A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 27 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
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We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Mmmm, those cinnamon melts at McDonald's are yummy!! I love the picture of the decoration in the lobby of the Government building. It had one of those cute kitties in it.
Wonderful updates! You getting a bit turned around and in a foreign country had me a bit nervous. We got a bit lost in Montreal with the subways when we were there and I was a bit
Weird that people were spitting. Very strange....and gross.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
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Another Great update! The whole thing about the spitting was really gross. I wonder why the feel the need to do that in public.
When I was stationed in Taiwan, we used to see the locals chewing betal nuts, kind of like the way americans chew tobacco. They would spit on the sidewalks, etc and you would see these red stains every where. Wonder if this what you were seeing?
Wednesday 1 April – part three: attack of the clones!
We went through a very cursory bag search before going up to the South floor observatory. I couldn’t help but think about the World Trade Center, as this place also has a North floor observatory, but theirs is lot smaller and only goes up to the 45th floor, a lot lower down. That’s probably just as well, as the fog was still pretty low lying from earlier, although I think it had cleared a bit by now.
We got some great views over Shinjuku and nearby Shibuya and the view back towards the city wasn’t too bad, but the real disappointment for me was on the other side of the observatory. There was absolutely no hope for seeing Mount Fuji, which was one of my main reasons for coming up here. A great shame.
Looking towards the Imperial Palace The high rises of Shinjuku Looking back down to the courtyard of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices Yoyogi Park… .. and a close-up on the Meiji Shrine in the park The view towards Roppongi with the Tokyo Tower to the left of the shot Looking out towards the north tower Inside the observation deck Information about the building
It really was amazing to find this place and that it was free. They could easily charge a lot of money for the privilege of visiting this area, but they don’t. It’s free and that’s impressive.
We saw lots of business people up there. I don’t doubt that some of them work in this building and come up for lunch, as there’s a restaurant up here, although it’s in the centre of the room, so it has no views outside from there.
One thing I must say here. We couldn’t help but notice how similar all the business women look in Tokyo. They are all in dark suits with beige coats over them. We began to talk about them all being clones, they were so similar. It’s almost as if they all shop in the same place to ensure that they look the same and maybe they do. Those beige coats would explain the presence of so many Burberry stores in the city anyway!
A sneaky shot of the “clones”!
We sat there for a while, just resting and taking in the views and then it was back down. Isn’t it always the way that when you decide to leave, there’s a long line? Sure enough, that’s what happened to us. It took a couple of elevators to come and go, but then we were on our way down crammed in like sardines. Let’s just say that the Japanese know how to fill a lift to capacity, but after everything we’d already seen on the subway, that didn’t surprise us!
We found that there was a subway station on the base of the building – again, isn’t that always the way? After you trek over here from Shinjuku, you realise there was an easier way to get here! But sadly this one wasn’t covered by our one day pass. That’s the problem with the trains in Japan. They’re all owned and operated by different train companies and this was another one outside of the Metro system.
The ticket machines at the subway station
Still, the fare wasn’t too bad at only 170¥ (about £1) each and the ticket machines were surprisingly easy to use. I had worried about those, as the guidebooks weren’t exactly helpful and I had therefore assumed that they were very difficult to use, but not at all. Pretty much all the numbers in Japanese are Roman, meaning they use our system for them, even though there is a Kanji way of writing the numbers. Isn’t it typical? That was one of the bits I had committed to memory before we left and now I didn’t need it! So all you have to do is look at the subway map above the machines that tells you how much to pay to go between stations and then pick that price from the ticket machine and pay your money and that’s it.
We got off a couple of stops down the line and then the next challenge was working out which way we needed to go to get to our next destination. Although I had a number of different maps with us, none of them had street names on them (helpful! ) and the streets quite often don’t display names either. Mark finally got it sorted out and this time, we did set off in the right direction.
It was about a five minute walk and then we entered Yoyogi Park that’s home to the Meiji Shrine. That was our next stop. Yet again, it was a very peaceful place to visit and you could forget that you were in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. It’s a Shinto temple dedicated in honour of Emperor Meiji, hence the name. Once again, it’s a familiar story. This was built in the 1920s and was destroyed by bombing during World War Two. It was then rebuilt in 1958, with money from private donors.
Cleaning up the leaves in Yoyogi Park
While we were there, the monks came our to play the Japanese drums, which took me back to Epcot. However, there was no way they had the same speed or passion. It was a much more measured and more a banging of the drum instead. Once that finished, the monks all stood there, chanting and there seemed to be some kind of ceremony going on, but we couldn’t follow it, so we left them to it after a while.
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Pixie Dust
Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
at the cherry blossoms! We planted a Yoshino cherry on the edge of the property last month....I think I might just plant a few more. 
Gorgeous!
ºOº ~*~ 
Mmmmm - might have to go out this w/end and get me some of those there cinnamon melts 
....
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
PassPorter Guide Author
) and the streets quite often don’t display names either. Mark finally got it sorted out and this time, we did set off in the right direction. 
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