PTR: Don and Monica's Massive Japan Update!

Hey Guys! We just got back from an awesome 9 day trip to Japan!

Yes, It was REALLY cold,

Yes, there was snow everywhere,

and Yes, the parks were open!

I started planning this trip about 5 weeks before we went so it was a total spur of the moment trip! I was a little nervous just prior to leaving because

a) we’ve never been to Japan (or Asia) before and

b) I’d only been speaking Japanese for about 2 weeks!

The trip went great though thanks to the Alvey’s trip planning guide and Elissa’s spreadsheet skills. We only missed 4 coasters the whole trip, 3 kiddies and Bandit, but we had a great time and it really wasn’t expensive at all! We can’t wait to go back!

All in all, we went to 11 parks (Including LaQua 3 times!) and rode 26 new coasters! I took a lot of pictures so I’ll break up the PTR day by day, so keep checking back for updates!

-Don

Day one

We landed at Narita in the afternoon and took the train to our hotel in Shinjuku. After checking into our REALLY small room we headed out to Aqua Stadium by train to go ride Galaxy Express 999.

You probably know that Aqua Stadium is a pretty small amusement center inside the Shinagawa Prince hotel. It was actually really easy to find right across the street from the JR station.

The ride was pretty fun, the pre-show right away made us feel like we were in Japan! It was totally random (for us at least) and pretty bizzar. The actual coaster ride was neat given the space they had to work with. We rode in the front seat, it had a little “Xcelerator rattle” but was pretty smooth and the loop was fun with only an intamin T-bar holding you in.

Here’s the pictures!

Here's a night shot from our hotel of the Shinjuku skyscraper district at the end of our very long first day!

Check back for Yomiuriland and day two later!

Man Japanese TV is awesome! Where can I get a squid hat?!

"OK, we got the credit...can I have pie now?!"

They have several rides, including this dolphin-go-round

Nice to see the guy from Final Fantasy IX got some new work!

The gift shop even had the creepy mannequines from the pre-show!

Our first Japan credit, an Intamin looper with lapbars only!

This ride is based on an anime movie of the same name (not that it helped us understand it any better though!)

All right, we're in

Awesome, we're here and there's neon penguins!

This must be the right way, I think I see a dolphin.

The Shinagawa JR station. The trins here are so easy to use!

Monica (DubbleBubble) and I made it to Japan! We're there 5 minutes and I already got my first obscure soft drink!

Great Pics! What was that "obscure soft drink" like?

Is it time to go back yet?!?!?

I love Japanese TV!!!

A looper with lapbars, the way God intended it to be! The dolphin-go-round looks kind of cool, I think--thanks for sharing the pics.

Great pictures, Don! Japan must be awesome! I can´t wait to see more from your trip!

--Sören

I'm looking forward to the updates!

Japan looks awesome, I have to visit Japan someday!

Hope you dont mind me asking but how much overall did this trip cost? im looking to head out there soon. Trying to get some ideas on the average cost.

Great Pics! What was that "obscure soft drink" like?

Kida like Pocari Sweat which is kinda like a mild Gatorade frost. I love all the weird drinks!

Hope you dont mind me asking but how much overall did this trip cost? im looking to head out there soon. Trying to get some ideas on the average cost.

Oh I'm not shy! 9 days, 11 parks including 4 days at TDL/TDS in an onsite hotel and with airfare it came in just under 4K for the two of us. Cheap airfare was pretty much the catlyst for the trip ($576 with tax from SFO on JAL).

Plus we made some unessisary purchases (well, they were nessisary to us ) for instance, there were alot of hotels just a few stops from Disney we could have stayed at, we had dinner one night at the Rainforest Cafe (with a Volcano!) and we bought some onride photos ect.

Really I couldn't believe how much it didn't cost us! Japan is an easy place to spend money at, but don't confuse that with it being expensive. For example: That bottle of Active Diet cost me 140 yen from an airport vending machine ($1.18) and Monica and I could fill ourselves with more cheeseburgers at McDonalds than we could handle for just under 1000 yen ($8.41).

On the other hand our RFC dinner at Disney came out to just over 5000 yen ($42.03) and many places had nicer restauraunts that were even more.

So while you can spend alot of money there, it's up to you whether your trip is expensive or not!

-Don

(Yomiuriland will be up in an hour or so)

cool thanks. I've picked up some invaluble tips from backpacking around china and thailand about how to keep costs down so when i do go i should be able to keep the costs at student levels. Although im expecting japan to be considerebly more expensive.

i think i shall purchace a lonely planet guide in the next few weeks and start estimating

Sounds like this was an awesome trip. I'm definately looking forward to the rest of this TR.

