JAPAN: Lots of food, creds and lols

[peep]

Day one – 6th / 7th September

I met up with Nic at London Heathrow terminal 3 at 11am. We checked in via the handy electronic kiosks before sending our bags through to the plane. We had quite a lot of time to waste before our flight but after getting and eating a boots meal deal we already found ourselves walking over to our gate,time moved surprisingly fast. Our gate appeared to be the one furthest away from everything (this seems to happen to me every time). Our flight went smoothly and took 12.5 hours. Annoyingly neither of us got any sleep on the flight which meant that we spent our first day in Tokyo extremely tired.

On our flight Nic’s friends Jon and Sara were sitting towards the front of the plane and they occasionally popped over to say hi. After security we all met up and arranged a day later in our trips to meet up and have a drink.

After sorting our lives out we went to the train ticket office and got the awesome Suica-Nex deal which gave us a ticket for the Nex express into Tokyo and a Suica card with monies on (oyster card system). We then caught the next available train to Shinjuku station. This train is nice and comfortable and the views of the countryside were really nice before we found ourselves surrounded by more and more tall buildings. The adverts playing on the little screens on the train were exactly like the sort of crazy awesome ads you find on youtube which amused us for most of the journey.

OMG We're in JAPAN!!!!

Train screens aren't so scary when they translate themselves into English

We arrived at Shinjuku (the biggest station in the World) expecting to find lockers for our luggage so we could just go off exploring Tokyo straight away. After like 15-20 mins of no success we opted to just catch another train to the station closest to our accommodation. We then had the joy of trying to find our hotel without a (detailed) map in a very busy built up area in extreme humidity, I was struggling to cope. After a couple of wrong turns we managed to find it, pretty much learning how to navigate the area on our way.

Our street

Our hotel was a dinky little place which was like a hostel in the style of a normal hotel, so you had your own private bathroom etc. It was a nice place and the room was a decent size (especially for central Tokyo), the staff also spoke fantastic English. We had to take our shoes off and put them in lockers at the entrance and use the provided slippers throughout the building. This was hard as they were quite small and walking up stairs with luggage in tow was a mighty challenge. We gave up on the idea of them after a couple of days (walking bare foot or in socks is fine).

OMG we actually made it to our hotel *sigh of relief*

This was our first meeting with a Japanese toilet, it's like a spaceship

Our room

New game: Spot Tommy Lee Jones EVERYWHERE

After refreshing ourselves and faffing about we managed to navigate ourselves to Shinjuku station on foot (about 10 mins). We also stopped off at a Lawson convenience store on the way to purchase tickets for the park. A staff member came over to go through the complicated process to purchase the tickets and after some faff he managed to get it all sorted for us.

Nearby was a Yoshinoya, a chain of restaurants in Japan which serve up some quick rice dishes. The menu was a little daunting as it wasn’t in English but luckily Nic had learnt fun ways to know what beef, chicken and pork were in Kanji so we were able to decipher what dishes contained any of those. We went for medium dishes after hearing how small the portions are. This was one big fat lie, our ‘medium’ dishes were huge, so much rice. It was very nom though and extremely cheap and quick.

Once at the station however we then had to somehow learn how to get around the labyrinth of passageways in Shinjuku station, it’s so confusing. We did however manage to work out what platform and train we wanted and finally we were on our way over to Asakusa station for Hanayashiki.

The highlighted exit was the one we used for getting in/out of Shinjuku station. It should be pointed out that although this highlighted blue are has 22 exits, this isn't even the station. Just the beginning of underground labyrinths to get to the station

In Japan, there are loads of different types of Oyster cards, each one has it's own cute little character, sometimes they appear together

en route to the park

I think we found the park

Hanayashiki is the oldest park in Japan and its rollercoaster is celebrating 60 years of operation. It was easy to navigate to the park as you can just walk through (or around) the Senso-ji temple and its gardens (which are literally across the road from the station). The park was quite busy but it was late afternoon on a Saturday so that was to be expected. We were given wristbands as we entered and we went straight up the stairs towards the rollercoaster. As there was no queue we decided to ride the shot tower first. It’s a fun shot tower ride even if it only goes ¾ of the way up. What we found amusing was the ride model of the shot tower which if you pressed a button was actually functional and it still only went up the same amount etc, a very accurate model.

Nic noticed the queue for the rollercoaster was quite long so we went over to that. The slow moving queue was a little tedious but some of the warning signs were amusing to look at. The ride itself was smooth but it was made poorly, with some very snappy transitions along the course. There’s a bit which goes into like a tunnel and there’s some ridiculous character above you, it was very funny and unexpected, the whole train just arrives back at the station with massive smiles every time. So we had ridden our first Japanese rollercoaster and it was odd (it also literally does a circuit around the park).

