PTR:Japan

So I've recently got back from 2.5 weeks in Japan (which was great)...

 

I'll pull together the story bit by bit (unlike my previous TRs, which tend

to be a bit stream-of-conciousness in their composition!), and I'll try

to add in a bit of "logistics" detail and a few cultural (or not) sights

along the way....so bear with me, this might take a while...

 

To save repeating myself, all my flights and hotels were booked though

Expedia, who have a pretty good web-interface and the cheapest prices I could

see for the various places - recommended!

 

EDIT - (And click though the pictures for bigger sizes (if you care!))

 

============================

 

The back-story...

 

Back in 2002, I quit work for a while (turned out to be ~2 years!) and generally

bummed around a lot. Part of that slobbing around involved sloping off "around

the world for a bit" (like you do), and part of that involved about a month in

Japan for the 2002 World Cup.

 

Now whilst on this trip I had started to spend days here and there at random theme

parks (having loved Alton Towers as a kid, but lost the habit as I "grew up").

I can thank a rather splendid day I spent at Dreamworld in Australia for reigniting

my enthusiasm and thereafter hit a few parks along my way.

 

BUT since this was at the time a largely unplanned deviation from my "just trek

around the world and see whats up" plan, I didn't have much of a clue where to

go or what to see (park-wise), so I was restricted to the "obvious" - like SFMM

when I was in LA, SeaWorld in San Diego and when I was in Japan, just the Disney

parks in Tokyo.

 

Combined with the fact that I was really in Japan for the football meant I was

not too bothered, I was rather enjoying stuff like this at the time;

 

Sapporo 2002, Final Whistle against Argentina

 

...but looking back, I felt that I had missed an opportunity to get to some wacky

places...so I resolved "I must get back there some day, see a bit more of the

place, and go play on some of their nice coasters"......

 

Well that day had come...and so a couple of weeks ago I found myself flying from

Manchester to Kansai (Osaka) Airport with Yen in my pocket and a plan!

 

(I'll try do it day-by-day with the logistics in there, just to help anyone

out who is thinking of the same sort of thing...planning is everything!!!)

 

 

Tuesday 27/5

Get a flight (KLM) from MAN to AMS then AMS to KIX (~£500) returning from NRT

in a couple of weeks time.

 

Long flight and time zones mean I get to Kansai airport at 930AM the next day...

 

Wednesday 28/5

Get off the plane, get through immigration (a bit slow, but not too painful),

wander out to the train terminal, validate the rail pass (£220 for 2 weeks

go-anywhere-on-JR train travel - invaluable if you are moving around the

place anywhere) and hop on a train to Shin-Osaka

 

(cultural aside - its worth getting familiar with a few of the oft-used place

name terms...."Shin" = New, "Kita" = North, "Minami" = South, "Higashi" = East

and "Nishi" = West and indeed the kanji for these and the place names you are

going to, you feel a lot more confident when you can spot the symbols for

Shin-Osaka for example. (these just being the kanji for "Shin" then the 2 symbols

for Osaka). Having said that, ALL the trains have information in English signs,

ALL the train stations have information in English and most of the maps at

stations have English on them also.)

 

Anyway I'm not heading for Osaka yet, so at Shin-Osaka I change trains and get

on a Shinkansen headed south. (The Shinkansen tracks are always in a separate

bit of the station form the "regular" trains, so its a bit more involved than

just changing trains, you have to go through at least 1 ticket barrier to

swap to/from the Shinkansen, but none of that is a problem.)

 

The Shinkansen zips along south from Osaka and 90 minutes later I'm at Hiroshima

station and check into the first hotel I have booked (right by the station, Hotel

Granvia, for about £45/night).

 

View from Hotel, Hiroshima

 

By this time I'm pretty zoned out, not slept on the plane so I had been awake for

~30 hours and it was midday... I kept awake the rest of the day by wandering out

into Hiroshima city (15 mins walk from the hotel) to have a look around...

 

Hiroshima, the A-bomb dome

 

I'd wanted to come to Hiroshima to see all the A-bomb museums etc, but I was

leaving that until I was more awake (!), so I was just strolling for a while,

nice city actually.

 

Beside the A-bomb dome

 

Thursday 29/5

Get myself booked (with the rail pass, you get free reservations on trains,

worth it to get in the less-busy carriages I guess, the "unreserved carriages"

tend to get a bit busy, whilst the "reserved carriages" tended to be more empty)

on the 730 Shinkansen down to Kokura (takes just over an hour - fantastic!),

hop on a local train 15mins south and here we are at Space World.

 

http://www.spaceworld.co.jp

 

The weather today was (it turns out to be fairly typical for my holiday!), pretty

warm, but pretty cloudy/overcast (so my photos don't tend to be wonderful). It

rained a bit, but not for more than a couple of minutes and not enough to shut

the rides down.

 

The place was empty, a couple of school groups there, but they had all gone

my the afternoon, so by then everything was literally walk-on, the ops waiting

for riders in fact!

 

I liked the place, it has a fairly uninspired setting, plonked in the middle

of some urban-sprawl, but was nice and tidy with a pretty good selection of

rides.

 

Coaster wise, TitanV was shut (which was a bit of a shame but I tries not to dwell

on that),

 

TitanV, Closed

 

I really liked the looping VenusGP, loops and fast overbanked turns - excellent!

 

VenusGP, looping away like it does

 

VenusGP from the Space Eye

 

and the mini-accelerator was fun (amusingly I've not been on the one in the UK,

I have been on a fair few of the other ones tho'), but why don't they build

Xcelerator clones rather than these, to me thats a much better use of the space?

 

Zaturn, not Stealth

 

The other coasters were OK, the indoor Black Hole Scramble, Boogie Woogie Space

Coaster was novel in that you can sit forwards or backwards (can't recall

going backwards on a steel coaster before (apart from XLR-8) - that made me feel

ill as well though!) and even the kiddie Clipper was a bit bigger than the usual

kiddie rides.

 

Overall a pretty good place and a nice (if overcast) day!

 

Easy trip back to Hiroshima in the late afternoon (gotta love them

trains) - job done!

