Fumbling around Japan for around 10 days

[The_bup]

So, 24 hours have elapsed and I’ve had my last day in Tokyo: here’s what happened;
We started by getting some breakfast. I had a warm BLT, I had no idea it was going to be warm, but I can’t say I appreciated it in the 30+ degree weather. After a short train ride, we came to our first location: an art experience.

You were lined up in the first room Nemesis Sub-Terra style, and gives an instructional video. We weren’t allowed shoes or socks because there was going to be water that could get knee deep. After locking everything away in a locker, we were on our merry way. It featured a small amount of rooms, each with something different going on (kinda, not really, I’ll explain). There was a room where you had to walk up a slope with water running down past your feet, and had a big waterfall at the top. They were all very dark, may I add

Other rooms included; a big planetarium style room where you fly past floating flowers in a void, a room where you waded through suspiciously white water which had fish projected on them. They were meant to explode into flowers if you touched them, but it was a bit iffy, and the walls and stuff where mirrors: remember this. There was a room of pillows on the floor and walls, a room with big inflatable balls, and mirrors on the walls ceiling and floor. The most impressive one was a room with programmed LED strip lights in; you guessed it, a completely mirrored room. There where a lot of mirrors, okay!?


This is what the flies see when they get stuck in a chandelier

Just going to squeeze through… exuse me! Sorry! Get used to ruining some photos here.
The weirdest room to me was, a mirrored room of course; but it had no ceiling and you had to lie on your back and… watch flowers bob over you..? A lot of the art kind of had a “this moment will never be the same again” kind of feel, undermined by how they were obviously aiming for the ‘instagrammable moments’ crowd. Seriously, you could not walk around because people were taking photos of themselves in every room. A lot. I hate having my photo taken, I’ve never got the appeal. Why can’t I just take a nice photo of where I’ve been? Do I have to be in it? Do I have to prove to you I was there? Whatever. They were very kind as to offer free courtesy shorts to the women, though, which is great. Mirrored floors and all.. yeah I got enough of the slightly weird people from that anime high street on the first day.

Ok what does it mean tho?
I liked some of the rooms, but it was a bit of pain to navigate and none of it spoke to me. Like wow. Big balls in a mirrored room. I’m going to be a better person and think about the starving children in Africa now.

Enough of that, we then drove to a fish market. They had all kinds of shops selling prawns, lobsters, the works. We bought some funny soda drink there. I got one which was lemon flavoured, but they also offered grapefruit and orange ones too. They got the fruit, squeezed out the inside by drilling a hole through it, put the juice in the soda water and then, most interestingly, put the draw through the fruit and into your drink. I’ll be honest, my one was rather nasty, as it just tasted of watered down lemon. Still had to take a photo of all of us leaning on and taking a sip and I just want to AAAAAAAAAHHHH! It hurts to write that down.

We stopped at a sushi place, where we had a nice, but admittedly small meal. It was nice, but it was sushi. Need I say more? It was good! After checking out, apparently the market used to be filled with huge tune fish. Apparently they where as big as cars! Unfortunately, they aren’t there anymore because of H&S, which I get. There are other interesting fish and crustaceans to see instead. Another odd thing was the ice cream shop we stopped at. Looked normal. But soon closer inspection it became apparent. “Was there a Jhon Lennon shrine” I hear you all guessing, and you would be correct. Apparently he went to that shop and said it was good. Once. Okay. Sure.

After hanging around a the street market for a bit, we took another train to a downtown-high street place. It has many interesting shops to look around. We found another hobby shop, and I blew a well spent ¥300 on a gachapon machine, where I got this fella;

Awwhhh! I would just eat him up if he didn’t have a bit of paper saying he was a choking hazard…
We also saw an expensive supermarket of sorts. Lots of different brands had there own almost stall like sections. I cant think of a word for fancy stalls. Segments? But one thing shook me a bit; the fruits. See, the Japanese have a lot of attention to fruits. Specifically their shape. If you’ve got a wonky looking watermelon, best you’re going to get is a low price. If you grow a smooth, round fruit, you’re going to have a nice dinner today. But if you somehow grow a marble smooth, cue ball smooth, fruit… well your pension is sorted.


That peach is over £550 pounds.

We also went into a brand shop, where well… different brands have sections of the shop. There was a kind of Alice in wonderland one, a traditional one amongst many others, but the best one is obviously the Godzilla one. I bought myself a lil’ Shin Godzilla of my own. The plastics a little squishy, I like that. Firm plastic tends to snap, this thing is going to last. I also wanted to buy another capsule from a Gacha machine, but we needed the coins for a laundrette. You would get a little bust of Godzilla, each one from a different time period respectively. Fine. I’ll do it myself.


Only occurred to me how tiny his eyes are

It’s quite a lot at once!

I love this penguin. We went to his shop yesterday. I also said it was a supermarket. It’s a department store. I even fool myself sometimes..
After a bustling city square trip, we decided to relax in a traditional garden. There were well kept trees, mowed lawns, lakes and little oriental buildings. One of them was a coffee shop. And by that I mean I Starbucks. Sure it was themed in but why? Tangent aside we stopped there for a drink, I had a ‘Vanilla Frappe’ which is ACTUALLY JUST A MILKSHAKE! CALL IT A MILKSHAKE! I’m sure if you said you wanted a large coffee instead of a “grande” espresso they’d take you round the back and shoot you, so let’s be kind to our at-most-15-minutes-away-from-each-other overlords. There were also these people that were taking photos of themselves with the drink for a solid 15 minutes..? They had gear and stuff to. I wouldn’t call drinking overpriced coffee from a plastic disposable cup photo worthy but… obviously I’m not in the photo taking loop. I’m being arsey about photos today, aren’t I?

Reminds me of Towers a bit
They also had a greenhouse, which had those carnivorous plants that drown the flies, so that was cool. Well landscaped in there too, think a mini Eden project. Also, I Said something about arm warmers a few days ago. They’re actually there to stop tanning. People in a hot country obviously get tanned a lot, so fashion says that having pasty white skin means ‘unlike you peasants, I can stay inside and stay pale’, whereas we get tanned and are like ‘I managed to escape our iced over hellscape and spent a large amount of time abroad, spending a lot of time in the sun doing nothing because I CAN AFFORD THAT’. So, sorry for the slight misinformation.

