Photo TR: Bill & David's TPR Japan Tour (2013)

Any more pics of the inverting spinner?

^

Sorry, nothing more from me, unfortunately. The only place (I found) where you could get any view of the cars moving, is where I was took that one photo. I believe Robb got a POV of the entire ride cycle, but you'll have to wait until he has time to post it. They just finished up the Texas-Midwest tour, so everything is still pretty busy (finishing things up) right now for them.

Patience.

(Joypolis, cont.)

After we'd spent some time at Joypolis and the mall, there was a meet up time agreed upon, to also see if more time was needed in the area before we took off to our hotel at the DIsney Resort. As it turns out, the majority (there was a group vote) wanted a few more hours, and although I was in the minority (I had had enough, at the time), it was okay being outvoted, lol.

We ended up checking out one of the other malls close by, and Chinese dinner (!) with some of the others in the group. It actually was a very nice extra couple of hours there. And then we all met up again later on, and headed to Disney...

Yes, Joypolis is where (now TPR Famous) CONDOMANIA shop is located. 'Nough said.

The shop itself. We took a peek inside, then decided that was enough, lol.

The Tokyo SkyTree, viewed from Joypolis.

Um, not sure what the soles of these were made of. What some people wear on their feet for 'regular wear'.

David, Anth, and Priscilla having a moment, between malls.

Inside the second mall we visited. Very Vegas-like is parts of it, like this fountain.

The Chinese Restaurant a group of us ended up at, had this back wall of 'fish'. Kind of a precursor to what we might be ordering?

Our happy little dinner group. And the food was pretty good, too!

Lights in fake flowers. What can be more perfect than that?

In a nearby arcade, this was the back of a game. Sure looked like "Peter Pan's Flight" to me, heh.

Yeah. Then there was this. Actually there was a number of shops catering specifically to the doggy set. So... where were all the kitties' shops?

And then there was THIS display of yumminess. Can never decide with these things, which one to order, etc.

The sky wheel close to the mall we were visiting. Didn't go on it. Maybe next visit.

And same wheel, in a blurrr.

So we meet up again, we catch a train, transfer, and finally end up at Tokyo Disney Resort, where our last hotel awaits us.

And no, that isn't it. That's the Disneyland Hotel. Ours is bit farther down the monorail line.

And, we reach the Tokyo Hilton Hotel, as did our luggage ahead of us. Great! The room number is perfect too (me and my 3's, and born in 1953) So now its a good night sleep and then..... Fuji Q-Highland Park the next day.

And now, a word about.... McDonald's Shaka Shaka Chicken.

I had known about this since my first tour with TPR in 2007. But not

had the opportunity to try it - until this tour, with David. We went to

the McDs at Joypolis, ordered one up and tried it....

Verdict? Not bad. But not great enough, that I wanted to go running

out and telling everybody "you've got to try this, it's amazing" etc.

The chicken piece itself, looks like one big flat oversized chicken nugget.

And it fit slightly awkward in the shaking bag, so it had to be torn/cut up for

it all to fit in the bag, for shaking. And the seasoning packet you "shake"

into the bag over the chicken (we tried red pepper which was good) didn't

seem to have enough seasoning for us to use.

We tried one again, at Tokyo Narita Airport, just before we left for home.

This time, I got a knife and cut the chicken up into "nugget-sized pieces,"

tossed them into the bag, added seasoning...and it worked much better

for us.

So - for us, Shaka Shaka Chicken was "okay". And I will probably try it again,

maybe on my next TPR Japan tour.

(EDIT to add: The cost of the snack was around $1.20 at that time.)

The Bag with The Chicken in it. Shaka Shaka... (Not my or David's hand. And Thanks to whoever took this pic)

^FYI - The Shaka Shaka Chicken is totally different from years past. They changed the size and shape of the chicken and the flavors offered. Robb was very disappointed and depressed over it.

^

Sorry, nothing more from me, unfortunately. The only place (I found) where you could get any view of the cars moving, is where I was took that one photo. I believe Robb got a POV of the entire ride cycle, but you'll have to wait until he has time to post it. They just finished up the Texas-Midwest tour, so everything is still pretty busy (finishing things up) right now for them.

 

Patience.

I couldn't get a decent photo of Veil of Dark, either. It was just too dark in Joypolis for my camera, and beyond my meagre photographic skills, to get a photo of a moving car.

^FYI - The Shaka Shaka Chicken is totally different from years past. They changed the size and shape of the chicken and the flavors offered. Robb was very disappointed and depressed over it.

What is the best snack in Japan now in your opinion?