The train was given a new lick of paint for it's 60th

Not everything was given a lick of paint

She seemed happy considering the giant hole in her belly

There are two monorail like attractions that also go around the park, one was a suspended pirate boat so it just had to be ridden. Not a lot can be said for this attraction but it provides nice views of the little city park.

Rain then happened and we weren’t sure what to do. We ended up going in the old-school madhouse. It had been years since I last rode one of these. It used spinning room effect - it was super effective. Both of us felt very ill inside that tiny little room so we were glad that it wasn’t on a long cycle otherwise one of us might have thrown up.

It was after the madhouse that we found the panda things in which you can just drive around the park. They’re ridiculous and amazing. Here’s Nic modelling one of them…

I then did the ghost house which was actually a little scary but more because I had no idea what could happen next. There were lots of loud noises and old horror model things which you tend to find in most ghost houses.

It had seen better days

There wasn’t really anything else we wanted to ride so we just wandered around the park, milled around the tat shops and rode the carousel. It’s a nice little park in the center of Tokyo but it’s small and cramped and the attractions are old and a little dated (apart from maybe the disk-o).

We then went to visit the Temple which had an entrance literally down the road from the park. It’s a large place and the temple building architecture is really nice. I loved that they had added a modern lift outside one of the buildings for disabled guests but themed it to fit in with everything. The main temple building isn’t open to guests (not sure any of them are actually) but you can walk up to the doors of the main one and say your prayers, there was a long queue to do this.

On the temple grounds between the main area of buildings and the huge Thunder gate is a giant market which we roamed around, it was very lively and cool. Shortly after browsing the market we walked down a street and found the office block with a giant golden turd sitting on top of it, so weird.

The new Skytree could be seen from most places in Tokyo

I think we faffed a bit before heading back on the trains to get back over to near our hotel. We were certainly flagging by this point but we were also hungry (it had felt like all we had done was eat). We found a ramen chain restaurant. We weren’t going to order much but ended up with a World of food again. Whoops. I had a side order of Gyoza which were incredible.

A train!

We then went back to the hotel and got some much needed sleep.

 

[Nic]

Day 1 - Saturday 7th September

We landed at Tokyo Narita airport at around 9:30 am, and headed straight towards our hotel. Fortunately, they let us check in 2 hours early, so we were able to have a quick shower then head out and start to explore.

Our first meal on Japanese soil was at Yoshinoya. This is a chain of Donburi restaurants. Donburi is basically a bowl of rice with a bunch of meat and other stuff piled on top. It's ridiculously cheap, lightening fast, comes in HUGE portions, and is so so tasty! Basically, if I could have one thing from Japan in the UK, it'd be Yoshinoya.

Our first park of the trip was Hanayashiki. This is Japan's oldest amusement park, and is home to the country's oldest coaster. After some lengthy research online, we discovered that the cheapest way to get wristbands was to pre-book them at Lawson, one of Japan's many convenience store chains. We went for the pointing at the ticket machine and waving a park leaflet at the cashier approach. Once they found someone who was able to drive the machine, and he eventually found the park in the huge menu system, the tickets were ours.

The park is right in the city, so is very compact. All of the rides are built on top of each other on different levels, in a way reminiscent of some of the UK's smaller seaside parks such as Joyland in Great Yarmouth.

We started on the S&S shot tower. It literally only goes halfway up. As in, the tower extends way past where the cable pulleys are. Why?! Meh. Anyway, there's a cool model of it which actually moves and has sound effects. That's probably more exciting than the actual ride.

It didn't take us long to learn that EVERYTHING in Japan has a cute character and/or wtf sign to describe the most boring and normal of things. Ride safety announcements are no exception.

Then we saw the queue for the coaster - it was the only queue for anything in the whole park. The coaster is actually more exciting than it looks. It basically just travels around the perimeter of the park, so there aren't much in the way of tight corners, but there are quite a few fun little drops, which are mostly hidden from view so came as a bit of a surprise. The last one also has a model of WTF above it, which is hilarious.

Rollercoaster is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, so there's tonnes of cool signs and merch and stuff about the place. The trains have also had a celebratory re-paint.

The rest of the park is your usual combination of little spinny flats, a small carousel and a ghost train with a really cool front to it. There's also a teeny tiny mad house ("Surprised House") which is incredibly spinny. I had to shut my eyes or I would've vommed.

The one thing that the park is probably best known for (and is on most of the merch) are these crazy ride on pandas. They're coin operated, then walk round the park making noises. They also beep if you reverse it. I want one.

On the way back from the park, we walked through the park which is home to the Sensoji temple and the Hazomon gate. Its such a calm and serene place, whilst also being busy and bustling at the same time. It also brings together tourists, and those who are there for religious reasons, and yet it somehow works really well. The gardens are really pretty, and the architecture is really impressive.