So, after an exhausting little day, we went back to our flat for a little rest, before going out to dinner. Nice little restaurant. Was a little bit sick of other human beings at that point, so I didn’t have the best time, but it’s just like that sometimes.

What is this, a kaiju for ants?! He needs to be at least 3 times that size!
Well, I am positively shattered, so I’m going to have a good rest. We might to to Fuji Q tomorrow! Unfortunately, there’s meant to be a mini typhoon. So we might hold it off for the day after instead. Maybe this is what my fortune told me to wait for…

Have a good one.


Heh heh, I think I’m funny.

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

That whole day reads like some bizzarre fever dream and that's what is making your trip report so fantastic. It must be mind blowing being out there just seeing and experiencing all the little cultural differences and quirks.

 

[The_bup]

That whole day reads like some bizzarre fever dream and that's what is making your trip report so fantastic. It must be mind blowing being out there just seeing and experiencing all the little cultural differences and quirks.

That’s not because the day was really weird, I’m just horrible at writing stuff that makes sense. It was also 11pm.

 

[rob666]

Lock yourself in for the winds Mr Bup...
World Service forecast warning in the middle of the night...
I thought of you...

 

[The_bup]

another day has rolled by, and things didn’t go quite to plan. The typhoon happened. A bit. Woke up to the wind outside howling like it was the last judgment. Soon after further inspection, everything seemed to be fine. The wind started to die out a bit. Our Taxi man showed up on time, and after packing everything away, it was time to head to Fuji.

After quite a long drive, I saw the landscape change from bustling metropolis, to a dramatic green landscape. It’s full of hills and valleys, imagine being an ant walking over huge hills of moss.


So long, Tokyo!


That would be a hike…

Then, peeking over the trees… Fuji
Yama. That massive ride. See, today we were planning to go to Fuji Q Highland, but we were suspicious that the more than adverse weather conditions would foil our plans. So, we told the taxi driver to wait outside while we checked to see if today was the day.


Gift shop waaaaaaay before the main entrance

It was not. We sat in the on-and-off rain, and every now and again they would announce an indoor ride was open. Let’s face it, we’re only here for Ejinika, so we bailed so we could keep the tickets active. Interestingly, there is an entire themed France land outside the park. It wasn’t overly detailed, and the forced perspective was a big spotty, but it was well done. We stopped at a café for breakfast. I was then introduced to the aptly named “Fuji-chan”


Awwwwhhh! Wook at the cwute widdle fuji chan!!


The frontal cortex has suffered irreparable damage. The best possible result is full body paralysis, and the likelihood of that is low. Death is the most probable scenario. My advice would be to say your final goodbyes now, before he finds his rest, or perhaps more, when his heart monitor flatlines. May he find more peace in that world, than he did in this one

After getting the HELL outta there, we got in the taxi and buggered off to our hotel. Immediately, we were greeted with the problem of… what now? We made an executive decision to move everything we were meant to do tomorrow for today. And that was a lot of nature trails. We got dropped off at a car park, and after a slight misadventure with the routes, we found the park we were looking for. We were greeted with flowers, and many landscaped sights to see. There was some waterwheels, waterfalls, plants and even a little water feature play park.


Behold! My armada!


The landscaping was great!


Some interesting life as well!

Most interestingly, there was a small play park, where we were greeted with what I’m going to call the M&S Coaster. The equipment is somewhat unique and requires a different kind of introduction



This as you may recognise is a childrens play slide, but the criteria that makes in constitute as a slide is slightly murky. Instead of being a specially crafted construction of metal or plastic at an angle that makes it easy to slide down, you may first notice the angle in question is too small to produce a sliding motion. However, the slide is made of hundreds of small rollers, hence the name the of the M&S Coaster. Where else could this be? But the Twilight Zone a Japanese play park.

I had to try it. Despite me obviously not being in the target demographic, the novelty! It’s like a sirens call! And so it was. I quickly decided the best course of action was to stand and almost skate down it. First time, it worked fine. Second time, my pre-notioned terror from my first trip made my balance kick in, and matched with rollers it meant one thing:

Falling flat on my arse. The sirens call of spectacle made me try the waters once again.

After my pain-fall encounter, we went in a greenhouse, it was full of plastic plants, but another piece of metal caught my eye. The tune of Scrap Brain Zone grabbed my ear, and I knew immediately what it was. It couldn’t be..?! I found the rare sonic claw machine! It’s not entirely relevant or interesting why it’s so rare, so I’ll leave it in a spoiler section so you can skip it if it’ll bore you to tears:

Spoiler: Nerd stuff

This claw machine is special, and not because some absolute numpty put the sign on the wrong way round. This machine was released maybe a few years before Sonic 1 came out, and uses the Mega Drive’s sound system. It also plays sonic music that was made almost over a year before the games release! So, beta versions of tracks from the games! There was a Labyrinth Zone Track, a Scrap Brain Zone track and a Starlight Zone Track. It also must of been a little confusing seeing this blue hedgehog you’ve never seen before on one of the prize doors of this cabinet at its release

Moving on, we went back to our hotel room, where I lounged about for a few hours. We later went to a restaurant, which was simply a semi-permanent caravan with some stuff built around that served Pizzas. After a meal that you could about expect, we headed back, again, and took a potentially awkward trip to the communal showers. I don’t care how cultural it could be, I’m going to skeptical of a situation where a creepy old man can see my jingle-jangles. Luckily, not a mortal soul was in that room with me, so I could just shower in peace. Thank GOD.

That’s really about it. Been a little disappointing, but who am I going to blame for it. We shall be returning to Fuji Q tomorrow. It’s a scorcher by the look of it, but hopefully it’s going to be clear enough to actually see the real Fuji. It’s going to be busy though. But I’ll sure to tell you all about it in due time.

 

[Zeock]

It is a shame that the weather disrupted your day. Nevertheless, your latest mini-trip report was very good. I hope that you have a great time tomorrow.

 

[Bowser]

took a potentially awkward trip to the communal showers. I don’t care how cultural could be, I’m going to skeptical of a situation where a creepy old man can see my jingle-jangles. Luckily, not a mortal soul was in that room with me, so I could just shower in peace. Thank GOD.

