big deal in my family. It just is. And with us being away on Halloween, I felt the need to find some sort of Halloween activity to get Ellie involved in. Even if it was Japan, there had to be something we could take her to. And while we were out one day at the local mall, I found just the thing. A Halloween Parade!
We had no idea what to expect with it being in Japan, but it would be another excuse to get Ellie in her costume. But what would a Japanese Halloween Parade be like?
When we planned our day at Tokyo Disneyland, I tried to contain my own excitement. Disneyland at Halloween! It couldn’t get any better than that! I had no idea how Ellie would do though. She might love it, or it might just be too much for her. I figured we’d take things slow and do a lot of looking, walking around, and not too many of the rides. But when Ellie woke up cranky on Disney day, I really had no idea what to expect.
Do you like Disneyland? Do you like Halloween? Well imagine Disneyland with giant Mickey Mouse shaped jack-o-lanterns, dancing skeletons, mummies and witches, haunted houses and bats! Welcome to Spookyville people! That’s what you get when you go to Disneyland in October! (If you’re one of those hard crusty people who hate Disneyland and anything magical or wonderful, I’m sorry, maybe you should skip this post) We realized that Ellie was probably a little too young to enjoy the full effects of Disneyland. But when we are staying less than an hour away, how could we not go for one day to find out for ourselves! And with it being Halloween, we were going to take Ellie dressed in her costume as Little Red Riding Hood.
The weather was going to be a perfect mild sunny fall day, so we decided to take Ellie to the Ueno Zoo. I had been there by myself during our last trip.  The admission was only 4 bucks.  I figured, how could I not go? But we never made it to the zoo. Ellie napped after we ate lunch, and instead, we visited this section by the Ueno station called Ameyayokocho. It’s a few streets filled with all kinds of shops. Food markets, shoes, watches, beans, dried fruit, clothes, touristy t-shirts, all kinds of stuff. I guess this section was popular with the Americans after the war, and that’s how it got it’s name. It’s a pretty popular area and has a lot of tourists, so I fit right in.
One thing Aya loooves to do is go shopping. It doesn’t necessarily mean she loves to buy things, but she loves to look at things. She can be out all day, come home with one $5 purchase and be content. She loves going out, browsing and checking out all the new products, the new fashions, home goods, books, magazines, anything. She loves the experience and the hunt. And one thing she likes to do a lot of while in Japan is to go shopping. Because from what I can tell, this is the place to do it. But with Ellie around this time, it’s been a bit of an adjustment on how far and how often we can venture out. We made sure we waited long enough for Ellie to settle in and be comfortable alone with Aya’s parents, and Aya and I got to go out on the town solo for the day.