Like I said, you're never too far from a WTF warning sign.

Beyond that is the Nakamise, which is essentially a market full of little tat shops. This is very touristy, but is still pretty cool.

After taking a few photos of some of Tokyo's more modern architecture, including the place that looks like a golden turd, it was time to head back.

Don't get stuck in the train door!

Once back to Shinjuku, we had dinner at a fast food chain called Hidakaya which specialises in Ramen. This is where John first fell in love with Gyoza - fried parcels filled with a kind of sage flavoured sausage meat. We then retreated to the hotel for some long-overdue sleep!

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Japan looks so awesome! I love the warning signs! Can't wait for next parts.

 

[DelPiero]

I bet you guys had great fun finding outrageous WTF signs, great reports as per usual, looking forward to the rest.

 

[furie]

Don't get stuck in the train door!

Joey needs to read that sign

I love the two posts with the same day right after each other, please keep it up

Brilliant reports though (both) and the walking pandas need to be everywhere in the world.

Really, really looking forward to seeing and reading more

 

[Ian]

Jealous. The panda car thing is amazing.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Gyoza <3 Especially Wagamama's Duck one <3

I look forward to the rest of the report...

 

[caffeine_demon]

I need pandas and a "mind the birds don't poop on your clothes" poster!

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Don't get stuck in the train door!

Joey needs to read that sign

TBF, I'm sure trains run on time in Japan thus removing the need for me to risk such an event.

 

[Tomatron]

That brings back some memories! Can't wait to read the rest of the trip report! And those pandas are amazing, as is Yoshinoya.

 

[Nic]

Day 2 - Sunday 8th September

The plan for the day was to pop to Joypolis, have a quick look round the Venetian shopping centre and the Toyota place, head back over the water to grab the Aqua Stadium cred, then round off the day in Harajuku with shopping and laughing at the cosplayers.

We were somewhat later getting up than planned, which meant we were behind before we even started. The journey to Joypolis was a bit of a faff, but rather cool. We started at Shinjuku, then changed at Shiodome, seeing some cool buildings on the way

From there, we got the new electric railway thing that goes across the Rainbow Bridge. Before doing that, however, it goes round a massive helix of WHY?! Lolz. The views would've been really good, but the weather was crap.

We eventually arrived at Joypolis, bought entrance tickets from the machines outside, and went in.

First port of call was the cred, Veil of Dark. It had a fair size queue, but there's plenty of stuff going on around the queue line to keep you entertained whilst you wait. The main entertainment is a big stage next to the queue. They apparently sometimes use this for holographic projection/live action shows. Sadly, the ones we saw were just projections, but did include some projection mapping onto the set surrounding the stage.

On to the cred then. Its an odd combination of shooty dark ride and spinning coaster, made by Gerstlauer. Oh, and it has an inline for good measure. You can see the inline from the queue, but the rest of the coaster is hidden away behind the scenes, meaning you're not entirely sure what to expect.

The cars are huge considering they only seat 4. These are arranged in two rows, both facing the same direction, with the front seats set further apart so that the people at the back can see through the middle. The restraints have a small lever and a button built into them - these are the controls for the shooting element of the ride. The actual game bit is a bit crap. It does keep score, but you can only move your crosshairs left or right, so it's a bit difficult to actually aim. What is cool though, is the way the screens etc are set up. The shooting all goes on on a projection screen right infront of the car. Once you get near the end of that 'level', the screen moves backwards to reveal numerous zombie models lining the walls either side of the track. Once you reach the end of the game section, the coaster is launched out into the area that onlookers can see, where it sails over the top of the queue, through the inline, then back behind the scenes. The rest is all in complete darkness, where it completes a huge helix whilst spinning A LOT. It then carries on spinning whilst you're stacking outside the station. If spinning rides make you queasy, it might be best to give this one a miss.

We only bought a ticket for the cred, rather than an unlimited ride pass. This was probably just as well as the queues were all huge. There's still plenty of other things to wander round an look at though, plus all of the arcade machines. John found some touchscreen dance game thing. I played on one that involves chucking plastic balls at a projection screen to knock over various fake lego castles and stuff. It's fun.

After we left Joypolis, we popped over to the new Merlin attractions - a Madame Tussauds and a Lego Discovery Centre. No amount of waving our MAPs and being very British was going to get us in (although it did impress the girl on the door) so we gave up and had a quick look round the rest of the complex. There's a Takoyaki (deep fried octopus balls) "museum" which amused me, and a retro arcade, plus a bunch of shops selling anime tat.

We had lunch in a different mall just across from Decks. Whilst looking for food we got distracted by some of the shops.

They also have an inexplicable mini Statue of Liberty outside.