One trip to Japan my friends (one male and one female) took me to a sauna. Once inside we split up and i was taken with my one friend into the all male sauna, where i was the only white person in a sea of naked Japanese men. So that was something.

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

That’s not because the day was really weird.

My friend, you were saying…


You don’t get that on a trip to Towers or Thorpe! As someone who has never been to Japan I think that so many elements of Japanese culture I’m seeing from your trip report look so wonderfully surrealistic or dream like in a nice way.

 

[The_bup]

My friend, you were saying…


You don’t get that on a trip to Towers or Thorpe! As someone who has never been to Japan so many elements from your trip report look so wonderfully surrealistic or dream like in a nice way.

Oh. Thanks!

 

[The_bup]

Today is Fuji Q day! There’s a lot so I’ll skip the bus faffage and whatever else.


Nice day! You can even see Fuji!
We went in through the back enterance this time, and it’s in a bit more of a town-y setting, it must be weird living there and seeing both Mount Fuji and several coasters right next to you! The park used a facial recognition software, which worked just fine, but I have a problem with it, that I’ll talk about later.

The park didn’t feel busy, but the lines were long. Lowest we got was 50 mins. We first went on Fujiyama, formerly the tallest coaster… in the world. The enterance is big, and it has these weird statues on sticks. After a painfully slow moving (but shady!) queue, we got to the top of the station. Fuji Q uses a locker system, sometimes in the station to replace a normal baggage hold. Some have them before, and then a metal detector, like at universal. Before getting on, they tell you an overbearing amount of information about how to ride correctly. Hmmm… wonder why that could be. They told you to keep your head back, sit up straight, keep your feet on the floor, literally everything. They even pretty much spoiled the whole layout in the queue videos to warn you for ‘sudden inclines’. My brother in Christ, is a rollercoaster we know!

The restraints had these massive cushions over them, kind of triangle shaped that went from your waist, to halfway up your lap, then up in front of you. They where bulky, on top of having a seatbelt under your waist. Considering their shape, and small amount of room in front of your chest, I could imagine some particularly gifted guests having a few problems. Also, there was no upper-back rest or headrest. Huh.
The ride starts. You do a turn out the station and up into a huge lift hill. At the top, you start to descend down an airtime filled drop. The start is almost like a figure-eight woodie. Smooth enough too. You then navigate through some intense turns, I felt it in my lungs oddly enough. Then the wave turns. Oh god the wave turns. You slam from side to side while the train judders in pain, the twists being almost square feeling. Everyone’s heads were starting to unscrew, and then you get your final surprise of getting hit by a truck. Oh wait, that’s the brakes. Ouch.


Fujiyama and a slightly depressing husk of a fallen titan

The first bit was fun, but I have to say the king of coasters really needs to have someone file down those square wave turns. We went for a drink at a coffee shop, and now I’ll take the time to talk about the layout. Most of it is concrete. But some of it is well themed. Like the Naruto area, and the Thomas area (by the look of it). Everything is relatively easy to find, and there are some trees as well. A particularly odd thing where these character boards dotted around:

Usually, I like to put a little caption under the pictures to elaborate. But there’s too much to unpack here for a small bit of text. Okay, cool illustration. Who is this man? Before the next section, I want you to inspect the info board about him closely. The lad is 20, okay, okay. His blood type? What am I? A vampire? Why would I need to know that. I’m at Fuji Q Highland! I’m not going to be giving the cartoon a blood transfusion! Okay, we get his birthday. Nice. I’m sure we could infer his zodiac, but okay. Wait.
HIS FEET ARE 178cm LONG?! No wonder they cut them off on the chap’s board!
There were a few of these. I can’t deny I got a good laugh out of them.

Moving on to the Gerstlauer Eurofighter I forgor the name of, in the queue the oddest thing happened. Out came these power-ranger looking fellas, out in their little quad bike doing a little flash parade. When I went to take a photo from the queue, the red one clapped his hands together, and then pointed at me. It was hilarious, I love those guys. Then came another villan-y looking one who gave everyone sitting on the benches handshakes. That was cool.


I gotta get me one of those

After trying to draw standing up to pass time, we got to the loading area, where we put our stuff away, and got given another safety briefing. Same as last time. They tried to make everyone do this little dance thing to hype us up, but we missed the queue because language barrier. We even had to do little neck exercises. After getting on the ride, you take a turn into darkness, before a sudden small vertical drop hits you, followed by a turn into a barrel roll, lit with disco lights. Then you are spat out onto a launch, into a collection of interesting and smooth inversions. Even did a banana roll. You hit the mid-course and ascend the 90 degree lift, and slowly crest the iconic P-shaped drop. If you've seen any clips of a ride like this (no, not you Saw) you crawl over the top bit. I never feel the beyond vertical drops too much, so it was fun, and some more inversion hit you before the brakes.

Good fun, can’t argue

Oh my god operations are bad. Before you even get into the station, they have to scan your face again. I’m in the park already..? The fasttrack queues are also a problem. There’s no merge point, they just jump straight on. Ops in the station are taken leisurely, on top of your 26 layers of seatbelts you have to put on. And then they come to you and ask you to check your own restraints, and it’s just a little sad. Makes the queues extortionately long. Stack up is a garuntee.

After more sitting down, our group split and my side went on Eejinaka. It’s an intimidating ride. You have to take your shoes off too. In the loading area, they have an abnormally large instruction board that the staff had to point at with a retractable stick. It was the same stuff the other rides have. The restraints are especially odd. I might put a picture, as explaining it is near impossible. There are two V shaped things on either side of your seat. After putting on your waist seatbelt, you put your arms through the V’s and pull them in, like a jacket. To my horror, my cheeks where basically squished between the restraints (with abnormally large cushions too!) before a staff lady calmly pulled the entire jacket setup down. Oh.

Is it just me or is it shocking how much space you need to breathe properly? Because it’s really intruding on that space! Also, the little bump to separate your legs is huge. You really have to spread those legs to sit correctly. As a crossed legged sitter, the mandatory manspreading proved to be quite uncomfortable.


It’s an impressive construction, I’ll give it that.