These Japan TRs are good advertisements for the proposed TPR Japan trip in '07.

Day Two

Yomiuriland and Toshimaen

Our first full day in Japan we we’re wide awake at 5 am thanks to the time change. Luckily it meant we could get an early start to figuring out the train system.

The Shinjuku Washington Hotel is connected to the main rail station by a really long underground mall. Luckily there is a bakery along the way that has really good fresh baked loaves or rasin bread for like 300 yen!

We got on an east bound train and headed out to the park. Along the way we had a connection at a place called Chofu that we messed up and started heading the wrong way. Luckily it was only a matter of getting off at the next stop and heading back.

The station attendants were friendly and helpful, even though they spoke no English. I just told him what station we were trying to get to (Keio-Yomiuri-Land) and he told us to wait two trains for a Hashimoto bound one. Hashimoto-> Yomiuriland, got it! He gave us a thumbs up and we were on our way.

We got to the park about 45 minutes early and after playing in the snow for a bit and writing my name (with my foot) we took the skyway up to the main park enterance.

Right away we saw that Bandit, the Togo hyper, was down due to repainting/refurb. I kinda knew this ahead of time when I translated the parks website and saw that “Van Debt” had suspended operations.

Still we did the three open coasters, the sky-cycle, rode the coin-op animals, saw a very sick looking stray cat, played in the arcade and saw the Sea Lion show and were still done with the park by noon. Good, plenty of time to see Toshimaen too.

Pictures:

Can't wait to go back, and I'm sure we won't get lost next time!

Toshimaen will be next.

And just to document, here is a snow coaster.

Strongbad: "Giant Robots?!"

Little did we realise that it only gets weirder from here on out.

They had some kind of Buddist/Shinto walk through attraction behind the park, we didn't do it though

Hey guess what! It actually didn't suck! I even went back and rode the standup train too!

YomiuriDog has evolved into some sort of Shinto God here. I don't want to start anything, but I'm pretty sure Yomidog would smite HoliDog were it ever to come to blows.

Oh, and I actually won something from a claw machine here! Japan Rules!

Did I mention the Giant Wheel!

I think this is called "Dream Coaster" The lift hill has a bubble machine!

They even play music too!

YES! Our first wacky Japanese ride-on animals!

The layout starts to do some pretty funky stuff about half way through.

White Canyon was open with the park so we headed there first. I thought the ride was really kick ass. Then I remembered that it's White Cyclone that is supposed to suck.

Here you can see the scaffolding on "Van Debt" and you can tell that there are only 8 people in the entire park!

Hint: Anytime your trying to find a Japanese park, just look for the giant wheel

This is still funny

Here's the chariot that takes you topside. Did I mention that it was feezing cold!

This has GOT to be the right station!

Too bad this McDonalds didn't have a walk up window at the station platform.

So we got to the wrong station, no big deal, we still had TONS of time!

I am really jealous. In a few years I am really trying to decide whether to go to Japan or Europe...

Keep the updates coming!

Yeah, more pictures! Does it hurts to ride the coaster in the snow! I mean was it very cold on the coaster? I am looking forward to the next update!

--Sören

The pictures are awesome! I think riding coasters in the snow would be a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to the next update!

Yeah, more pictures! Does it hurts to ride the coaster in the snow! I mean was it very cold on the coaster? I am looking forward to the next update!

Well, the air was cold but also very dry. By the third day my lips were getting pretty chapped. It was actually pretty exciting riding a wooden coaster in 30 degree weather.

Dodonpa at night when it's 27 degrees out though, that was a numbing experience, but we'll get to that later!

Toshimaen is coming soon!

-Don

So far, this is one badass photo TR! Looking forward to the next installment.

Who wants to go to Japan with me? Mary refuses to go...

dt

Day Two: Part Two

One of the bones about the off season in Japan is that most parks are closed by 4pm. That’s not really a problem because the parks are so dead but if you want to try and fit in more than one a day plus travel time it can be pretty tricky.

Initially Toshimaen was going to be a bonus park if we finished Yomiuriland unexpectedly early. It would have been a shame to miss Toshi because it is only about 7 or 9 stops from Shinjuku, no transfers or anything.

Since Bandit was down and we conquered the rest of Yomi we had just enough time to squeeze in a few hours at Toshi!

Getting to the Toshimaen station was really easy and we got there pretty quick. Unfortunately the park is not near the station like Yomiuriland was. I kinda knew which direction to head off in and real soon I saw the 7-11 from Robb’s trip planning guide and then found the Toy R Us they bought Dan Doritos at and the park was right there.