After lunch we headed to the Venetian themed mall. We got drenched on the way because it was absolutely pissing down. The theming is very much like the Venetian hotel in Vegas, but without the canal. It's very impressive.

We spent way too long in here looking at the shops and stuff because we didn't want to go and brave the weather.

They've also got a little car museum in there which has epic theming.

Eventually, we gave up and headed next door to the proper Toyota place. They've got loads of displays, and little cars you can ride on and stuff. Only, they haven't, because the whole thing is currently shut for a total refurb. Spite.

By this point it was really bloody late, but we still had enough time to grab the Aqua Stadium cred. We got a little waylaid on the way by a place called "Beard Papa". As well as having an amusing name, their range of fresh cream filled choux buns looked too good to resist.

After much rain based transport faff, we eventually arrived and found the cred. It's really cool. There's a couple of pre-shows. No idea what was going on, obviously, but it's something to do with being on an out of control space ship. Imagine the sort of theme you usually get for simulators/4D shows, but applied to a cred. The actual cred is better than expected. Granted, its nothing ground-breaking, but it was fun.

Gavin had made me promise that we'd go and watch the Pirate Ship ride whilst we were there. I'm so glad he did. It is ridiculously well themed, has animatronics, water effects, and its own theme tune <3 We watched it 3 times.

On the way home, we stopped at the Seibu-Shinjuku branch of Doma-Doma (a really cool Izakaya) for some drinks and a light dinner mainly involving deep fried things, and stuff on sticks. Nom!

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I want to go on the Sonic Treadmill Racers thing

 

[Mike]

Very jealous of this trip, and I'm loving reading about it.
Keep it up!

 

[insanecoastervids]

I want to go to Japan so bad right now great report guys.

 

[Smithy]

Literally so much I could comment on specifically but ''omfg japan is awesome'' just about covers it.

 

[peep]

Day 2 – 8th September

We woke up a lot later than anticipated on the second day after such a ridiculous first one. I decided to play with the TV. I managed to find the channel dedicated to all things Hawaii. I laughed a lot.

We got ready and headed out to grab some breakfast. There’s a coffee chain in Japan similar to Starbucks called Doutor which was near our hotel. We grabbed some amazing sandwiches and headed onwards to the train station.

We managed to get on a couple of trains that took us over to the Odaiba area which is full of office blocks and tourist attractions. We had to catch the train system which is like London’s DLR. It goes around a ridiculous helix to get up on to the Rainbow bridge which is lots of fun.

Odaiba here we come

The helix of what?

I found JOY

Saw these shops quite a bit. Never failed to amuse me

Would someone like to tell me why this condom is farting and speaking French?

Everywhere you go in Japan there is plastic food displayed. I never thought I'd see plastic Dippin' Dots though

Once there it was easy to find JOYpolis which is essentially a giant arcade owned by Sega. It was busy and we both had a silly moment and only got a ride ticket for Veil of Darkness and nothing else, which turned out to be a good thing because we spent a couple of hours there without having to ride everything.

The coolest entrance EVER

Obviously the first thing we do is join the long queue for Veil of Darkness. We ended up queuing around 40 minutes which was slightly annoying. They had a pretty good locker system too, a ride attendant gives you a key on an extendible wristband for a locker, you put your bags in one side of your allocated locker and when you get off you take your bags out of the same locker just on the other side and then leave the key in a little box where the ride attendant stands.

Ohhhhh queue

Soooo good

The cars for the ride are massive, especially as they only seat 4 people. The aim and trigger for your gun is pretty much in the belt buckle area which just feels odd. The first section of the ride is like a shooty ride where you shoot at screens, sometimes they move which provided some very cool effects. You then launch out into the main area of JOYpolis before turning around, you start spinning and then you go through the inline twist which has to be one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever encountered on a rollercoaster, just who designed this uber crazy attraction? There’s then lots of track in the dark and you are spinning like there’s no tomorrow, so disorientating. So overall I was really surprised by this attraction, I thought it was very fun if a little sickly towards the end, the first half was very scary but also fun and that launch was cool. It became my favourite spinning coaster.

During our wait in the queueline for the cred we got to see one of the projection show things they have. This one was a mix of some random projections and then a trailer for a new animated feature that was just released called Captain Harlock. It was ok, if a bit random.

We then begun our exploration of JOYpolis. Around the entire venue are lots of interactive screens which pick up on your movement in various ways, we had lots of fun with these. There was one which morphed part of your face, another turned you into these little blob things and if you moved your hands random objects would appear. So yeah lots of random JOY happened.

Nic is the new character in Sonic

Other rides included the half pipe game thing. Riders control how much their podium spins and it puts you in competition with the other riders to see who could spin the most. There’s lots of awesome lights and music going on too and it just looks cool.