Friday 30/5

So back in Hiroshima, today was my day for doing the history stuff.

 

I wanted to go to the Peace Museum http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html,

so headed there first thing. I am not usually a sensitive sort, but have to say

that the place almost brought me to tears. The pictures showing the immediate

aftermath of the A-bomb are just incredible, the entire city flattened etc. All

something I'll never forget.

 

Hiroshima peace park, from the museum

 

After a few hours in the peace museum I needed lightening up, so wandered up

to the local castle, which was flattened by the bomb, and rebuilt in 1958.

 

Looks a bit older than 50 years?

 

After a wander around that, there is a "typical" old-style Japanese garden

just up the road, which was rather wonderful..

 

Shukkeien Gardens

 

Rather splendid indeed

 

Right then, enough culture for now, hop on the Shinkansen again and move base

up to Osaka, get a hotel (Hotel Monterey, which was fine) up by the station with

a nice view of the Umeda Sky building from the window in the hallway...

 

Umeda Sky Building (will be coming back here in a bit)

 

I'd been to Osaka before so I wander around the Kita area looking up some old

sights. To my consternation, the one old railway station/department store

building I remember vividly from my earlier visit (and indeed which features

significantly in the Black Rain movie) was undergoing refit and they had managed

to introduce a false ceiling in this one area with a stunning roof. Bizarre.

 

Anyway I finally find the Ferris Wheel I'm looking for (not too hard but I had

totally missed it on my previous time in Osaka and take a spin).

 

HEP Ferris Wheel

 

Rather good really, you can't tell from that pic but its on the roof of a 10

story building so by the time you get to the top of the Ferris wheel you are

pretty high up indeed!

 

Saturday 31/5

I had half-planned to go to either Himeji Central Park or Hirakata Park today,

but the draw of a single Batman clone was not enough for me, so I did a bit

of Osaka exploring instead.

 

Off to the Aquarium (I like aquariums) at the dockside I went in the morning...

 

Jelly

 

Which had the added feature of being next door to a rather big wheel...

 

Can you see a Ferris wheel theme developing yet?

 

But it was raining, so there wasn't too much to see from the top...

 

Universal Studios in the rain, from the big wheel

 

Trekked over to Tennoji to see what was going on at Festival Gate...as expected

the place was deserted, a single coffee shop was open in the place although

you could wander around the ground floor all ok. There were signs up that I

assume were saying "Coaster is shut, nothing to see here" so I wandered off

again.

 

SBNO

 

I knew where I was off to, and that was the Minami area of Osaka, famous for

its neon, nightlife and general craziness. Some of the specific crazyness was

the drop-ride on this H!PS building;

 

Yabofa is its name...

 

and the not-quite-a-ferris-wheel just around the corner;

 

Wonder Wheel is this one's

 

Both of which were fun, the wheel being better value that the drop ride as that

is over a bit quickly naturally!

 

And you can tell they are close to each other

 

After bit more wandering around, seeing the sights

 

We'll come back to this picture later...

 

it gets dark and I head back up to Kita to go up that big building we saw

earlier..

 

Quite a view from up here

 

And you can now see that Ferris wheel on top of the building I was on about

earlier...

 

All lit up at night...

 

And the building itself looks cool at night;

 

Looking up

 

Wish I'd remembered to take my mini-tripod out with me!

 

 

Sunday 1/6

Today was going to be another "culture day", I'd toyed with going to Kyoto but

I'd been there before, so fancied something different, so despite Dreamland

being defunct, it was off to Nara I went (about 50mins on the train from Osaka).

 

Well what a lovely place Nara was. The town was a bit unexciting, but none the

worse for it, but once you got into Nara Park (Nara Koen) it was great. First

up there are loads of tame deer just wandering around all the tourists, getting

fed and their photos taken;

 

Deer being fed by tame tourists

 

But apart from the deer, the park is full of temples, shrines and the like,

 

Pagodas and temples

 

And some more culture

 

overall a very pleasant place to wander around on a hot sunny day.

 

By far the most impressive was this place, apparently the largest wooden building

in the world. And it was HUGE. All to contain a big statue of Buddha. Very

cool.

 

Daibutsuden at Todai-ji Temple

 

From the one temple near the top of a hill, you could even see the extinct

coasters

 

Another coaster in the SBNO theme...thats 3 so far in this trip

 

So after a rather pleasant day in Nara, I went back to Minami in the evening

for some quality neon-time...

 

See, I said we'd come back to that picture from earlier...

 

Wonder Wheel again

 

Oh yeah, Osaka; bicycles everywhere (in the way usually)

 

Dotombori

 

 

Monday 2/6

You might suggest that its been a while since we rode any coasters? OK then off

to Universal Studios Japan then.

 

Nice good coaster

 

Unluckily it rained most of today, not heavily, but consistently which made it

all a bit miserable. Got a few rides in on the B&M though and really liked it,

not a BIG RIDE, but a consistent one and a good one for the more "middle of the

road" Universal Studios audience. You can select your background music for the

ride from a system built into the lap-restraint. I felt that the J-Pop just

didn't work for me, but a bit of "Lose Yourself" worked just fine. Even the

Beatles worked better than the J-Pop

 

Wheeeee

 

Single Rider Q helped on this too, when it wasn't raining there was upto 45m

wait, but pretty much straight on with the SRQ. Later in the day it was

raining all the time and the ride was walk on (nice that they were

still running it in the rain though!).

 

No-one fancies the front in the rain!

 

The park itself was pretty good, similar layout to Orlando, but felt bigger somehow

(even though it probably wasn't). Nicer feel to the place than Orlando as well

I thought, but maybe I can just put that down to the lack of British tourists

 

The rides are pretty much the same (apart from the dialogue being in Japanese

of course), but fun all the same. Waterworld didn't make much sense to me,

but having seen it in LA I knew when the big finish was coming

 

Splash!

 

And a bit of time-travel....

 

Back to the Future indeed

 

Good day, but the weather didn't help for any super-photos! Compare that with

the stunning day the day before in Nara - Japan's weather is rather changeable

at this time of year!!