^FYI - The Shaka Shaka Chicken is totally different from years past. They changed the size and shape of the chicken and the flavors offered. Robb was very disappointed and depressed over it.

What is the best snack in Japan now in your opinion?

^ Meat on Sticks (in my opinion), lol! They were in restaurants all over the cities we stayed in.

Best 'snack' I can think of right now.

And Elissa? Hmmmph. Oh well, we tried. Too bad I didn't try it back in one of the previous TPR Japan tours. But I am glad we weren't the only ones disappointed by what we got. Maybe they'll change back by next visit, hmmm?

I never even saw the Shaka Shaka chicken at any of the McD'd I went to. I was excited to try it after trying the Shaka Shaka fries last year in Hong Kong. The McD's chicken sandwich I did try was only so so. I felt bad for the Japanese woman that ran it to me since it wasn't ready when I ordered it.

^ The Shaka Shaka Chicken was moved from a previous feature spot on their menu board to the Value Menu. We found that out from one of the others on the tour, or we would have never found it ourself. And when you looked and found it, it was hardly noticeable up there.

Edit to add: We did just ask the server for "shaka shaka chicken"? And she knew immediately what we wanted. So I guess you could have just asked for it, Jon. Unless you did just that, and they didn't have it available at that McDs.

July 3 - Fuji-Q Highland Park

And so, we finally had our day to head to Fuji-Q Highland Park, and for those of us who'd been there before, hoping it would be as good a day there, as it was, like our last visit, in 2011. Fortunately, it turned out pretty good for the day. All the coasters were open, including the new Takabisha which turned out to be less exciting that I thought it would be IMhO. Only a couple of years old, and it was already getting pretty rough in spots. But - the credit was got and that was that.

And Robb and Elissa again helped everybody with 'fastpasses' for the various coasters. With the same silly set up for distribution of the passes (hourly, so many given out, etc.), so once again THANK YOU Robb and Elissa, for putting up with this "system", so that we could all have a great time at Fuji!

I didn't go on most of the coasters this trip, as i really wanted it to be David's tour, and I know he wasn't going to even attempt riding ones like Eejanaika or Fujiyama, or even Takabisha. But we got our flying hamster credit (Great Fluffy Sky Adventure), rode the Thomas The Train dark ride, took it easy, and really enjoyed the day there...

Where we started this day, from. Our hotel (for me and David, six nights there!) for the remainder of the tour.

This was our view outside our room at the Hilton. Gotta love parking lots, right?

But to the left of that shot, a bit of Tokyo Disneyland! With the Disneyland Hotel on the left, and Space Mountain on the right.

And to the right, a bit of Tokyo Disney Sea. The back of the park, actually, seeing the show building of Indiana Jones, and Raging Spirits. And The Volcano.

We had to get up so early for this day, we had to miss breakfast in the hotel. But the hotel provided us with a nice "something to eat" on our way to the park on the bus.

And here's the staff, handing out our "bag lunches" heh heh.

Our "map" to Fuji-Q. I am sure it's there somewhere . Actually, David took this at the park. (DbM)

One our way to Fuji! I think Joli and Jon there are wondering what they've been given to eat, lol. And ..."my eyes". And I see you there Martin (at right) watching what I'm doing.

We kept looking and looking for clear shots of the mountain. But it stayed pretty cloudy at the top of it. Well, we had most fo the day, to try, try again. (DbM)

Closer to the park now.

I see coaster!

Closer still. Almost there.

Random shot of....

A bus seat back! Looked artsy to me...

We've arrived! And we were apparently first there at the park, too.

Still, a bit of a feeling of "omg we're here again" came upon me. But it went pretty well, for the day there.

The park entrance. And we were first!

An ice cream machine outside the park entrance.

One particularly interesting flavour...

David beside a display board showing the attractions in Thomas Land, inside the park.

Takabisha is testing for the morning, That's a good sign.

And - we're heading into the park! With fastpass instructions from Robb....

So how long were the waits this time compared with past visits.

^ I can't honestly answer that, as the only big coaster I went on, was Takabisha.That was basically a walk on, right when we entered the park. And then Robb and Elissa were getting us "Front of Line" passes through the day, so most of us were bypassing the lines, if there were any (ha ha, of course there were!). The only non-coaster ride I really wanted to try for my first time, was their "raft ride". And that was well over an hour for it, when I did check the queue wait time.

In comparison to the 2011 visit, it felt pretty much the same for lines and locals at the park, although this visit all the coasters were open. (Eejanaika was down for maintenance in 2011). And the 2007 was the Ugly Visit (with 2-3 hours' wait on most big coasters), so we don't talk much about that any more.