Then, our front row ride starts. You leave the station backwards while everyone claps in unison. You are on your back for the first turn, and the up the lift. Before I knew it, we hit the pre-drop and before I knew it, I was plummeting face first towards the ground. The seat rotations were mind bending. I couldn’t tell you what happened after that, but I remember the last inversion threw my entire lower body out of the seat, and I think then that sparked the thought that maybe that was a bit too much for me.

And I’m sorry. A front row ride on a rare, sought out coaster wasted on a person who didn’t like it, but it was too much. I needed a sit. My group re-grouped, and they all wanted to go on the shoot-the-chute, and I saved one person, but alas, it was too late.

After the FATTEST I-told-you-so, we went for a sit down. But you could probably tell.


They never got dry.

I then went on the final (and favourite) ride of the day, the motorbike coaster, ZOKKON. After a long queue and a rare on-screen appearance of the green man, we got on our bikes and it was just a good time. A few launches, switch tracks along with on board audio playing pop music made it very enjoyable. I rekon it could of done with a drop track, and the audio was a bit tinny (especially indoors) but it was good fun.


Maybe this will be more my taste…

Home time! That was exhausting. After a rest at the hotel, we went to a cute little traditional restaurant , with little cobbled steps leading up. I tried some raw fish cubes, and got some pork ramen along with various other dishes that we shared. Was very good.

I’m shattered. Let me rest. Tomorrow will be a travel day, so unless you’re a train enthusiast it may be a bit dull. Sorry about typos it’s late. See ya.

 

[Zeock]

Eejanaika is definitely an intense ride, and I concur with your thoughts on the final inversion. I am pleased that you liked Zokkon.

 

[The_bup]

Today we landed in Kyoto, and I like it here. But how did I get here you ask?

So we started with some more bus faffage. More trains, but then we got to an actually interesting train, the BULLET TRAIN.

It’s an odd looking thing, it has a warped cone for a front and looks more like an airplane than a train. But it whizzes past at an unbelievable pace, probably why it’s called the BULLET TRAIN.


I’m calling it the air-train


rice feilds!


The train ride was over an hour and a little gruelling, but our destination Kyoto is very interesting. First, it’s a lot more tourist-y. Is it bad? No! There’s obviously a reason people come here. While today we only caught a glimpse of the temples, that’s all I need to see how beautiful and huge they are. Right after com in g out of the station, there’s some abandoned railway that runs next to a canal and into a great pond at the end with a fountain.


My horrible attempt to take a ice photo while trying to avoid a bus with tourists flooding out


Looks better than it sounds!


The 16th Emperor of Kyoto is behind this

Our hotel is certainly not like one I’ve ever been in before. It has a beautifully decorated exterior, and an interior adorned with all manner of oriental antiques. And an ice cream machine. The staff here are great. It’s almost scary. Very nice and polite. I like our room (even if I’m stuck in the ‘kids room’ and the adults nicked the really nice one!)


Must be a pricey hallway with all this in it.

We went to visit the so called ‘old town’ which, yes, did get referred to as ‘yeaaaaah I’m gonna take my’ but that’s not relevant. It’s full of shops (and tourists!) so if you’re looking to buy something more traditional, I assume this is a good place. It has some lovely gardens too, lots of fish, herons and oddly pointy turtles to look at.



Very scenic high street!

Weirdly, there was this girl who was chasing this pigeon, and was saying ‘are you afraid of me?’ to it, and then looked up to see me watching. She looked mortified through her teeth and we had an awkward ‘hi’ exchange. It was pretty funny. A problem with coming on a Sunday like us is that a lot of the restaurants close very early. We were lucky to squeeze in.

I had a ramen bowl, and it was good. Today was quite travel-ly, probably will be more exiting tomorrow. Late again, so typos. I’ll be honest, my creative recounting juices aren’t exactly flowing today, so sorry if it’s a bit dry. That’s about it.

 

[The_bup]

Our second day in Kyoto was quite exiting! If yesterday was window shopping, today we actually rolled our sleeves up. And opened our wallets too.
(Double post, crucify me AAAAAH)

We started our day with breakfast in a cafe, not great value. We had a little bicker about how fast Stealths launch was, and the difference between speed and acceleration. They dare argue with me about theme parks and think they’ll be right. Fools errand. But we then went back to the entrance of the temple. Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t one temple but a whole plaza at the top of the stairs. It had a gravely floor with stone walkways, a few gardens and the most beautiful temples I’ve ever seen. I’d say churches are impressive structures, but this is very impressive too. The almost overwhelming amount of intricate wood carving, that is symmetrical too, is mind blowing. You have to think, what would be hundreds of years ago, some person would have to make all the structure, another assemble it, a few more carving intricate details, a man making all the ceramic roof tiles and of course the poor sod who had to lay them all. I also bought a praying fox out of a gacha machine.


These statues guard the enterance


It’s huge for it’s time. It’s even big now!


I wish I could take a photo inside, the gold is fantastic


That’s a lotta bag fortunes alright…


Usually I’d be skeptical of something like this, but since I bought it AT the temple WOOK A THE WIDDLE FOX PWAYING!!! Aaaawh!

Walking through the Old Town, you reach can see even more traditional sights. I particularly liked the statues, I thought they were very good. Of course, you could buy your good luck charms, for any specific purpose. Would you concentrate all that good luck on one specific thing, or get one with wider reach, but that could mean less luck on each one than of you concentrated it all on just one thing? Correct answer; I spent all my money on the praying fox


Definitely making one of these when I get home


How did they bore a hole in a rock without it cracking.

Walking back through Old Town, we bought a variety of traditional and novelty goods. We bought treats like candy apples, some members of my party got rings fitted, but we also had room for more browsing. I bought myself a Daruma Doll. It’s an ornate red ball with a face, and no pupils. A bit freaky at first, but google tells me the charm works by painting his left eye to make your wish, and pint the other when (or if!) it comes true. That being said, I’m going to need a lot more than luck to pass my GCSE’s!


Don’t.. don’t look at me like that…


Some part of the ring making process. What it does I haven’t the foggiest clue.