Touch the screen and you feed the fish eh?

Success!

What's in there?

CCTV!


They also had a new walkthrough themed to the girl from the Ringu films so there were little nods to that character everywhere including merch such as Hello Kitty dressed up as her….

Other random interactive bits and pieces included a table which turned itself into lots of little games, the football one was the most amusing and really brought everyone in the area together despite the language barrier.

You could also have a photo of your face taken and then it’d add it to an animated walrus.

Talking of characters, they had their own walking about, they’re a bit odd and very touchy feely as we soon discovered lol.

Yes, one of them is holding my hand, yes I was a little creeped out

More on what this is a lot later in the trip reports

There was another projection show while we were there called ‘happy birthday’. I’m not quite sure how they even managed to stretch that out to a 10-15 min show, it just went on and on, very odd.

We then spent some time playing on some of the arcade machines. I did like a hand version of the dance mat games which was cool. We also played a Lego-looking game where you throw balls at the screen to break down the enemy fake-lego. It was really fun and we want it to come to the UK. OH, we also played on a game which made you look like you were humping a pig, as you do.

Somehow we had spent a couple of hours in JOYpolis so we decided to move on. Opposite JOYpolis is a Lego Discovery Center and a Madame Tussauds. We decided to see if we could get in with our annual passes but they just seemed confused but also excited that we came from the UK. Lol, oh well. We continued our adventure by going upstairs where there was an old school arcade and lots of little tat shops. I found a Hook pinball machine and because I love that film and I don’t really pay on pinball machines often I decided to give it a go. It was awesome.

Nic loves Totoro

The building also housed a museum dedicated to Octopus balls which is a delicacy in Japan (eww).

We then ventured into the shopping center next door in search of food. We ended up going to the food court and getting an akisoba (not really) which was tasty and once again a ridiculous amount of food. On top of mine was flakes of something, which I'd rather not know about, the air con was making it move which made me feel really ill.

LOL

A Coke tat shop

This was Nic's one, it wasn't as scary looking

We ventured into the Disney store. Now, in Japan years ago they introduced Duffy, Mickey Mouse's bear. They grew so obsessed they then introduced the female one. It's become such a huge cash-cow they've now gone one step further...

There was also a pet shop. There were lots of cats and a whole room you could spend time in just to play with cats.

On the other side of the store was the dogs.

Outside was randomly a fake statue of liberty so like the tourists we are we got a photo of it.

The next building we came across was the Fuji TV station. The escalators had these random flat bits in them which I thought was amusing. We went in the huge tat shop of their popular TV shows.

It was now starting to rain so we made our way over to the epic shopping center themed to Venice. It houses the largest Lego shop in Japan apparently so we went over to check it out. It wasn’t that large to be honest. However it did have a cool gallery of what we assume a fan club put together. Well, most of them were cool, this one was a bit disturbing…

The shopping center was really beautiful though and even had a really awesome fountain and epically themed stage for events.

The place also houses a classic car attraction which was free to enter. I was shocked at how big it was and how well themed it was.

We found another pet shop with more cute pets.

Nic then found a 100 yen shop which basically means that pretty much everything is cheaper than £1. Nic spent a good amount of time getting rather excited and buying half the store. It was getting late and we still had one more cred to obtain so we headed to a train station only for the rain to be absolutely hammering it down. Not helped by a large arcade getting in the way. Stupid arcade. So after lots of faff and getting drenched we finally found the train station.

Canadian Toy Story

Through the rain you can just about see the bridge all nicely lit up

After about 30 minutes spent on trains we finally arrived at the Epson Aqua Stadium. We purchased our tickets for Galaxy Express 999 and then lots of faff ensued as staff members went in search of each other and we also think they were rounding up more riders as more people seemed to arrive once the staff started vanishing off down the corridors.

I wasn’t expecting the several pre-shows which were ok, weirdly enough Captain Harlock from that new film was in it so I’m assuming it’s themed to a previous feature film? We got to sit in the front row and we didn’t really know what to expect. The launch was good, not forceful but good fun and that vertical loop is intense. It then meanders around a bit before returning to the station. So, it’s a fun ride but it’s rather short.

We were informed by Gavin to make sure we watched the pirate ship and omg I’m so glad we did. Not only is it amazingly themed but it has cool lighting effects, an animatronic and an extremely catchy song which I totally need a copy of.

We then made our way back to Shinjuku for some noms. We went to an Izakaya which is like a bar with food which is served in a tapas-style. It was an incredible decision to go there. We got some fried sweetcorn, chicken on sticks, potato salad and cheese wrapped in bacon on sticks. It was so nom and it came out with this incredible sauce, it was like barbeque but not and a lot more yummy. From this moment forward it will be referred to as awesome sauce.