Maybe one or two of the group might chime in here, with what they found as far as coaster wait times went?

60-90min waits for all the majors.

~ Takabisha ~

Well, we rode it and after two years of waiting to ride it, it was..... okay.

There was a lot of roughness in the general layout and for myself, the only

real "thrill" of it all was the over-extended drop, after the vertical lift. That

was crazy. But...that was it for me. And one ride was enough.

Although I haven't ridden Alton Towers' Smiler, this looked a wee bit like The Smiler,

(to me) only pulled and stretched to fit a bigger footprint. Although it didn't (obviously)

have the 14 inversions, it could have the same argument made (like Smiler) of being

two coasters put together, with a launch at the beginning, and a vertical lift

"launch" 2/3 of the way through it. Just my opinion...

Here's a few photos taken of Takabisha, by me and David.

At the loading station, was this plaque. Wish we'd ridden it back in 2011...

I remember this being on the construction walls back in 2011. Now, they moved it into the station, itself. (DbM)

You get a pretty good view of Fujiyama, across the Dodonpa launch track, from the Takabisha outside (covered) queue.

How it looks from the sky wheel.

A shot by David, from the "mini-Mt.Fuji" in the middle of the park. (DbM)

Yeah, that IS quite the drop on it. Quiet intense feeling, when you're just - not - sure about "when it happens", lol.

Some of the layout.

And here's Elissa and myself (front row, left) "enjoying" our first and probably ONLY ride (for me) on Takabisha. On-ride photo coming (at the end of the trip report) to show our...uh... reaction to it... (DbM)

I thought second section of Takabisha was better than the launched section, but I liked the ride overall.

More Fuji-Q...More of the park

After Takabisha, people started splitting up and touring around the rest of the park. David and I did a few flats, the smaller coasters like the "flying hamster" coaster (Great Fluffy Sky Adventure) and the kiddies' coaster in Thomas Land (Rock 'N Roll Duncan), which was actually a fast zippy little coaster to ride!

The Sky Wheel provided us with several great views of the park and of Mt.Fuji, of course. We even had a bird join us ont he wheel for the few minutes, before taking off to somewhere else.

We also did two walk-throughs, one which was okay. The other...well all i can say is INTENSE. The first one was a sort of "Prison Break" themed attraction, everybody starting out in jail cells, then being released and having only 10 minutes (we found out at the end of it) to gather imprints of different 'items' on a card we were given at the start of the attraction. Some of the slots to insert the card were pretty hard to find, even for the locals. And with it all being in Japanese, we could only follow others around, and maybe hope to find a few of those card slots on our own, which we rarely did. An interesting attraction, but once was enough (for me, for now).

The other walk-through was the more anticipated one. And it did not disappoint me. Haunted Hospital has been at the park since before our first TPR tour in 2007. And at that time, line up were well over two hours wait! And there were no "front of line tickets" to be gotten, back then. So, for that tour, I skipped it. Then, when we came back in 2011, the queue wasn't too bad, at that time, but still well over an hour I remember. So, I once again skipped it, for another future tour...

This time however, the Hospital was literally a walk-in for us. Which was great. And while we really got a kick out of all the time we spent touring through the building, it was a heck of a work out physically, especially all the stairs we had to keep going up and going down, and mentally, since you really couldn't tell when and where a scare actor would pop up, which of course, made it all the more intense. And I was really amazed at how 'dangerous' some of the room were to walk through, with all the equipment lying around, bottles and jars on shelves, nothing looking like it was locked up, etc. Nothing like this would ever work, or be allowed in North America, I was sure of that.

It was great, totally exhausting for us, but well worth waiting to do a "visit" there.

The two photos posted at the end of this posting are from the Prison Break attraction, and Haunted Hosptial. Not really "on ride" photos, but still a nice memory of two cool indoor attraction (yes, all things considered, even Prison Break was good in concept and themeing).

General view of Fuji, with the Sky Wheel in back. And peddle boats were run in the water area here.

David in front of the golden cats statues, part of the themeing for the raft ride in Fuji. They do like their kittys, lol!

And me, placed where Card 33 (I love 3's!) should be along the railing with all the cat gods in view. (DbM)

Our Sky W#heel ride. We decided to take the "Love Capsule" since we figured we could get better un-blocked shots of the park. Nobody blinked, when we asked for it.

Our co-rider on the Wheel.

A rainbow of colours in the wheel's center section.

Looking down at the Mad Mouse. I really liked the layout of this mouse. I just wish it wasn't so darned....rough and jerky. Would be a great ride if everything were smoothed out.