I’ve bought more here than I have on any other holiday, I’ve heard stories about people buying so much stuff they are forced to buy an extra suitcase to fit all their purchases in. It makes me wonder though, what makes me buy so much here, and not Spain, France, Switzerland or even America (although universal was close). Some of my family said that Japan might me more inline with my interests, but why does it align with so much peoples interests? How come when a student from Japan comes in to my school, everyone is made of questions, but if some fella from Brazil joins, no-one gives a pigeons bum? Even if Brazil is rich with culture, Japan trumps all. Is it in our Caucasian blood to explore and nick their culture and stuff immerse ourselves in whatever country seems new and mysterious? Personally I would never go as far as going in one of those man-drawn carriages, or wearing a kimono I don’t fully understand the cultural significance of, but the affect is undeniable. Curious.

After a rest at the hotel and a Star-Wars viewing, we caught a train further into Kyoto to see this trail with a lot of Tori’s. No, not old Rishi, but those arches you may of seen before. Putting them on this trail brings good luck to your family. There were a lot, lot more than I expected. At the start, you are greeted by these menacing looking fox statues. They’re cool, I like making gargoyles and grotesques, so this is really cool to me.


They all had little bibs on, yes.

In the trail, there are so much of these arches, that it’s basically like an overground orange mineshaft. This is not peace, this is a war for space. New Tori’s light the way with their slick orange paint, while other ones rot. Some poor gits lost their happy thought, and all that’s left is two sad stumps of charred wood and splinters that mourn the marker of death. Some find loopholes in stone arches that will never break, and small arches to put on shrines. But not one seems to of thought that of one falls down, it would be the most unfortunate and spectacular domino run anyone would ever lay their eyes upon.


Quite the tunnel!

After our little hike up the mountain, our stomachs ached for some sustenance. After a trip on the train to an area that would be a bit nicer to eat at, we went to a sushi restaurant. I tried some Eel. It was great. However, SOME people decided to order an ungodly amount of cucumber sushi. Typical. After this meal, we got some ice cream and walked back to the hotel. The more city-ish bit of Kyoto is interesting. Of course there’s a lot of restaurants and food outlets, but also an ungodly amount of lounges, all over the do-they-have-women-dressed-as-catgirls-outside-it spectrum. Also, a John Lennon bar. What is it with John Lennon here…

Outside of the main tourist area, the neighbourhoods are great, they have little rivers with some quite precarious stone bridges going over them. No railings, so don’t fall in.

Kyoto is a nice place, but tomorrow we must leave for Osaka. We have our penultimate day there, and then Universal. Expect there to be a day-long hiatus, as we leave in the same day we go to Universal. I’ll prepare an extra long and crunchy post about my full thoughts on Universal and Japan as a whole on the plane. My final verdict if you will. Start brewing your cuppa well in advance, you’ll need it.

Right, that’s about it see ya.

 

[rob666]

"speed is distance covered in a unit of time, acceleration is the rate of change of speed".
Simple really, as is the Lennon fixation.
Yoko Ono is of Japanese heritage, and the Beatles are still trendy in the east.
They like our culture like we like theirs.
Good stuff, keep it up.
And you are allowed to avoid the double post whipping in tour reports...usually.

 

[The_bup]

Osaka is pretty much Tokyo and Kyoto stuck together. That’s todays main message, but let’s see it in action.

This morning we packed away from our hotel and took a taxi ride to the train. The train station there was huuugge, and after a while of getting tickets we set off on our train to Osaka.


It’s like entering an alien spaceship


One stormy night long ago…

Once there, tied to the shopping centre is a shopping centre. Instead of going to a boring old H&M I usually get dragged through (and maybe an exchange shop so I can look at the old consoles) however this is a place cut out for me. We reached the 13th floor, but not without a nightmare lift system that seemed to stop on every possible floor, and we were greeted with a rich cornucopia of video game related shops. There was a Nintendo shop, a Pokémon shop and a relatively much smaller Capcom shop. Sorry street fighter and mega man, you’ve been crushed by the funny sized up bug collecting game. Speaking of which, the Pokémon shop basically colonised the whole floor. It didn’t even bother to have a main entrance or walls, you just knew you were in it. Everything you could’ve wanted from your marketable creatures was there. I decided to take that opportunity to buy some more of those little models, and one for my friend too.


This. Lift.


Never seen a machine like this before


They done did made the Pokémon into a motorbike…

The Nintendo shop was also big, but had the comparatively defensive move of keeping their shop in glass walls. Inside was a small selection from each franchise Nintendo has made. You want Zelda? Buy a life container pin. You want Pikmin? You can take home your own armada of of the little goblins (tax free for foreigners too!). You want Mario? Oh boy, you’re sorted alright. I took the chance to buy my other friends some Zelda themed pins, they’re absolute Zelda nuts, they’ll love it.


It’s a me! Chris Pratt.

Every now and again, all the staff in the Pokémon shop would do a little dance to some music, which to be honest, is a little bit freaky if you weren’t expecting a staff flash mob. There’s also some cool scale models, if you want to take a photo with them.


The city

Proceeding breaking the bank, we moved down to our capsule hotel - or the best we can do for a family. Along the way we saw: a cat cafe, some impressive buildings and a dinosaur themed karaoke bar. Capsule hotels are usually for sleepy businessmen, are gender segregated and of course, individual. Absolutely nightmare for a group with some tykes running around. The next best thing we could do was a room that effectively has a bunch of bunk beds in it. They’re a little more… wooden, but you get the gist.


Dame na de


After the baggage faffage our next stop was.. a castle? Well, it’s not exactly a castle, but more a palace. Coming out of the underground, we saw a little park, with the palace/castle looming into the distance.


At this point, I could’ve been looking at a small model of it and I’d have no idea

Over the stone moat that would be familiar to anyone who’s been to a Japanese fortress, we where introduced proper to the castle. I still think the name is deceiving. It’s more a palace. It’s very impressive.


I’d like to see a cheeky old samurai get through that filled with water!


Lots of photos being taken

After a good canter around the palace, we made our way back to our hotel for a little rest after we dropped off our bags before.

Our maps pointed towards Dotonbori, the night life place. It’s like Tokyo a lot, and there’s a lot to see. There’s moving crab signs, food, drink. Everything.