We then headed back to the hotel where we proceeded to faff and sort our lives out before the next day. Sleep was then had which was totally needed by this point.

 

[NAPayne31]

Peep I happen to own a HOOK pinball machine I would show you that it's the same exact machine but I have no idea how to put pics on here...

 

[Gazza]

Peep I happen to own a HOOK pinball machine I would show you that it's the same exact machine but I have no idea how to put pics on here...

Upload to imigur then link?

 

[Nic]

Day 3 - Monday 9th September

We got up a ludicrous o'clock and headed to the bus station to go to Fuji-Q!!!!

Of all the parks in the whole world, Fuji-Q was right up the very top of my "must visit" list. X/X2 at SFMM is my #1 coaster, so Eejanaika was also my most anticipated cred of the trip.

The park is in the middle of nowhere, so the dedicated bus service is a good option. You can buy a combined bus and park ticket which is cheaper than buying it separately. These can be bought from the bus station on the day, HOWEVER you need to have reserved a seat on the bus online beforehand. This is easily done in English, and isn’t hard to find from the English version of Fuji-Q’s website. Be warned that the first and last bus of each day are busy, so it’s best to book early or you may not get a space for your prefered time.

As these are dedicated buses for the park, many of them are done up with decorations relating to some of the park’s rides. Our bus was the most elaborately themed one we saw - the Thomas Land bus. Even the inside was themed with Thomas curtains and seats!

After a couple of hours, the bus eventually arrived at the park’s bus station. We got off the bus and walked round to what looks like the entrance. In reality, its actually just the entrance to a huge tat shop that you have to walk through.

The other side of there lies the newest addition to the park, the Gaspard et Lisa area. these are French cartoon characters, so the whole area is themed to look like Paris. Its really nicely done with a french patisserie, a crepe stand and various shops selling French themed tat. It's really easy to forget that, at this point, you're not actually even in the park yet. It's all bit odd. In the Gaspard et Lisa area there are two rides (a carousel, and a car ride aimed at very young kids). If you have an all day ride pass for the park then it can be used to ride these. At the end of the themed area is the actual park entrance. The turnstiles are clearly all brand new.

When we eventually got into the actual park, it became apparent that all the horror stories we'd heard about hideously long queues were likely to come true. As it was infront of us, we decided to grab the wild mouse cred. +1.

After that, I was itching to get on Eejanaika.

I excitedly hopped and skipped into the queue, despite the warning of a 2 1/2 hour wait. After 2 hours, it was eventually our turn to enter the station. Here commences one of the most bizarre boarding procedures I've ever seen. Riders are batched into one of three fenced sections in the station, each section holding a train's worth of people (well, for that side of the track anyway... the same thing is happening over the other side with a queue of other people). There's lockers in each section for that train of people to use. So far so good. They then come round and tell you about taking stuff out of your pockets. Fair enough. Then they made me take my hairband off. Hmmm, bit extreme, but ok. Then someone comes and tells everyone to take their watches off. Really? Then the 'ad a go about my necklace. Now you're being ridiculous. To finish it off, EVERYONE then has to take off their shoes. By the time I actually got on the ride, I felt like just stripping naked and being done with it.

Eventually we were all aboard, and had a front row seat. John, scared of how rough it'd be, took the inside seat. Despite X being my #1, nothing could've prepared me for the onslaught that was about to follow. I have never ridden anything so rough or so violent. I was literally being thrown around like a ragdoll. At one point my foot hit the front of my seat, which I'm not even sure how that was physically possible. In summary, it wasn't fun. At all. Such a massive contrast to my experience of its older brother. That was upsetting, but nevermind, more creds to get.

I bought my X2 ORP for the look of pure joy on my face. I bought this one for the look of abject horror. Well, that and the fact that they're cheap (about £3.35)

We took the scenic route back round to the front of the park, and stumbled across the cred in Thomas Land. +1.

We went off to do Takabisha next. John was really looking forward to this one, but I was rather apprehensive because, well, it's a Gerstlauer. After another 2 hour queue, and a similarly ridiculous boarding procedure, it was finally our turn to ride.

I purposefully hadn't really looked into much about the cred. Other than the fact that it has that crazy drop, and a bunch of inversions, I didn't know a lot else about it. Turns out, the first bit as you leave the station is essentially Saw but in the pitch black. However, unlike Saw, it then goes into a rolling launch. A very fun rolling launch. What follows is a series of unusual and disorienting inversions and turns. Before you know it, you're at the foot of the vertical lift. The top of the lift is taken very slowly, which adds to the suspense as you crest the hill onto the top of the record-breaking drop. The car is held for a few seconds at the top, before creeping slowly forward and eventually plunging off the edge. As you might expect, the drop definitely feels past vertical, and all the faff at the top does help to build up the suspense and make it feel like more of an event. There's then a bunch more turns and inversions in a similar style to those in the first section.