The free pass ride ticket is just a small square piece of paper that you show to go on rides. I do not like having that much responsibility over protecting my ride pass. If I had a safety pin so I could have pinned it to my chest like a kindergartener I would have!

The park itself feels very ‘traditional’ and a lot of the flat rides and coasters really are on top of souvenir buildings and restaurants. Luckily the only coaster that was down was the small Mack powered coaster, and the park was almost totally empty!

We actually went to the set of huge swinging pirate ships first, some credit whores huh! The ships were easily twice the scale of normal swinging ships. Like someone just took the AutoCAD program and hit the 200% button.

They also had the half enclosed shuttle loop, and a standard arrow double cork, but the real treat was the 1950’s era (which opened in 65) Togo cyclone. The entire coaster looks more like an old steel bridge than a coaster, but it has an awesome wide open layout, airtime, a really long helix in a tunnel and is just a ton of fun!

We hadn’t really eaten because we were trying to rush from one park to another so we stopped at a crepe stand that had no less than 30 types of crepes of all varieties. Since my kanji is pretty horrible and the employees are locked in a booth I just took a picture of the one I wanted and showed it to the two girls working there. They both started cracking up and we all thought it was pretty funny. See, culture barriers can be fun!

We actually finish the park with an hour to spare so we went to Toys R Us and OMG, the Gundam DEPARTMENT was freeking huge! If I was into plastic robot model I probably would’ve wet myself. Instead I just made the boxes fight with each other for a while and then went to check out the video games.

Dude, the Xbox 360’s lined an entire row. I guess the Japanese really are smarter than us! (j/k xbox fanboys). The DS clearly is leading the market here, they had an entire aisle dedicated to DS games and accessories.

Our curiosity satisfied we bought some junk food (yummy pizza pretzel combos) and went back to the train station.

Thanks for reading, here’s the pictures!

We actually made it back to our hotel in time for some more weird Japanese TV. Thanks to the time chage we were asleep by 7pm. Here's a daytime shot from our hotel window.

Next up will be the Tobu Zoo!

OK, this is Qoo. It's a line of fruit flavored drinks made by Coca-Cola featuring sickingly cute charecters on the labels. Monica drank at least half her weight in Qoo by the time we left Japan. That is the power of marketing.

The park had that fun 'traditional park' feel. Apperently this carousel is pretty old. I'm not much of a horsey-pole guy so I'm not really sure.

I gotta get one of these to drive around the office with. I can rig it up to fire staplers.

This picture shows all the trees that surround the ride. So pretty!

Dude! It's totally a coaster! Look at the lift hill!

The corkscrew was standard, but was actually quite smooth. It had alot of 'grown in' landscaping around it. It was like the ultimate garden gnome!

These really are great rides. They look much better like this than rusting in a parking lot.

The ride op was nice enough to let me film on the parks shuttle loop. No POV poaching for me!! Don't ban me...Please!

That's it baby! Roll it up for daddy!

Oh man, the crepe window. "I'll have the tuna, mayonaise, and corn. No wait! I was just joking!!"

The boats were just massive. I wish we could get some of these over here. Huss, are you listening!

Flying Pirates is their huge swinging ship ride...on top of a building.

It has these really nice long smooth drops and rises and maintains it's speed really well. I liked it alot!

Looking at the structure it reminds me a steel bridge that I'd have for a model railroad or something. Like someone tore down the Eiffel tower and mad an amusment park ride out of it!

It's that Japanese coaster with the RCT "Log Train"

Cyclone is an awesome ride. Even though the name doesn't describe it at all!

Whoa, the forums kinda froze up on me, otherwise I would've had this up sooner.

Let me know what you guys think, do you want more pics of coasters, more pics of the parks in general, pictures of random vending machines, or pictures of me in my pajamas?

Let me know what you want, I'm doing all this for you guys just cause I love you all so much, except Joe C, he can suck a lemon

Day Three: Tobu Zoo and Tokyo Dome

Now we were getting into a groove. We knew how the trains worked by now and we started feeling pretty comfortable. Now was the time to put it to the test with a long ride out to the Tobu Zoo. We’re talking a 3 transfer, traveling off of my rail system map kinda test.

Actually it was really easy to get there. I knew exactly how long the trip should take and we got to the station right on time (to the minute!).

The park is actually easy to spot from the train a few stops early. Just look for the huge Japanese wheel!

There is a bus from the station to the park but it’s only about a 10 minute walk and the only street leaving the station in the direction on the park takes you right there. The sidewalk even has little animals carved into it!