Ahh nice trip report!!! It's very interesting to see not just theme parks but those cultural things too!

Wow, looks like Nara Dreamland is completely intact, but slowly rotting away. It's a shame to see Aska SBNO, if only it could be brought to SFMM and renamed Psyclone. Kidding! (But that wouldn't be so bad.)

 

Great stuff, BTW.

Thanks for the updates. I am looking forward to more. I will most likely be in Japan in about a month and am looking for ideas of places and parks to see. This thread will be invaluable. Keep it up!

AWESOME report! Yay for documenting "culture credits" in trip reports.

 

Thanks for posting this!

Awesome! This is a really good Japan TR. It really shows how cool the country is.

so here we go again....

 

Tuesday 3/6

 

Bit of a travel day today, just get the train up from Osaka to Nagoya and then have

a wander around the city.

 

They have a (seemingly new?) "Ferris wheel on a building" thing going on, but not

quite as impressive as the HEP one in Osaka;

 

The Nagoya Big Wheel!

 

OK, just kidding I mean this one on the other side of the road really

 

Sunshine Sakae

 

Quite a nice city really, much less frantic than Osaka (but the underground

shopping areas near the station were still confusing me after being there 3 days).

 

Some wacky buildings in downtown Nagoya

 

So after my ferris-wheel credit, I got the subway up to the castle area just

North of the city centre and their castle was pretty good indeed (despite it

again being just a modern-day rebuild).

 

Nagoya-Jo

 

Wandered around there for quite a while, taking a few pics (apparently the golden

dolphins on the roof of the place are quite significant to the locals) and that was

about the day done for me.

 

Here fishy-fishy...

 

Wednesday 4/6

 

OK, now why I was really in Nagoya, was to get up, get the train (30mins) out to

Kuwana station, get on a local bus (Stand #2, Bus#53 500yen) and get to

Nagashima Spaland.

 

Enough of them castles, back to big toys now

 

Thats more like it! The place was pretty quiet, made a bit of a queue at one point

for Steel Dragon, but otherwise pretty much walk on everything.

 

As for the Dragon, it is absolutely massive and kinda looks bigger than any

other conventional coaster I've been on before (I mean that mainly about

Millennium Force (even though its only a bit taller) because MF has a steeper

hill and turns around after its first drop, whereas Steel Dragon runs straight

over its second hill before it turns around, Steel Dragon just looks bigger?)

 

Its really, really BIG

 

More BIGness

 

 

And a few airtime hills for good measure

 

Anyway, I really liked it, I mean its SECOND hill would still make the top 10 list

of big coasters in the world - gotta admire that!

 

The second hill, still MASSIVE

 

The rest of the park was pretty good, even if it pales into insignificance in the

shadow of that big Dragon! I worked my way around the coasters, particularly

enjoying the Shuttle Loop and the Looping Star.

 

Its hard to avoid that Steel Dragon

 

Unfortunately for me, the Jet Coaster seemed to be undergoing maintenance (it was

all roped off and they looked like they were painting it) and the Corkscrew didn't

run all day. Even more unfortunately, White Canyon was not running by the time

I got around to it (I swear I saw people on it earlier but I cant be sure) -

anyway it did run all afternoon, but EMPTY; they kept cycling an empty train for

all the afternoon that I stood watching it, but never opened the ride. My Japanese

not being good enough (!) to question the state of affairs I never got to ride it

It looked pretty pretty though.

 

See, its running, just not with any punters!

 

Obligatory Ferris-Wheel Credit

 

One ride that surprised me as I'd never seen one like it before was the "Bobkart"

sitting out underneath Steel Dragon. It appeared basically like a self-driven

powered coaster, but was great fun. You controlled its speed yourself and it

raced out along this huge steel track. Excellent!

 

Bobkart Station

 

The huge Bobkart track

 

More Bobkart goodness

 

 

The place also has a couple of wild-mice and an Ultra-Twister (which was reasonably

uncomfortable), I'd been on Astroworld's (RIP) and the vertical lift at Spaland

was better (but MORE painful, if thats possible). Odd rides, more interesting to

watch I think than ride!

 

Ultra-weird-twister-thing and the broken Corkscrew

 

And another thing, Pirate Ships, now I don't like them much but theres

usually one in the park. I've seen places (Heide Park) that had two, which always

stuck me as odd. But this place had THREE, all next to each other. Granted 2 of

them were kinda the same ride and giant pirate ships and the other one was a "normal"

sized one, but still...

 

Just how many of these do you need?

 

All in all a really good day!

 

Bye bye Spaland, thanks for a good day out

 

OK, this is the only CP comparison that I agree with!

 

 

(to be continued!)

Thanks for the update. I am going to get out there in a month when I am in Japan. I just can't pass up a ride on the Steel Dragon. BTW what is the height requirement for Steel Dragon. Is it 1.2 meters (48") like MF or 1.4m like most other thrilling coasters. I have a seven year old who is dying to know!

^ the park map I have in front of me says;

 

"130cm or taller, from 10 to 54 years".

 

Probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

In fact you can see a PDF of the map/restrictions online at

 

http://www.nagashima-onsen.co.jp/spaland/guidemap.html/

 

(Map 1)

Ah he is used to it by now. It seems height requirements in other countries are more strict than in the U.S. He went on a lot of pretty big coasters at 48" in the U.S., where in Southeast Asia and China where we are now he can usually only go on Wild Mouse and kiddie coasters. I get tired of hearing him whine when we go on a ride that he can't enjoy. We just make it up to him by letting him go on other rides without us!

Thursday 5/6

 

A real early start today as I need (well "need" is a bit strong , but...) a train at

~7am to get me out down in the general vicinity of Parque Espana for 9am.

 

Anyway I muck up my instructions and get the train to Shima-Isobe thinking that I

can get a bus to the park from there. Well you can't. After discovering this

via a very odd "pointing and shaking of the head" conversation with the nice people

in the bus station office, I get a bus to the NEXT stop down on the train line

(i.e. where I should have got off the train!), namely Ugata and from there I can

get a bus to Parque Espana. Never mind, had a bit of an adventure travelling

around the back-end of nowhere on local buses for a while!