What struck me most about the ride was how smooth the transitions between elements were. The only one that had a bit of a snap was the corner into the final break run. The rest of it flowed really nicely, even through the S-bends. Apart from the odd little bump here and there, the ride is also really smooth. There was no head-banging at all, and only a tiny bit of the back flab vibration that I get on Smiler from the 2nd inversion.

All in all, I really enjoyed it. It didn't make me come off screaming and shouting with joy, but it is a really good solid coaster, and a hell of a lot of fun. I know its hard to believe, but it's true - Gerstlauer CAN make a great coaster!

With only a couple of hours left before we had to catch our bus, and 3 more creds to get, we made the decision that we would return to the park the next day. We'd always set aside a 2nd day, but were hoping we wouldn't have to use it. Meh.

We decided to head for Fujiyama next. This was the park's first "big" coaster, and as such, seems to be the one they're most proud of. It also holds the dubious honour of being my first ever Togo [Edit: Yeah, that's not right. Hanayashiki's is a Togo too. Meh]

I wasn't expecting much, but it was actually brilliant. The layout is almost like that of a woodie, folding back and forth upon itself, criss-crossing through its own supports. The whole thing is a bit crazy, and for that I love it. Some of the corners are banked so steeply its completely ridiculous. It made me woop with delight the whole way round. Hurrah!

We went to try and grab the inverted kiddie cred, but it closed just as we got to it. Spite. We rode the S&S drop tower then headed back to France to try out the brand new kiddie rides whilst waiting for our bus. what we didn't expect is how well the park is lit up after dark. There's fairy lights EVERYWHERE. The pedalo pond has a bunch of pretty lights all around it. There's really cool rainbow lights all up the lift hill/first drop/first incline of Fujiyama. The Paris area is also gorgeous - the fake Eiffel tower is surrounded by grass covered in lights. It's so pretty!

Before heading home I bought lots of tat. This was where we first discovered hints that Hello Kitty is actually a bit of a goon, with a massive coaster count.

After the burdenous journey back and a quick stop at Yoshinoya (nom) for dinner, it was off to bed for a quick sleep before starting all over again.

 

[peep]

Thanks everyone for the comments so far.
Yes, NAPayne31, I am very jealous you actually own that pinball machine. It's full of awesome.


Day 3 – 9th September

We got up and organised early ready for our long day at Fuji Q Highland. We had a quick snack at the hotel before making our way over to Shinjuku bus station outside the giant train station. The bus stop for Fuji Q wasn’t quite where we thought it would be so we had to go and ask a helpful man in the station for directions. We soon found it and we got our bus/park tickets sorted in the big bus ticket office.

That blue signed office is where you get the bus tickets

This is where we had to wait for our bus

We had arranged to get there too early (in case of getting lost) so we had time to kill. We went over to Starbucks as I was in dire need of a frappacino (too addicted to those things). They had a new almond one so I had to try it, it was very tasty.

It was then time to get on our coach, it was themed to Thomas the tank engine due to their Thomas Land at the park. Even the seats and curtains were covered in characters etc. The coach took about 2 hours to get to the park which is located up in the mountains. It’s a pretty amazing area but annoyingly the whole time we were there some clouds were hiding the famous Mt. Fuji.

It was nice to see Thomas and his friends chanting my name

They love vending machines, they also love to theme them

We followed everyone else through the huge tat shop which then led us into the new Gaspard and Lisa area (some French dog character thing). The area was amazing, was really like being in a mini Paris complete with a crepe place and a bakery. Our tickets hadn’t been checked yet and we were getting confused as there were already rides in this area. Then we saw the huge queue for the ticket booths and then the turnstile entrance. After some talking to staff and pointing at tickets we discovered we had to join the hideous queueline and swap our combi ticket thing with a park ticket which we had to show staff on all the rides so that we could ride. Burdenous.

Love it

Notice the very authentic-looking street name signs

However about half way through the queue some staff member was giving everyone with the combi thing this ticket which was less specific but still worked. In other words, it was so busy that to reduce the queue time of the ticket booths they handed out a mass of these simpler ride tickets. Yeah this wasn’t a good sign of things to come.

Very plain ticket

We got into the park and went straight to the Mad mouse cred. It was odd, I was expecting a normal wild mouse coaster and got some RCT creation with this tiny little car and really tiny track. The corners were very sharp but weren’t that horrible to ride, this shocked me. There were loads of tiny little hills which just added to the randomness of it all. So what did I think of my first Fuji-Q cred? It was very, very odd.