Looks like a good chap. Would get a pint with

It soon opens up into a street with a river in the middle. Then. I. Saw. It. A creature beyond my understanding. An animal of steel, in all its pull shaped glory. It’s power outshined just senses. I had never seen a creature so mighty. I heard Don Quijote call out to me.


ITS BEAUTIFUL

Rolling off from the blood sacrifices to the neotemple of our saviour, judge and butcher, we took a boat down on a tour. I could not tell you diddly squat about whatever wisdom the tour guide was passing onto us and the boat guests, but just assume I said something really interesting. Get creative. Make something up. I thought I had left this type of advert at that street on the first day, but no. There’s a 50-foot screen with more anime girls with cleverly placed text boxes. And then, a boat with screens advertising the same game speeds on down the stream. This is a disgrace to Don Quijote. It demands further sacrifices for this. More blood is required.

I keep seeing the same people. I saw a couple at the hotel and low and behold! The two dudes are here in Dotonbori! Saw some kid in a football shirt, he’s here too!
I also stocked up on some food, got a skewer of some sort and some lemonade and bing chilling, from different places of course. You’re spoiled for choice. There’s also a little camera you can use to project yourself onto a big screen. I pulled of probably my biggest photobombing stunt yet.

I’d also like to pass on a warning of sorts to anyone willing to go, especially with little ones. A lot of streets going into grand touristy areas you may or may not want to visit can be a little suspicious. You'll be safe, but I would worry about kids. The streets are full of elaborately dressed women holding signs for hourly rates (apparently they’re just for companionship and conversation, but then that raises more questions, and they don’t bother tourists). If you’re feeling cocky about it, think again, because boy am I sorry to of made the mistake of looking through a glass door and seeing half a dozen practically naked people wearing cat ear headbands. We even walked back at 8:45, so it’s quite early as well! So, do be careful.

After our walk back to the hotel, we sorted ourselves out for bed, and that leads us to a sad man writing about his holiday to the cyberspace. To repeat, plan tomorrow is to go to universal and immediately leave to the airport, so I’ll probably be another 2 days, along with my mega review. Keep calm and carry on, next post is going to be loooooooong.

 

[Lynnea]

Tokyo's fun, Fuji Q’s rides are intense, and the bullet train’s a blast. Kyoto’s temples are beautiful, and Universal Japan, especially Super Nintendo World, will be awesome. Just stay cool and enjoy every moment!

 

[John]

Feeling your pain with the Osaka lift. I went up there in search of Pokemon cards last month and spent approximately 3 eternities just waiting for the lift to arrive, then had it stop on every floor.

Great reports so far, enjoy Universal!

 

[The_bup]

especially Super Nintendo World, will be awesome. Just stay cool and enjoy every moment!

Things didn’t quite go to plan.

 

[Bowser]

Things didn’t quite go to plan.

Hope everything is ok, I was eagerly (or anxiously) awaiting an update on this.

 

[The_bup]

Today is the day! The big end to the trip - at Universal! I was ecstatic to get into Super Nintendo world, and also ride some others, like Spider-Man and Harry Potter and the forbidden journey.

Waking up, we all dashed to the showers and packed our bags for the day. It was a little bit stressful, but before I know it we bought some food from a convenience store and were on the train. One thing about the trains going to universal is that they are packed. The rides can certainly handle more than the trains, so we were shoulder to shoulder on our way.



I don’t think the station is just universals, but it does kick you out into citywalk. There seems to be good choice there, a cinema and a hotel to boot. The park entrance is a slightly downscaled version of Florida’s entrance. The Main Street kind of area is actually under a big glass roof, and has Wi-Fi. Keep in mind it’s the only area in the park that does have Wi-Fi. It’s very detailed as usual, but I miss a lot of it because it doesn’t entirely interest me. Now it’s time to book our timed tickets to Super Nintendo world, QUICK!


Really put the city in citywalk

Okay. You need to scan all your passes in. Should’ve seen that coming. Now let’s just… oh. That’s an issue. 7pm. That’s far too late. See, we’re leaving at 4 to go to the airport. Okay. Well I’ll just try the lottery stile standby tickets. Aaaand they’re all gone too. Fantastic. And trust me, I tried, I triieeed to do anything more, but my odyssey was futile. So after half an hour of trying to get in, I shed some pathetic west-Sussex brand thoosie tears and decided to move on. It just isn’t fair. And then of course, you have all those fellas who did get in with their little ‘power up bands’ and ‘Super Mario Hat: Product: 23 batch:3765’ that silently insults me through the day. In the end, it’s my fault. We should’ve woken up earlier, scanned our tickets the night before. This was the whole reason I came here!



We ventured into hogsmeade, which I actually quite like here, better than the Florida version. It’s surrounded by trees and has a little path down to it. Feels very tucked away. The castle loomed in the distance, and we joined the queue for forbidden journey. It’s almost the same get-up queue wise as Florida, you go in the conservatory and all that. Interestingly, the teenage girls here dress for the occasion. Some had full Harry Potter clothes, others will have ones themed to minions and snoopy. Wasn’t much love for Jurassic Park or Jaws though! Same with all the parks, I would say the queue does kind of shatter the forced perspective illusion on the castle, as you go around the base, highlighting how small it is. I know they’re tight for space, but I always thought the illusion would work better if you entered the indoor queue in some rocks way before the castle.

Soon enough, we entered the catacombs of Hogwarts, with some scenes I swear weren’t at the Florida version. You saw that mirror from the movies there too. Eventually, we got to the more familiar scenes, that are sort of clumsily dubbed over. I wouldn’t expect them to rehire the actors and make them speak some kind of broken Japanese though. I suppose the people here are used to not having their lips sync. The indoor main queue wasn’t actually filled either - I’m sure the many of us getting slow cooked in the outdoor queue would’ve appreciated it.


I am genuinely curious as to what the mirror would show me. Money? Fame? Unbelievable looks? Well if it was taht i wouldn’t see myself, would I?

The ride is as good as always, even after an hour queue with plenty of time to think about my failure. I love the moving portrait effect in the queue, they don’t give off any light so it looks pretty real. The only problem is that you can tell which ones are real or screens because you can see the paint chipping in the fake ones, while the real ones have brush strokes that obey the painting. The ride system is fluid and intense.