 

(Yes, you can get a taxi from Shima-Isobe, but thats cheating isn't it!)

 

Anyway, you get the point, Parque Espana (or Shima Spain Village depending on your

mood at the time) is out in the middle of a big "national park" type area, about

2 hours out of Nagoya by train - well off the Shinkansen route at any rate.

 

It all looked like a really nice area, lots of big hills, trees, water and the like,

but the weather was pretty miserable that day, so its natural splendour was a bit

lost on me!

 

Not so nice weather, but you get the idea

 

The park itself was quite nice, if a little odd. The top half of the park is on

the flat, where there are some recreated Spanish streets/plazas and then a big

area with some rides. Then the back half of the park slopes off down the mountain-

side to a lake at the bottom. Makes for quite a pleasant circuit of the park,

picking off the attractions as you meander around.

 

(The highlight attraction of course being the world famous "Escalator The Ride";

basically a bunch of escalators to help you up/down the slope, but with a very

upbeat music system and lots of flashing lights.)

 

Escalator:The Ride

 

If you've made you way down E:TR, you find yourself at the bottom of the park,

where there is a rather good (huge) boat ride thing and flying dark ride affair,

both pretty well done.

 

The big building in the background is all the boat ride

 

But pleasant boat rides and strolling around the empty park in the rain is not why

I've got up early this morning. This is why I've got up early this morning...

 

Old-school B&M at your service

 

Of course its all about coming out here to see the rather excellent B&M invert

Pyrenees.

 

Thats more like it!

 

Its got all the elements you'd like, and one that is unique (?), in a loop with

added helix;

 

Now you don't see that often

 

And its good. Very good.

 

Shame about the weather though

 

Its kinda like a stretched out bigger Batman, with a cobra roll and helix and airtime

pop thrown in.

 

See, I said there was a Cobra Roll

 

The weather works both for and against me. "For" in that the place is pretty empty

so I can just walk on the rides when they are running (it rained on and off). "Against"

in that when it rained and you rode Pyrenees it hurt.

 

But they were running it in the rain, oddly they ran one train with only the front

and back rows loaded, then they swapped the trains over and ran the whole carriage?

 

Riding in the Rain

 

As an aside - everyone else's pics I'd ever seen of Pyrenees were taken from

a Flying Island next door to it, which certainly made for good photo-ops. But

they have ripped it out, just a big hole remains in the ground, so all my photos

are strictly ground-based

 

Next door to Pyrenees is Gran Montserrat, a mine train. This is also pretty good

indeed, although they wouldn't run that in the rain at all. Strangely I appear

to have taken no pictures of that ride at all - must have been raining too much

when I was stood by it!

 

They also have a wacky indoor coaster, all themed as if you are a bull in a bullfight,

how tasteful. Its not too bad, but its very odd as you stop in the middle of the

bullfight arena awaiting your demise.

 

I wander though the ice-house, the operator tries to tell me something important

in Japanese and I indicate that I don't understand him at all. So he repeats what

he just said, only this time slower and louder. It doesn't help, but it makes me

smile.

 

Chilly!

 

And bless them all, despite the park being empty and it raining away, they all come

out to do their parade (but in rain coats). Professionals to the last!

 

Parade in the rain, with that odd Bullfight thing in the building in the background

 

All in all, a pleasant enough place, one excellent coaster (if a little out of place)

and nicely run. I get a bus back to the right train station this time and trek

back to Nagoya happy with my day out!

 

 

Friday 6/6

 

Done with Nagoya now, have a lie-in and get the Shinkansen up to Tokyo. I spent

about 3 weeks in Tokyo the first time I was in Japan, so I'd done all the museum

stuff and exploring the city that I needed to and I was pretty comfortable about

the whole place. So get off the Shinkansen in Shinagawa (right next to Aqua Stadium,

but we'll come back to that!), get on the Yamanote to Shinjuku and find the hotel -

2 mins walk from the station exit, sorted!

 

I can't check in just yet, so dump the bags and head on off (up) the Metro Govt

Building for some cityscapes;

 

And my hotel is the little pink one right in the middle!

 

Shinjuku is just bonkers. Real busy, real crowded, real bright, excellent!

 

Lost in Translation

 

And you can spot a ride from here (but again, back to that in a bit).

 

Maybe closer would help?

 

Thunder Dolphin in the distance

 

So after the hotel lets me check in (nice room by the way, HDTV as well!) I head

on back to Shinagawa and find Aqua Stadium (just outside train station, so thats

pretty easy!).

 

Aqua Stadium is some dolphin-show affair attached to a hotel, but being the clever

sorts, they spotted that they had a bit of space around the big water tank, so they

cleverly slipped in a rather surprisingly not-mini coaster; Galaxy Express 999.

 

I knew this was an Intamin tyre-launched looper, but what did surprise me (after

the exceedingly long pre-show!) was that it actually launched around the first

bend - I'd expected it to roll round the bend and then launch - what do I know!

 

So it launches you off, does a loop, and rattles around in a couple of circuits -

not wonderful but pretty good use of space I thought! Of course you can't see

any of the ride from outside, so a station shot is the best you are going to get!

 

You can tell a lot about a ride from a picture of the station

 

Theres also an indoor Pirate ship, but since I don't do them, off we go!

 

I wander around a few of my old haunts in Tokyo, only because they are on the way

up to what was known as the "Big Egg" or "Korakoen", but is now "Tokyo Dome City"

or "La Qua" (why do they always have so many names for the same place!).

 

So this is a reasonable amusement area attached to the local indoor baseball stadium

(the "Big Egg") - and houses the Intamin mega Thunder Dolphin. This was being built

the last time I was in Tokyo so I was quite excited about it.

 

Loading the Dolphin

 

First drop

 

Now Thunder Dolphin often gets labelled a "bit disappointing" or "a letdown", but

I really liked it. Quite surprised by the negative press it gets infact. Big steep

lift hill, great first drop, overbank turns, airtime hops on top of buildings and

after the next drop, nipping through Ferris wheels and holes in buildings. Great

stuff. OK not quite on the scale of MF or as airtime loaded as Superman (NE) or

Ge:Force but still in that league. And you gotta be impressed with it slap bang in

the middle of one of the busiest cities on the planet!

