We awoke to the first day of sunshine that we have had since we have been here.  The sky was pure crystal blue with little white fluffs of cloud. 

We made the decision early on that this would be the day to go to Disney.  I have never been to a Disney park at any point in my life, and Connie on the other hand is a connoisseur of Disney Theme Parks.  As each day goes by this trip becomes more and more about making her happy rather than making the movie.  I suppose it’s somewhat of a makeshift honeymoon for us.  If my divorce wasn’t chewing up the better part of two years, this would have been part honeymoon and part business trip.

TIFFCOM is exactly what I thought it was going to be.  A seller’s market.  Earlier on we had not been accepted into the Tokyo Project Gathering portion of the TIFFCOM experience.  I knew from that point that this was going to be difficult.  The second day of meetings wasn’t what we experienced on the first day.  But, it was confirmed that I am on the right path. 

Everyone at the festival have been simply outstanding.  They are all so polite and eager to help you.  The one major difference we have noticed is in work ethic.  The people here may not love their jobs, but they would never ever let it show.  THey are all so eager to please and eager to do their jobs the best way that they can.  It’s refreshing and yet at the same time hard to deal with, since the worker climate in the US is really a mess right now. As a manager for over 15 years I saw the change in climate happen.  From people that were hard working good time loving people to lazy don’t give a shit about this job attitudes.  And then I fell into it and left that job.

If anything, this trip has been somewhat of a spiritual enlightenment.  It’s also a very good stepping stone toward living like Johnny Depp and buying a villa in France to reside because… well, you really begin to learn that we Americans are PIGS.  It really comes so apparent how fucked the American society is.  It puts the world into perspective.

Tiffcom meetings were rough today.  We met with people buying and sat and waited to squeeze meetings in where we didn’t have any.

It really didn’t go over very well.  It was exactly what I had feared it would be.  After some self loathing and kicking myself, I decided that we will ride out this tornado and finish off our meetings.  I’m an American filmmaker in a seller’s market.  I am going to give it my damnedest today.  I don’t give a shit if my point gets heard or if my script gets read.  It’s now just information gathering. 

We will get as much information as we can.  From there I will build one fuck all synopsis and presentation for next year’s TPG application.  We find even the slightest American investor interest.  It doesn’t even need much… and it will really grease the wheels for all of this.  We are taking this over and building one fuck of an application.  I’m not remarking this as a failure yet, the meeting yesterday was simply outstanding.

So we left the market and headed back on a mission to make our way to Tokyo Disney Sea.  We had reset and just put our heads back on.  It was nice out.  It was cold and windy, but it was nice out.  We asked the concierge lady at the hotel for the best way to get to Tokyo Disney, because we weren’t exactly sure if our subway directions were right.  She said the best way was to hop a taxi for a few minutes and then hop a subway for the second portion.  So, if they say that’s the best, we thought we’d give it a shot.

What a fucking mistake that was.  Again, with the HEAT.  The heat in the cab was unbearable to the point of passing out.  We zigzagged to every single red light between here and Tokyo station only to wind up with a cab fare somewhere in the ballpark of $35… for a ten minute ride… across half of the city.  I was hot.  I was furious.  I was melting and started to not feel good.  The miserable attitude was then compounded by the utterly confusing Tokyo Station.  Metro Tokyo subway lines are very well read and are also very LABELED.  You know exactly where you need to go almost everywhere you go.  Not so with Tokyo Station.  This is the center hub of the city, you would think it would have been labeled better.  We needed to hop from cab to train and really had no clue where we were going.  Eventually Connie got us there.

The train ride began and yes, it was also HOT.  That really takes some adjusting to.  We’ve been here for four days and I still haven’t adjusted to it.  The weather is fine.  A little rainy sometimes, but indoors, it’s a sauna.  everywhere.  We rode the train out across Tokyo to the far eastern tip where Tokyo Disney Resort lays.  And wow.  Instantly my mood changed.  I was in awe.

As I said, I have never been to a Disney Park in my life so this was something magical.  It’s hard to hear that statement and understand it unless you’ve actually been there and done that.  The buildings, the park, the layout, the rides, the attractions, the music, were all… ALL.  phenomenal.  We chose Disney Sea over Disney Land, since Connie had been to Disney Land and there’s only ONE Disney SEA in the world. 

The park was gorgeous.  It was all decked out for Halloween.  Everywhere.  Upon walking in you are greeted with a magnificent harbor known as Mediterranean Harbor.  The first of FIVE harbors in the park.  I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it was.  We hit at sunset, and wow.  The world was a world all in it’s own.

We simply strolled for hours and hit a few attractions here and there.  Missed a lot of rides.  We really needed a full 8 hour day there to take in all the important stuff.  Someday we can go back for the rides… probably this time next year.

We inadvertently stuck around for the final fireworks show of the night which was also phenomenal… but also the last call for anything cool in the park so ALL of Disney Sea emptied out into the main exit area and I think I almost died from sheer overkill of human beings.  Souvenir shopping was quite traumatic.  IT was ghastly.  We gave up and left the park… and there, outside the park… was a tiny Disney souvenir shop just waiting for us.  And it was empty.  No people.  Just us.  It was fantastic.

The train ride home was interesting.  Kind of like being in those gift shops, only holed up on a train with everyone and their mother and their kids leaving the park.  thousands of people crammed into two train lines.  It was something.

We arrived back at the hotel around 11pm.  Exhausted.  Worn out.  Yet still under the magical spell that was Disney.  Someday, I hope I can take my parents and my kids to a Disney Park, even if it’s just in FLA.  It was unbelievable.  Just to walk around and look at the architecture was the trip in itself.  The attention to detail was remarkable.

I popped two sleeping pills and went to bed.  I haven’t been sleeping well here.  Not because of jet lag.  We are actually very balanced in that sense, but because of the fact that I don’t sleep well on any given normal night.  Two pills and I went down.

Today, is the last day of TIFFCOM.  It’s Thursday here now.  I’m going to rock out my meetings.  Gab with a few folk from different companies and just make what I can out of nothing.  I can do that. 

Tomorrow, we have a day off, with nothing to do.  It’s supposed to do nothing but rain, so we may hit up a few museums or something like that.

It’s cold here today.  And it’s rainy.  I’m ready to go home.  I miss my kids.  I am tired of being away from them.  I see them on Skype in the mornings and I think that’s worse than not seeing them at all.