Looking through the capsule itself.

Um...speaks for itself, hmm? Interesting themeing I must say, lol.

Lunch - with beer! And it was good. (DbM)

They even had a map to show where the smokers could go and light up. That was nice of the park.

And - the Haunted Hospital facade. There was no way photos could be taken inside of it, except for their photo of you at the beginning of the "tour."

And here we are - all calm and collected to tour the Hospital.

Now honestly. Would you let these two out of prison? I wouldn't. At least, the one on the left I wouldn't trust. (o;

I was really disappointed by the hospital. We got very few scare actors to pop out at us and just loong stretches of creepiness. And stairs. Lots of stairs.

Robb and Elissa made this day beyond awesome with the front of the line passes!

I'm wearing my Eejanika shirt today which according to Wikipedia, means "ain't it great"

^ I think somebody mentioned earlier, that maybe they use less scare actors, according to the size of the crowds coming into the Hospital. I remember too that there were only a few actors we came across, or came across us (eek). But I didn't mind that, as the intensity of just moving through the building, built up enough anxiety for myself. David even bumped into me at one point, and I jumped at that, LOL! And yeah, all those stairs were very daunting.

But why did they take away our flashlight, halfway through the tour?!

Not fair, ghosts.

Good to hear you found out what Eejanaika meant, Jon. I got a cap and

t-shirt during the 2011 tour, and still never found out what the writing on them, meant.

Fuji-Q - the rest of the day...

After The Haunted Hospital, David went up top on the mini-Fuji mountain in the middle of the park (and it was there in 1972, when I first visited Fuji-Q!) for some random park shots. I wanted to go into this "sound attraction" which involved coffins and being in them (!), but the attraction had been totally taken out, and a children's funhouse-type attraction now stood in it's place. It was actually well done for the kids to race around and use up pent up energy. But still - the coffin attraction was enticing...

At one point, we had a meet up time near one of the ticket booths, to determine if we wanted to stay longer at Fuji, or not. Robb and Elissa also had a fistful of "front of line tickets" to still give out, so our meeting became a "who wants what" get together, lol. And somehow, the tickets for Takabisha appeared to be the hardest to give away. Hmmm... We did decide to stay a bit longer, which was fine by me.

Everybody was hoping for a really clear shot of Mt.Fuji, but that rarely happened, if only for a minute or so, before more clouds rolled in at the top. There was a spot outside the park gates, which a few people trekked to for a "hopeful shot" of the mountain, but I don't know if they got one or not.

So - an actual pretty good day at Fuji-Q Highland Park! (did I just say that?) And since in my lifem things seem to happen in 3's, here's hoping the next future visit there, will be the best of the three ('11,'13) visits.

Knock wood.

David at the top of Mini-Fuji. Been there since I was first there in 1972! (note all the clouds in the direction of the real thing)

One of my photos from that small mountain.

Where I came from, to get up it. Lots of greenery all around this area. And nothing else in the rest of the park. Except trees, which from time to time made for some nice shade from the sun.

A shot of the park's rapids ride.

What used to be filled with coffins, is now filled with stuff for kids to run all over and through.

The last large room of the attraction, before exiting into the gift shop, natch. And then there's that whiite.... uh....thing there. No comment.

Another view from Mini-Mt.Fuji

Eejanaika. Once was enough for me back in 2007 (after a 3 hour+ wait), so I passed on this visit. Others got several rides on it, I heard.

Still something to watch, when it's in action.

David took a close up of the last drop. (DbM)

A bite to eat, before we finally left the park. And note the Fujiyama Burger (omg). We just split an order of fries and drinks.

Leaving Fuji-Q. Bye bye Fujiyama. See you next visit.

And on the way back to our hotel, I took this random shot of the Tokyo Tower.

Lol. At first I thought you meant David somehow got to Fuji and I was sad that I missed that opportunity. That mountain.... Not so much.

^ Lol. I took a look and agreed - it didn't really describe what I was talking about. So it's fixed.

There was no need to fix it . I thought you meant it as a joke.

Now Jon, how could I possibly come up with a joke like that?

Just being too-serious, worrying me, that's all.

Great report on Fuji Q Bill. Nice to see it from the point of view of someone not rushing to fit all the coasters in.

Glad I have now ridden them all so future visits can (hopefully) be a bit more relaxing.

But big props to Robb and Elissa this day for camping out at the FastPass kiosk and to Chuck and Michael for enabling me to get through the haunted hospital! Even though there were not that many scare actors in there, the fact that you felt very alone and it was very eerie and creepy more than jumpy, made it bearable.