 

Nice steep lift...

 

I like

 

The other rides at the park were not really on that scale though. The Big Wheel was

good enough (got to get that Ferris-Wheel credit), but Linear Gale (the first

LIM impulse thing) was a bit rubbish, and it sounded very creaky, like it was on

its last legs! There was a run of the mill spinning mouse, nothing too exciting

there, and the other coaster, Geopanic, is currently closed for refurb (reopening 2009

they say).

 

Dolphins and Wheels

 

 

(Next up Toshimaen, which was not so good)

Thanks again for the great TR. I am really enjoying your pictures.

Thunder Dolphin kind of impresses me because of how it's built and it's height. It truely is a great piece of architecture. I really want to ride it someday.

Great TR and pics so far!

Saturday 7/6

 

Wanting to avoid "big" parks on the weekend, this seemed like the right day to

visit somewhere I meant to get to last time I was in Japan, but nasty Brazil knocked

us out in the quarter-finals on a roasting day in Shizuoka and we never made it

to the final... which was of course in Yokohama.

 

So with no football to watch, I went off to Yokohama anyway. All big buildings

and a very pleasant bayside area.

 

Cosmoworld wasn't desperately exciting though;

 

Cosmoworld Overview

 

I thought that Vanish:Diving Coaster was fairly rubbish and the standard mouse

didn't excite me too much either. I passed on the new kiddy credit too.

 

Vanish, uhh...vanishing

 

Clock21, the Ferris credit

 

 

Got my Ferris-Wheel credit though and spent a while looking at the rather

spectacular view from the top of Japan's tallest building.

 

Landmark Tower, c/w a rather coaster-like sculpture!

 

Bit more detail of Cosmoworld

 

A lovely (and not at all really really tacky) touch in the cafe at the top of the

Landmark tower was that they had special lovely romantic tables to enjoy the

view from, complete with charming (!) electric candelabras. Fantastic!

 

Quality (not)

 

So after mooching around there for the morning, I hop on the train and then onto

a driverless electric tram thing (think like the shuttles at airports) and off to

Sea Paradise a bit further down the coast I go.

 

This was also a nice place to spend a few hours, just the one coaster nowadays;

 

Surf Coaster

 

A bit more Surf Coaster

 

Which was a Togo, but not as bad as that sounds - quite a good ride, if a little

over-blessed with helixes. The cool bit was that it is built out over the sea,

which is nice.

 

Splish splash?

 

The other ride of note out here is the rather tall drop ride Blue Fall;

 

Blue Fall, uhh... falling.

 

This one is 351ft high, which I think is the second biggest after Dreamworld's (377ft).

I am always spoiled a bit on drop rides, since the first one I ever went on was

Dreamworld's (scared me silly) so they all pale in comparison to that! Blue Fall

was nice though.

 

The rest of Sea Paradise is made up with various dolphin based activities and the like,

but makes for a nice enough place to spend a few hours on a hot Saturday afternoon.

 

I recall the TPR guys being impressed by the one ride, where guys jump off boats

as they crashed down into the water (http://www.themeparkreview.com/japan2004/sp3.htm),

well they'll be pleased to see that they have made it even more deadly by inserting

some power-boat things to avaoid as well now;

 

Now thats gotta be tricky?

 

Or maybe they just don't run the boat/man jumping business anymore.

 

Back to Shinjuku for the evening, it all looks very nice lit up you know;

 

Neon City

 

Lights everywhere

 

 

Sunday 8/6

 

Figured I'd head up to Toshimaen this morning as its an easy trip up the subway

from Shinjuku. Probably shouldn't have bothered as I thought the place was very

poor.

 

Bizarre log-like train!

 

Of their 4 coasters (if you include a little powered one), only the odd-log ride

Cyclone was running, in fairness I quite liked that.

 

Their shuttle loop and Corkscrew were all just "abandoned", trains wrapped up in

sheets and no signs of life.

 

Shuttle Loop, broke

 

Corkscrew, broke

 

I had a wander around their various flat rides (generally located on top of the

park buildings, which was kinda cool in itself), but they were a bit uninspiring

also. Having laughed at Spaland's 3 (count 'em) Pirate ships a few days earlier

I was gob-stuck by the fact that this place has 3 as well! basically the same set

up, 1 giant double-pirate ship and a smaller one off to the side (you can't tell

so well from the picture, but the giant ones are in the background).

 

Honestly, do you REALLY need that many?

 

Thoroughly unimpressed by the place, I amused myself for a while taking pics of their

horticulture and then went off...

 

Better than the rides

 

Blue? Was I ever!

 

Macro, macro, macro

 

Anyway I went off in the Shibuya direction to get some "culture credits", wandered

around a rather pleasant temple; Meiji-jingu, in a park;

 

Big Torii at the way in

 

Which I seem to have taken no great photos of!

 

Its back there somewhere really

 

You write your prayer on a thing, hang the thing in the temple for a while and it all

gets sorted...apparently.

 

Letters to (a) god or two

 

Wandered around Shibuya for a while, this is as bonkers busy as Shinjuku but with

more department stores! This was a weekend afternoon, hate to see it when its

proper busy"

 

Quiet afternoon in Shibuya

 

 

Thats is for now, still to come; Fuji-Q, DisneySea and a bit more besides!

Monday 9/6

 

A weird day today...in parts; brilliant, in parts; really frustrating and annoying.

Yep, today was the day for Fuji-Q Highland!

 

Getting there; not too tricky from Shinjuku, theres a regular bus service running

from the highway bus station about 5 mins from my hotel, but I still had days on

my rail pass and I figured that the flexibility from the trains might suit me better,

so I ended up going by train - pretty simple too. You just get the Chuo line

(limited express so theres not so many stops) out to Otsuki (cunningly pronounced

oat-skee) and swap to the rather rural Fuji line up to Fujikyu-hairando.