After taking flight, you go through some kind of floo network that spits you out in a different place in the castle, before you take flight around the castle with the help of a screen. Then a dragon attacks, and you get really close to the props, as he bellows, growls and sprays fire at you - in the form of red lit mist and warm air. Then you’re in the spiders den. They attack, and you get sprayed with venom (water), but you make an escape, only to find yourself in a whomping willow.

You get swung at, and the arm of the branch is actually another robotic arm, the same used in the ride system. The rest of the tree is static though, and I notice stuff like this. In another dome screen, you race through a quidditch match that is interrupted by dementors. I like it when you zoom through the wooden supports of the grandstands, even if they are on a screen. Exiting the screen, you are attacked by the dementors for real. They’re on some sticks (I think) and they float just out of arms reach. There’s a lot of them, and you also can see some skeleton of a huge snake, and you leave by entering the mouth of the stone head from.. I think the second movie (the best one).

In the final screen, you race away from the dementors, and back to the castle. In typical universal fashion, everyone in the castle is cheering and whooping because I guess you lived. I’ve always thought the safety of Hogwarts was interesting. Especially in that one movie with the Tri-wizard cup, where not only do they tie your friends to the bottom of a lake for you to save them, they also throw you in a pit with a dragon and.. whatever the last one was. In fact, I’d wager a field surrounded by spiky gothic architecture is a horrible location for broomstick training- unless we want a hot fuzz model village situation on our hands. I though they’d be numb to that, but when a kid dies (for a reason out of their control) not one person thought “hey, don’t you think that it would be a shame if that kid died in some of those dangerous and downright lethal tests we put them through?”.

It’s Intense, fast and with some great scenes. Got to take some members of my family on the nightmarish journey this time too! I could’ve sworn the dementor scene was considerably more intense than in Florida, it had a lot more of the things flying close to us. Our ride photo wasn’t too glamorous, but it was pretty funny.

Hogsmeade is just as detailed as before, you can see the screaming mandrakes in the plant shop windows and stuff. A random Japanese dude for some reason wanted to take a photo with my sister…? That man is on thin ice, I swear. I still don’t get the fake snow on the roofs, it’s almost never cold enough for it to feel right.


Scale models for the win!

Next, one ride i definitely wanted to do was Jaws: the ride, as it’s on burrowed time for sure. Not even burrowed, it’s stolen! It has a whole area around it, with restaurants and photo opportunities with the vandalised Amity sign and shark (just not THE shark!). The queue is interesting - you have these indoor sections full of not only Jaws memorabilia, but naval memorabilia. You’ll find parts of boats, masts and even some toys that’s were sold after the success of the first movie. Then the queue pulls a cool trick; dumping you outside to cook. Real classy, universal.
Our wait was over. About the ride, I’m sure that it’s on a track, as it raises up and down at the station.


Didn’t she have big googly eyes in the movie too?


Juicy details I don’t understand the meaning of.


We got introduced to our skipper, I assume as I don’t speak Japanese, and we were on our merry way. He shows a shotgun (i think to keep us safe, having a massacre on a ride is not a good look). A little bit down the lagoon, near the first turn, we receive some sort of distress signal from a shouting man. As we round a counter, we see an identical tour boat sinking - with a chunk taken out of it.

Then you see it, and I’ve seen videos of this ride and he is much bigger than I thought he was going to be. Bruce swims away from the scene and under the boat, while the skipper shoots at it, with water splash effects to sell the illusion. He then jumps out and attacks the boat, and it’s impressive to see an Animatronic this big, underwater and that travels this much distance.

Following our close call, the skipper hides in a boat shed, and shines his spotlight around to check we’re safe. We aren’t. The boats begin to fall from their pulleys, barrels shake, and a pontoon pointing towards us begins to shatter as the shark approaches. He lunges out again and we escape.

Outside, the pursuit continues. The skipper makes a few clumsy shots and blows up an oil rig, destroying it and setting the pond on fire! It’s an impressive effect with a lot of moving parts, fire and actor synchronisation, but it hits. The shark tries to take a bite out of us again, and is tearing through the remains of the oil rig, and he submerges with one fateful high voltage chomp - against his favour. He resurfaced charred, burnt and probably dead. Terrible for him, but we live! After some cheering for the skipper who ‘saved’ us, we disembark

I see why people liked this ride so much, but I’d consider it a worthy sacrifice for a whole land. It is pretty spectacular, though. I can imagine it’s a maintenance nightmare, but they seem to like keeping things good in the Japan parks, same with Tokyo Disney, or so I’ve heard, refurbishing splash mountain when Disney was purging them out and all that.

We re-cooped with the other half of our group, and we decided to get a drink and a sandwich. I could’ve sworn some things were missing. I thought Spider-Man was here? What about Transformers too? Or was that Singapore..? Terminator 3-D had been replaced with an IP that I’m not familiar with, and the spinning coaster space fantasy seemed to have some -I hope- Demon Slayer VR overlay. The VR and questionable quality of the IP was enough to turn us off. We walked around.. sort of aimlessly. We had a look around the Minions area, and it’s quite well done. Lots of static-kinetic energy going on. It has your usual simulator ride, good god I’m not waiting 80 minutes for this. We looked round the shop, where they obviously love the minions here. Interestingly, they they seem to have an affinity for one of the minions teddy bears. Come on, it can’t be that easy, can it?

We coincidentally bumped into the other half of our group again, and decided our course of action. We thought to try the Jurassic Park River Adventure, or known as Jurassic Park: The Ride over here. After a walk in the baking hot sun, we quickly found out it was testing, and was under a refurbishment despite being on the app. At this point a thought that hadn’t entered my mind for a few years chipped it’s way in; I want to go home. That’s.. out of character for me. Was it the baking hot sun? The humidity? Was it where all the rides had gone? Was it that i couldn’t get into Super Nintendo World? It was probably a mix of all of them. Well, if I’m stuck here I might as well make the most of it.

I took a single rider queue for Hollywood Dream, their tiny B&M… hyper? Whatever it was, I took it over Flying Dinosaur, as I did Superman: The Ride and found out I don’t like flying coasters that actually try to kill you. The line was advertised at 60 minutes long for singles, and in the end, it only took just over half of that including the ride time. It’s your standard dual station set up, and there’s also a backwards train. It even has an Op booth that looks like the one on Galactica too! When you put your bags away in the storage when you get on the ride, you are metal detector scanned by a member of staff then, instead of the locker system. The restraints where ratcheted, and here comes the fun part; choosing your music. They had a selection of 5, that you chose on your restraint.