There’s also a family mart on the way where you can get cheap food and drinks on your way to the park.

The Tobu Zoo is quite a place. The front half is full of rides and the back half is all animals. It was also our first foreign zoo, so we were excited to go!

Again we got there way early so we played with some snow and ravaged the vending machine outside of the park. Once we got in we wandered around as rides started opening. On hand with us at opening were 4 japanese girls and that was it. It was like a park wide ERT session!

Only 2 coasters were operating, luckily it was the two good ones, Regina, the intamin woodie, and the Togo looping mouse. The small Tivoli coaster was missing it’s train and Rocky was completely gone!

For those of you familiar with Regina you know it sits over a small lake. Well, today the lake was partially frozen over! Even then the coaster was kicking ass like it was a hot summer night, and the train had those awesome intamin T-bars. It was pretty awesome.

When the Togo mouse opened we took some rides on it, and it was…interesting. It was definitely better than windjammer, and it had a pretty cool ending with a drop into a very small bunnyhop.

Then on our way to the animal side we found the Afri-Carts. These were pretty swift little go-karts safari themed and raced around another lake past plastic animals and a real goat! Just like the real Africa!

They had a pretty impressive kids play area, with the ultimate slide of doom and a pretty wacky haunted walkthrough.

And the zoo had Monkeys…sooo many Monkeys.

Pictures!

Ooh, look at that face! Someone needs to make licensed merchandise based off of you and sell it in a coin op machine.

Dude, Red pandas are awesome. They're like giant reddish foxes.

And then we found the place where the squirrel monkeys ride around on capyberras. This was beoynd awesome

The animals came out to say hi to us. Hello cute Tapir!

And then she found the Hamtaro hat and began the aquisition of very strange things.

OOOOHHH!!!! I AM THE MOST ANGRY BAG THING IN ALL OF TOBUOOO!!!

And then we discovered the toy vending machines. Oh what holy hell is this.

I know I probably wouldn't have eaten this as a kid. Their kids meals are truly hardcore. I totally want that hello kitty meal divider plate. Don't lie, you do too.

ARRGGGHHH!! Elephants!!!!

We are throughly enjoying our Africart safari.

This ride rules just for being fun.

Oh god yes, I must ride this.

Yeah, I think it classifies as strange.

They had this funky skyway/suspended monorail ride connecting the big wheel area with Africart land.

Here is a shot looking back from the first turn around. Regina rides just like Ghostrider did opening year. Monica still doesen't believe that it was ever really good.

I was very impressed with this ride especially given how cold it was.

Speaking of which, she's all Woman, and smooth as a duck walking on a frozen pond.

Here I am at the Great wall of Tobu. Good thing the Mongols never tried to invade Regina!

Straight down this street and past the Family Mart. Follow the animals in the side walk

Good thing it wasn't a cloudy day, the station would have totally dissapeared! Crazy camoflauge cloaking device!

I love this stuff!

Oh effing yes! Pocari Sweat!!

The park is easy to get to, just get off between Himalaya and Waldo!

Back riding the trains again!

More Pictures.

edit- I added some more!

OMG that is straight down. I'm all about verticle drop slides.

And we'll close Tobu with Monica and the...yellow...park mascot...rat/dog...thing.

Shinjuku and Tokyo Dome will be next!

Hmmm...Mountain Dew or Bubble Man Grape...Tame citrus soda or Mega Man villian!

And a very fun park!

Awesome coaster.

Is that what we're calling it now.

I had nowhere near enough tickets to win this, and I left very sad.

It's the second best coaster in Vegas!!!

Hey look a simulator...wait a minute, what's that?

Oh yeah, btw Rocky is completely gone!

All the jealous haters had to stand and watch!

Monica made a new friend.

Yeah, I rather liked it.

It took awhile but this thing finally opened and it was...interesting. Not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Don't adjust your photo mix! It's all about Jeezus Juice, baby!

(Oh, and glad to see you made it home OK.)

Dude, awesome photo TR. Jap-land is a weird yet awesome place. And I laughed at the H*R reference there.

Nice pics, keep on going Don.

WOW one of my top ten coasters is no more

Any way grate photos Don cant wait to see more

I'm still not taking to you Don.

Now I've seen EVERTHING

A monkey riding a capybara

Wow! Im always so jealous reading Japan TR's and seeing how awesome everything looks over there! I cant wait to see everything else!

I'd definately consider going on a Japan Trip if I can scrounge up enough money before 07. Is everything really that easy to figure out over there?

Thanks for the awesome read and.. look! Looking forward to the updates.

Eric