 

So I'm at the park by 9, but (and its a big BUT), rather annoyingly it has been

raining most of the latter part of the trip up through the mountains and I'm not

feeling too optimistic. In fairness to the park, they tried to sell me a "entry only"

ticket (and then pay-per-ride) rather than a 1-day freepass ticket (because of

the rainy weather conditions you see), but I was having none of it and bought the

daypass anyway (they don't take credit cards tho').

 

Now I'd read up on the place and knew how rain-sensitive they were (fair enough I

guess) so I was resigned to wandering around the place in the rain for a while.

 

The indoor coaster Zola7 (why its named after the diminutive Italian striker I don't

know) opened up at 930 and quickly got a bit of a Q (since it was just about the

only thinking in the place running) - say 20 minutes. Rather rubbish ride though,

the first half is really shooter type thing, then the guns lock in place for a quick

roller coaster bit. All quite odd and uninspiring, but hey it was indoors and I was

dry!

 

So I rode the Ferris wheel...they insisted in putting me in the "see through car",

basically all perspex for a 360 degree view. Unfortunately the perspex was all

scratched up with Japanese graffiti so you couldn't even take a clear photo from

the thing.

 

Dodonpa in the rain

 

So I just loitered around for a while...briefly the rain paused and to the park's

credit they got Fujiyama up running within about 5 minutes - consequently everyone

in the park rushed to it (which was not really that many people!). Luckily I was

pretty close to it when it opened up so ended up on the third train out...but boy

do they have slow operations; you'd think that they'd come up with a more efficient

way of loading the passengers, the train must have been sat in the station for the

best part of 5 minutes whilst the passengers got off, get their stuff out the lockers,

cleared the platform, hey let the new passengers onto the platform, they cross the

train to put the stuff in the lockers, get back on the train then the ops check them

and dispatch... I thought the Japanese were efficient; apparent not here!

 

Quick, quick its open!!!

 

Anyway as we are making our way of the lift-hill I finally see Mount Fuji, I knew it

was around there somewhere but the rain-clouds were so bad I honestly didn't know

where until it appeared through the clouds as I rode Fujiyama! Now that all might

not sound that silly, but Mount Fuji absolutely dominates the park, it hovers over

everything and I must have been there 2 hours and not even seen it! Made me laugh

anyway!

 

The ride itself was good but not great. The first half is very good, really big,

big first drop, fast, but the last half is a bit painful and silly, some odd hills

and twists that are just painful after the pretty smooth first half. Quite a long

ride as well, so overall I liked it, but it could have been a bit better with a

smoother ending. Oh and it started to rain again as I was riding it, so they shut

it down again.

 

So now having located Mount Fuji, I went off and watched it for a while as it hid

amongst the clouds.

 

Its there somewhere...big mountain, can't miss it?

 

Still raining I had a go on Gundam Crisis, only because it was indoors! I had no idea

exactly what a "Gundam" was, not why he might be in crisis, but when in Rome...

It seems that there is a big robot thing (aha thats a Gundam) and he'd needs an

upgrade to beat some bad-buys. So all the Gundam-helpers (ie us punters) have to

run around with some PDA things, swiping them on some panels dotted around this building.

When we've done that for a while (I swear mine was broken as it never seemed to work)

we get let through to the next room, where we meet the big robot guy, only he's a bit

rubbish as he's all lying down and broken-like (actually he's quite impressive, its

huge and well- detailed). We do the running around swiping thing for a while longer

and thats about it. I'm sure I'm missing some subtleties of the thing, but hey its

all Japanese to me! Actually was well done if you knew what was going on. The capacity

must suck though as its easily a 15 minute cycle.

 

Having rescued/helped/killed/broken/repaired Gundam and had some food while watching

Fujisan hide behind the weather....

 

Fujisan with Clouds

 

...I notice something that brigs joy to my heart...blue sky....

 

Yippee!

 

...and yes the rain has stopped!

 

Now Fujiyama gets running quite quickly, but they are a bit more circumspect with

the other rides. So I stand in the middle of the park, trying to spot which

ride will open first. They start testing the mouse so that wins! They test the

mouse for a very long time indeed (OK probably 20 minutes) and then let the

queue in, so after another 5 minutes I get to ride the second coaster of the day!

 

Not your normal mouse, so that was different, not as smooth as a Mack but OK I

guess.

 

Mouse from a bit later on that day, Zola7 in the background

 

As I'm queuing for the mouse, they had started to test Dodonpa, and then a couple

of minutes later Eejanaika starts up. The day has suddenly got better, much better

indeed.

 

So I race over to Dodonpa and they have only just opened the queue, there are 19

people ahead of me in the queue. Result.

 

Dodonpa suffers the same rather inefficient boarding as Fujiyama, but with only 3

trains ahead of me (they were only loading 3 rows out of 4?) I end up on the front

row pretty quickly. The launch is very very impressive, well at least the first

second or so of it as you launch out of the tunnel. Somehow I found the launch

on TTD and KK more impressive overall, but that first instant is wonderful.

 

You race around and up over the hill, which is just brutal, you'd expect it float

over nicely but it just yanks you over the top. Ouch.

 

Dodonpa, and look at all that blue sky!

 

Right then, now we're talking. Off to Eejanaika which has built up a bit

of a queue whilst I was playing on Dodonpa, but nothing too bad. 15 minutes enjoying

the lovely music in the station (and I did enjoy it really) and we are on!

 

Now let me pause for a second here, I was REALLY looking forward to this one. I'd

been to SFMM twice since X opened and it was broken both times so this was going to

be totally new for me. And I loved it.

 

The operations were a bit better thought out here, they could cope with loading

and unloading at the same time, but it was still fairly sluggish and they were only

running one train, but I get assigned the back row and off we go.

 

Eejanaika!

 

Opinions seemed to be divided on these coasters, yep it was a bit rough in places,

but thats the point isn't it? Totally disorientating and just wonderful. Can you

tell I'm a fan?

 

Eejanaika!!

 

If I come off a ride laughing to myself then thats a good sign, and I was giggling

away on this one!

 

Eejanaika!!!

 

Straight back on and I'm on the front row this time. I will go as far as to say

that the instant when you are sat on the front row and spin off the lift hill into

that first drop is the single most impressive "coaster-moment" I can remember. It

only lasts a moment and then you are away off into fast,spinny chaos. But it is

beautiful.

