#kind of chasing down all the pirate sites so yea....

[cepheusgalaxy]

Ok so I'm watching this crazy show again that I quit out of anger* but now im calmed down i remembered how its actually pretty good.

It's a distopic society where every single "public" service is owned by one single private corporation. Jail, open TV, hospitals, news channels, food production, everything. I didn't get the plot very well, but the mc is this guy (laserhawk) and his bf who are rebels. The animation is also really pretty but bro its a crazy crazy show.

I love the worldbuilding tho.

(spoiler below, the why i quit the show before)

*almost every single fucking person in the main squad died like in akame ga kill so i quit it out of spite

[empireintheair]

– by ChiChai@Empire –

Chris@Empire and  I jam-packed our Asia trip so much …  our lives still look interesting on social media two months later.  Since coming back to the US in April, I’ve tried my best to recap our month-long voyage while catching up with reality. These blog posts have included activities like trekking up an active volcano and being soothed by a boat. And, thus far, these activities have occurred in our homelands (Philippines and Vietnam) and our one full day in Korea.

We are finally reaching our trip’s last week in which the agenda showed no signs of slowing down until we reached the airport to go home. The cherry on top of our trip was spent in Japan. This website will soon tell our stories of shopping in Tokyo, strolling through Kyoto’s history, and dropping our jaws upon seeing huge sea creatures in Osaka. To kick off our Japan week, I’m taking you to a place full of magic, nostalgia, and hella yummy treats.

Where is that exactly? Tokyo Disney Sea! *peep my new Minnie ears from the Disney Sea shop!*

Disneyland’s central sight is the Sleeping Beauty castle. Disneyworld’s main squeeze is the Cinderella castle. What’s the leading spectacle at Disney Sea?

A VOLCANO!

Chris and I were mostly excited to see what type of “worlds” Disney Sea had in comparison to Disneyland. Disney Sea definitely did not disappoint. On top of having a volcano, this theme park has a “Mysterious Harbor,” “American Waterfront,” “Mermaid Lagoon,” “Arabian Coast,” “Lost River Delta,” “Mediterranean Harbor,” and more!

Yes! There were more! This park felt huuuuuge! But… That may also be due to the weather. Little did Chris and I know that we would be visiting Tokyo in 30-40F weather. (For San Francisco Bay Area Californians, anything less than 60F is freezing lol.) As you can kind of tell in this photo, all visitors were wet and freezing.

The intense cold led us to purchase face masks. And, with the perks of being in Asia, face masks are a common purchase! And, with the perks of being in an Asian Disney park, the face masks were cuuuute!

The weather did slow us down but it certainly did not stop us from having fun.

For instance, we made sure to still try a bunch of the food. We first treated ourselves to lunch with dim sum.

In all honesty, I wanted to eat dim sum for the Donald Duck mango pudding. The dim sum was pretty good but, c’mon, look how adorable that smile is.

While enjoying Disney Sea’s food, we joined the popcorn-bucket hype. There are popcorn carts throughout the park that have different popcorn flavors and character buckets. These buckets are so popular for locals that many use them as accessories! We made sure to make time to grab one ourselves, especially because Sam@Empire gave us the heads up about it prior (she’s a Disney fanatic btw.) We got curry flavored popcorn in a classic Mickey-styled bucket.

Also, as Disneyland fanatics know, churros are a must. And look! The churros have a Mickey Mouse silhouette!

One Disney Sea hype that Chris and I missed the memo on was matching. Homies rolled deep with their matching accessories and/or outfits. I call this photo level 1 of the Disney matching game.

This photo exemplifies level 10. These gals literally matched from head to toes (referring to stockings.)

In regards to the attractions…

Like I said, Chris and I were hyped to visit DisneySea’s various worlds. The attractions  truly allowed us to experience the worlds that Disney Sea created. We mostly rode the rides in the Arabian Coast. Before Tiana and Moana, my favorite Disney princess/heroine was no one other than Princess Jasmine. I grabbed Chris’ hand and jumped up and down and dragged him all over the Arabian Coast to fulfill my Princess Jasmine needs.

For example, we went on a magic carpet ride!

We rode round and round the Arabian Coast with horses and genies as our host.

Btw, the carousel is two stories tall! If you ask me, its grandeur is fitting for Princess Jasmine.

Photo by Chris’ Tokyo Disney Resort Fan Site

The non-Aladdin related attraction we rode in the Arabian Coast was “Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage.” I actually do not know if this ride was based on a show or movie (help!). On top of not knowing the context of this ride, Chris and I couldn’t understand anything because the characters spoke and sang in Japanese (as they should… bc, you know, we’re in Japan.) Entering the ride completely clueless, it surprisingly became one of our favorites of the day! Imagine a mash-up of “It’s a Small World’s” aesthetic and “Pirates of the Caribbean” adventurous spirit– you get this ride! Another bonus of the ride– the song is hella good!

*problematic characteristics of the ride, however, include the execution of colorism. In other words, why the hero be light-skinned and villains be dark-skinned???*

Chris and I also rode the rides of  Mysterious Island: 20,000  Leagues of the Seabed and Center of the Earth. One was eh and the other was dope!

The eh for us would be the 20,000 Leagues of the Seabed. It takes you “underwater” to view deep sea alien-like creatures while an adventurous narrator serves as your tour guide. What made it eh? Unlike Sinbad’s ride, the language barrier prevented us from fully experiencing the ride. (That’s on us though– we shouldn’t expect everyone to accommodate English-speakers. We coo off our Western-upbringing privilege.) Another eh was that the title led us to believing it would be an epic journey. Rather, the ride was a lot mellower than anticipated, making it more suitable for a younger crowd. The toddler that was in our little submarine was having a blast while Chris and I were simply enjoying the warmth.

The dope ride would be Journey to the Center of the Earth aka the ride inside the freakin’ volcano! Be sure to get a fast pass for this one! The wait time never went down an hour and I completely understand why. Imagine if the Indiana Jones ride merged with Space Mountain. Now imagine a part of that ride shooting you out of the side of a volcano! That’s what happened in this thrill-chasing ride. You got a sense of a story, an adventure, and heart-racing. View it here!

As if the volcano couldn’t get more interesting… did I mention that it erupts?

As you may have noticed, Chris and I hella filled up this one day in Japan. The energy and jam-packed schedule continues from here! But, for now, enjoy one last volcano photo (yea, I’m a bit obsessed)

  Volcano in Tokyo! - by ChiChai@Empire - Chris@Empire and  I jam-packed our Asia trip so much ...  our lives still look interesting on social media two months later.