You had a vertical line of lights with numbers 1-5, and below that two buttons on a horizontal line that where select and scroll down. The song I chose was ‘happy’ by Pharrell Williams. I didn’t chose this because I like the song, but most of them I couldn’t read, and I also didn’t know what a ONE PEICE: STORY COASTER was. Interestingly, the backwards train had its own song choices. They replaced a Japanese pop song with Bad by Micheal Jackson, and I’m well annoyed at that. It’s Bad! The coaster actually delivered some fantastic sustained floater airtime, despite its small size. Listening to La Chiave Del Mio Amour on a coaster would’ve gone hard though. And they say Disney invented the ‘going on a ride with pop music’.

After the surprisingly short ride, I found my half of the group and we got some mango ice-cream smoothie stuff. I often find heat escapes through your head and your feet. How your feet are feeling is a pretty good marker for your temperature. However, eating some ice cold snacks proves effective. I wanted to have a look at the entrance of Super Nintendo World, just to fuel my spite further, but then we saw a big gate. There were staff holding signs saying “now seating!”

What’s a waterworld? Hmm.. a show you say? That sounds perfect, let’s go in. The theatre is bloody massive. It ought to be able to store hundreds of people inside. I believe shows run on the hour. It was on this lagoon with some fortress made of scrap. On the far right there was even a gutted shark. There was some serious hyping up, they gave us prompts that actually came up in the show. They’d make us pump our fists up in the air and go ‘yeah!’ , and do a thumbs down and go ‘Boo!’. They did this in thirds of the audience, so the guy would point to one third, and they’ll all go ‘yeah!’ and then to another. They also shot people at the front with water guns. To continue the spread of the H2O, they poured whole buckets of water on their heads, as well as some volunteers after they commanded the audience to do the fist pumping. The water mattered not, as it would evaporate in minutes like my hopes and dreams because of the temperature.


Wuh oh! Other humans! Eek!

Then, on the hour, the show started. I can’t entirely tell you what happened in order, but I’ll try my best. The show started with some Jetski manoeuvres from the good guys, doing tight turns that sends water airborne to soak the people sitting at the front - but all was interrupted by a flare - the bad guys are going to attack their fortress! I think. They open the gates to allow this woman on a motor boat in, who warns them and stations herself on a tower. Suddenly, this Jet Skier and Water Skier jump from under the waterfall on the left, and the good guys try and shoot them down with their water cannons. They hit the skier who slams into a wall, and the Jet Skier zooms onto shore and is launched into a building.

One of them scrambles to the door control, and the gates open, and in come the bad guys. They had a mini gun strapped to their boat, and they waltz on in shooting everything in sight. I think they used real blanks too. When I saw behind the scenes of the borne show a year ago, they said they used blanks, so I know what it sounds like. There’s water and spark effects, and the woman jumps of the tower to escape it collapsing! And collapse it does mere seconds after her plunge! After their little cruise around and a firm ‘Boo!’ from the audience (what? you’ve seen a good guy with an eye patch before?) they set on the pontoon, and I guess explain their plans. They send their troops up, and there’s some incredible fight choreography. There’s zip lines and fights on catwalks, but the bad guys capture ‘the guy’ from the start and tie him up, and strap the girl to a buoy on the pontoon. Then, they make an example by dropping ‘the guy’ about 20 feet into a smoking vat of toxic chemicals.
All seems lost, but then this man comes through the gates, doing some tricks on his waterski. He expertly dodges incoming fire from the bad guys, with more smoke, spark and water effects. I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a blur from here, but it was a bit of a back and fourth with zip-line stunts, knocking people into the water off great heights and more fighting. I remember a bit where they’re shooting a gun at a fuel tank and it actually starts leaking. There was this one point the bad guy had a rocket launcher, that was cool. He seemed to call on a plane at one point, and to everyone’s amazement - a seaplane was launched over a wall and into the lagoon!


Well I want going to take a photo during the show now, was I?

Later, at a tense moment at the end, the bad guy is stabbing this man with a spear, but not until the woman shoots him with a rocket launcher, and he sets on fire! He then runs around desperately before jumping a great height into the pool below, and the woman and this man get on the boat and sail off before the whole set bursts into flames.

It was sensational. Absolutely incredible. It was like watching an actual action movie play out before your very eyes! Hats of to the team, I would’ve stayed the full applause if we weren’t cautious about the amount of people leaving the show… My bad mood melted away after that, and despite seeing Super Nintendo World in the back, I wasn’t angry anymore.



Four o’clock rolled around. It was time to leave. I didn’t feel too sour about the whole thing, because Universal can put on a show! After talking a bit and getting jump scared by Princess Fiona, we took our train (where we talked to a Japanese lady who apparently lived in Newcastle) back to the hotel to get our stuff, and off to the airport.

Universal Japan, I missed out of a pretty big chunk of, but I think it’s a good park. It has the best rides that universal has to offer, and it’s going through a rough period with some rides… missing, but I still think it’s a nice enough park that knows it’s audience. I’d say Terminator 3-D and stuff closing was probably a inevitability, as they’re tight for space and want to use more relevant IP, and I get that. I’ll always be a little mad about Super Nintendo World, but hey, if Epic Universe is open by next year… I think we’re already cooking up a general Florida trip sooooo… PLEASE OPEN IT UNIVERSAL.



It’s a bit of a ghost town in the terminal. This is the first time I’ve done a connecting flight, we’re going to Tokyo from Osaka and then to Heathrow. I’ve ordered a pork bowl to eat. I’ll tell you about it, it just hasn’t appeared yet.


Very nice


Rules are made in practice, not theory.

Okay, it’s here. It was really good, if a little small. We bought some sweets, because why not, and sat flat on our bums for a while because they refused the flight was delayed (we where meant to take off 5 minutes ago). They quickly got everyone back on, so fair play. Late flights do make me feel a bit nervous. Being tired always makes things a bit more emotional. I’m sure I’ll be fine though.