 

Me like much

 

So having "done the big 3" I wander off round the rest of the park, this time

in the sunshine. The Hamster-coaster thing is a bit dull but offers a nice

view of the building site for next season's water-raft ride (located between the

Hamster ride and the haunted hospital (which I didn't go through)).

 

Hamster:The Ride

 

Take a few photos for posterity...

 

Fujisan and Dodonpa

 

(quite pleased with that one!)

 

Turned out nice again.

 

Rode the kiddie coaster for the credit (not proud about that and they only give

you one lap, rubbish). Get to reride all of the big 3 again with no wait (in fact

Eejanaika they are waiting to fill trains up before they dispatch), happy mood!

 

Come 5pm, the rain clouds are on their way back so I call it a day. A good day,

well a good half day after a poor morning. I can totally see why the place gets

slated for slow ops, poor themeing (vast expanses of concrete, the odd nice area

like Thomas-Town then more concrete!), and low capacity. But since I was there

on a very quiet day I had done everything I wanted to in the space of about 2 hours!

 

Now I mention the rain - well it did come back, and how. Get the train back to

the thriving metropolis of Otsuki;

 

Downtown Otsuki

 

and then the train back to Shinjuku.... BUT about 20 mins out of Shinjuku we stop.

And wait at a station. Odd. Japanese trains are always on time? And wait. And then

get hit my a ALMIGHTLY storm, throwing it down, lighting bolts, the lot. So we

wait on the train stationary for an hour before the weather relents and I get back

to Shinjuku in 3 hours not 2. Didn't really spoil my mood, had a good day and

figure tomorrow I'll go to DisneySea to keep them good vibes rolling....

Thanks again for another great update. Mt. Fuji looks so dominating in the background. I look forward to seeing your DisneySea update. I will be in Japan from August 24th to September 5th. I can't wait. (Even if I am going to go broke!)

That dodonpa pic with mount Fuji is beautiful man, good stuff!

 

Very nice TR so far, I liked reading it.

This is a great report. I miss Japan!

Great PTR! I have always wanted to go to Japan, especially to go to Fujiyama Highlands, and Nagashima Spa Land!

Excellent, excellent, excellent! Wow dude, some really great photos in there! Some...I mean, all! This TR is a treat! Keep it up!

 

-JZ

Tuesday 10/6

 

FINALLY I get to DisneySea... I was deliberately leaving this until last to leave

the country on a high - but as it turned out I went somewhere else the next day,

mainly because the weather looked good today and I figured I'd be at the park

all day!

 

First things first though, DisneySea is easy to get to from Shinjuku, just

change lines at Tokyo station (bit of a trek between the lines here though) and

you are away! BUT since I was pausing at Tokyo station I popped over to the

Imperial Palace (10 mins walk away) for a culture credit or two.

 

 

Palace and bridge

 

Odd, this is just about as close as you can get to it, apart from 2 days a year

when the hoi-polloi are allowed inside!

 

Classic "tourist shots" these!

 

Right, done the culture for the day, off to Mickey-ville. I didn't do DisneyLand

for a number of reasons... 1) I'd been there before 2) I'd been to LA's and Orlando's

within recent memory 3) and I don't really like them - they leave me a bit cold and

"so what?". I guess I'm just not the target audience!

 

But I'd been to DisneySea before and loved it...so off I went again.

 

Its.......DISNEYSEA

 

Now I'm not going to ramble on about my excellent day in the park too much that'd

take me AGES, so I'll just make a few observations and dump a load of pictures on you!

 

Since I'd been before, they had added two new rides, Raging Spirits and of course

Tower of Terror. I was rather underwhelmed by Raging Spirits to be honest, its

pretty compact and a bit soulless (for a Disney ride). Fire effects were good

on it - I actually rather thought it let down the rest of the park, being (IMHO)

a bit low-quality for the place!

 

Raging Spirits, it loops you know

 

Tower of Terror - this however was excellent! Obviously the same sort of thing

as the Orlando/LA ones (not been to Paris though to see that one), but a different

back-story involving some olde-worlde explorer and a evil haunted idol. Some groovy

effects in the pre-show rooms (which even in Japanese were probably better that the

Twilight Zone story). The ride was on a par with the DCA one, the drops not as

varied as the Orlando one, but still excellent. And the building rather dominates

that end of the park!

 

Quite a big building then!

 

Indoor zone themeing bit

 

This was "down" - something to do with a crashed ride vehicle?

 

(Ok not really, just more great themeing

 

Ships and Volcanoes

 

They don't do "Parades" but big "water-shows"

 

Boats run all around the park (Raging Spirits skulking there in the background)

 

More boats and themeing in one of the kiddie areas

 

Turns out I'm in Venice really

 

Towers, Boats

 

Not a real ship, posh restaurants!

 

More boats and Volcanoes

 

Towers, Ships AND Boats

 

Some rather good rides in amongst the themeing! Aquatopia;

 

Stacking on Raging Spirits! (just a temporary glitch)

 

Coaster credit #2 (since I didn't ride it last time I was here)

 

The volcano was running occasionally, even if "Journey" wasn't

 

Just ugly this place isn't it?

 

No attention to detail or anything!

 

Boats and Indiana Jones in the background

 

They made a film of this ride (ok not really). The ride is better.

 

Some nifty fire effects on raging Spirits (best bit of the ride)

 

Theres a whole Arabian section too

 

More Arabian goodness

 

Look, I've found Nemo.

 

The Tower is all rather well done

 

And as it gets dark....

 

Dusk approaches over the lake

 

Its getting darker...

 

Lights off, Volcano on

 

When the light goes down the place looks even better!

 

More night shots!

 

This is all the on-site hotel

 

I guess its a bit pricey?

 

The night time spectacular was a bit impressive, all "Fire and Water" played out

over the lake...

 

This would be the "Fire" bit, a big dragon, flames on the lake that sort of thing

 

This would be the "Water" bit, a big fountain thing wandering around

 

Apparently they are in love and this is all very amicable

 

It was a bit windy, so they cancelled the fireworks - about the only downer of the

day.

 

Bye bye DisneySea, thanks for having me!

 

Best park in the world? You know, I don't think its even a close race!

 

Thanks again. I can't wait for DisneySea when we visit in August. We were going to visit Disney on our last few days in Tokyo, but is seems a lot goes down for refurb on September 1, so we will start our Japan trip at Disney. Once again, thanks for documenting your trip for us.

^^ Possibly the best-looking park i've ever seen in pictures!

(on the home stretch now!)

 

Wednesday 11/6

 

After my rather good day at DisneySea, I was a bit worried that I'd trek off somewhere

today and be all "meh!" with the place. As it happened that was not really the case

at all...

 

Easy train ride up from Shinjuku to the KeioYomiuriland station, walk up the

hill a bit to the left, get in a cable-car up over the big hill and bingo, there

I am at Yomiuriland.

 

Whats that coming over the hill?

 

Quite a cool location, perched up at the top of a hill, floating past what looked

like the training ground for the major league baseball team on the way up on the

cable car.

 

The place was EMPTY though. Its not an exaggeration to say there were probably

20 people there to ride the rides (there were a couple of OAPs just wandering around

for something to do I guess!). Despite this, the ride ops were fairly chirpy and

friendly - I guess they just wanted something to do to relive their boredom!

 

So I ended up riding big rides like Bandit, all on my own - how odd!

 

Bandit, loitering above the rather rubbish SL Coaster

 

Bandit I liked - it always pleases me to see a coaster that takes into account

its location - what I mean is that if you have a nice big hill nearby, the coaster

should make use of this, and Bandit certainly does. The first half is all big drop

and twisty helix business, then it seems to remember where it is and dives off at

great speed down a valley across the park before it returns to the station. A good

ride then!

 

Weather wasn't quite as bad as it looks!

 

The other "big" coaster they have is White Canyon, basically a wooden cyclone.

It wasn't great, but not as rough as I anticipated despite the completely

bonkers restraints! (Because of the non-running ride at Spaland, this turned

out to be the only wooden coaster on the trip!)

 

White Canyon in the distance

 

Canyon's bonkers restraints (and amazingly other punters)

 

Theres a horrible standing/sitting coaster Momonga, which was as painful in

either position, a mine-train type called SL Coaster (which is in the running

for the worst coaster on the trip) and a kiddie ride which I am again ashamed

to say I did ride!

 

So along with a couple of smallish S&S shot/drop towers, the world's smallest

bungee jump upcharge ride, a smattering of flats and a rather long (non-upcharge)

go-kart circuit thats about that.

 

More risky jumping off my sofa!

 

 

Gotta get the Ferris-credit of course

 

Apart from the one real surprise ride they had; it looked like it was really part

of the associated (closed) water-park rather than the amusement park, but it

was actually open (even if I never saw anyone else ride it that morning!) - there

is a big white inflatable spinning water rapid thingy (like they have at SFA, SFNE

etc) - but BIGGER and BETTER and FASTER than them. A really long course, and you

get up to some speed in the thing - probably the best ride at the park! Shame

I don't have any great pictures of it though.

 

Main midway with the big excellent water-ride at the far end

 

All in all a rather pleasant place, certainly enough to occupy a few happy hours,

and with a rather fantastic mascot too;

 

Woof!

 

----

 

Since Yomiuriland had only occupied half a day, I went up to Asakusa for the afternoon,

half intending to ride the coaster up there, but in the end gave it a miss (I have

this potentially OCD thing that the last coaster I ride has to be a good one, just

in case you get killed on the way home (you have to go out with a good ride!) so I

wasn't going to spoil Bandit by replacing it with the rather dull-looking "Roller

Coaster" at Hanayashiki!).

 

Anyway Asakusa has lots of culture credits to keep me happy for a few hours too;

 

Big lanterns

 

Nice pagodas

 

Temples and stuff

 

Lucky smoke apparently

 

Similar setup to Nara (a few pages ago!)

 

And back to Shinjuku at night

 

Thursday 12/6

 

I had half-planned to go up to Tobu Zoo today, but the weather was a bit rubbish

and I did fancy just wandering around Shinjuku for a few hours and then going up

the big building in Roppongi....so I did that instead!

 

View from Takashima Time Square (my hotel is just behind the Olympus building)

 

From Roppongi Hills you can see the SBNO coaster on the rooftop

 

Weather a bit grim so couldn't see that far from the Hills

 

But its a pretty good observation floor; "City View"

 

Roppongi Hills from the outside

 

Streetlevel views of Tokyo Tower

 

Just my luck, the weather all cleared up by the time I was back in Shinjuku

 

Some more neon then

 

Friday 13/6

 

Thats it then... get up this morning, get a bus to the airport, get on a plane,

get off the plane in Paris, get on another plane, get off that plane in Manchester,

give an audible "yelp" of relief when my baggage turned up (I didn't trust

CDG airport to get my bags from one plane to another in 50 minutes), get taxi,

get home, sleep.

 

 

-------------------

 

Some promised "logistics";

 

I flew MCR-AMS-KIX with KLM and NRT-CDG-MAN with Air France - ticket ~£500

Stayed at Granvia hiroshima for 2 nights ~£50/night

at Hotel Monterey in Osaka for 4 nights ~£50/night

at Royal Park Inn in Nagoya for 3 nights ~£40/night

and Sunroute Plaza in Shinjuku for 7 nights ~£75/night

 

All booked thru Expedia (since they had the cheapest prices and the best web-site).

No complaints with any of the hotels, would recommend them all.

 

Getting around - had a 14 day JR Rail pass (£228 from "thetrainline" of all places)

and then just used local transport when it had expired. Note that the pass was

not good for all of the trips - eg out to ParqueEspana you are on a different

company's track so you have to pay for that.

 

I burned about £750 on parks and food and stuff (note credit cards ar not that

widely taken so you do need a fair amount of currency to get by - ATMs generally

take UK cards tho).

 

-------------------

 

 

Coaters += 38

Ferris wheels += 10

 

Happy days!

 

Sayonara!