In realisation of how busy the park was we went over to the S&M creation, Eejanaika. There was a ridiculous queue but we decided to bite the bullet and just queue. 2 hours later we were finally in the station and very quickly becoming confused at their loading procedure. So there were three batching areas on each side of the station. Why entire batching areas? Because they basically make you take off EVERYTHING (so that’s, necklaces, earrings, watches, shoes (yes, shoes!)) so they have these areas so one load can be de-clothing, while one re-clothes themselves as the other is going on. Should make loading that bit quicker then? NO! Instead they then spend an eternity making sure everyone has absolutely nothing that could possibly have a 2% chance of falling off or whipping you and causing injury. This all seemed a bit much to us…. And then we rode it.

vom

I'm not quite sure why this exists as a rule but I love it

The park is really proud about their coasters holding records and displays them in each of the queuelines

Brilliant piece of Engrish here

I think there’s only one way to describe Eekanaika – pain. The best way to relate it to anything else would be the scene in The Avengers

Spoiler

where Loki is being thrown around by the Hulk. And you’re playing the role of Loki.

I’ll admit there was the odd second here and there of ‘this is fun’ but any moment like that was just surrounded by pure violent torture. Anyone who enjoys this crazy piece of ridiculousness is clearly not human (or their nervous system was destroyed years ago).

After that monstrosity we decided food was a good idea to help re-build our strength. The closest place to Eejanaika was busy and didn’t really take our fancy so we headed in the direction of Thomas Land. We came across Rock’n’Roll Duncan, a little family coaster, and with no queue decided to get it over with as we were there. It’s a random little cred, the theming of the train is nice (as is the rest of the area) but the layout is a little lacklustre, even for a kids coaster.

Yep, no idea

Train track themed extension queueline

We then found the big food court thing and we decided to try a Loterria burger. I think I just had a normal hamburger which was nice, tasted very meaty.

After some tasty food we opted to join the long queue for Takabisha. I’ve been looking forward to this coaster since I saw the construction pictures, it just looks fantastic. Nic wasn’t so thrilled to be joining a massive queue for it, having no faith in Gerstlauer (though I do realise I am in the minority for liking their coasters). I think we ended up queuing around 2 hours again which is a little burdenous but to be honest we couldn’t fault the actual ride operations for this one, they were really organised and despatching as quickly as poss despite their mass of routine checks. At least in the queueline we had the Fuji-Q 5 character videos, a music video made in the park about one of the creds sung by some woman who we dubbed Jessie Japan and some cool animations of the ride.

I want this on my bedroom wall

The first part of the coaster is very similar to Saw’s indoor section except it has no light in there at all which makes the sharp drop and inversion much more of a shock to the system even if you’re expecting it. You then go into a rolling launch and into a mass of crazy inversions. Their ‘Cobra roll’ element was like nothing I’ve ridden before, Gerst need to make those more often. Then you pause before rising up the vertical lift hill and then very slowly manoeuvre towards the 117 degree drop, due to the sheer slowness of this bit I’d say it’s just as, if not more, daunting than on Oblivion. You then go down the crazy drop which pulls out in the smoothest way any of the beyond-vertical drop coasters have managed to achieve (usually there seems to be like a kink where the coaster seems to be all ‘oh balls we shouldn’t be going this way anymore’). Then there’s several more inversions before it rolls back into the station. If you haven’t guessed from my description, it’s absolutely amazing. The whole ride is so smooth, fun and just crazy. We also both loved that most of the time the cars would be duelling too. We saw/heard something whoosh over our head at one point and it took us a few seconds to realise it was another car on the track, was epic.

Outside the mouse coaster was a stage and all day different acts were appearing on it (we saw them setting up and handing out a show timetable (all in Kanji so no idea who anyone was)). As one was just starting we decided to stand and watch them for a bit. It was these three girls in ridiculous costumes, not really sure what was going on but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. All day there wasn’t much of a crowd for these artists because everyone was just stuck in long queues lol.

We were next to Fujiyama at this point and the queue time was apparently 90 minutes but we thought it looked longer than that. Turns out it just has a really good throughput, hurrah! We got to watch more of the fun videos too in the queue and get some decent views of some of the other attractions like Dodopna. We were finally boarding and putting all our loose belongings in one of the lockers after around 90 minutes, I like it when queue time boards are correct. We weren’t that excited about Fujiyama, hadn’t really heard anything about it and it looked like it could provide some rather violent moments. However it was absolutely awesome. It’s got a decent amount of airtime, lots of speed and then it decides to do loads of random manoeuvers. It’s just a really fun coaster, very wtf towards the end, everyone just gets to the brake run with a huge grin on their face, it’s just that type of coaster. Love it.

Jessie Japan!

Not yet!

Their trains were cool, the other was gold

As we exited the Fujiyama shop of tat we witnessed another artist on the stage, this time it was a bunch of rappers, was a bit weird.

No idea what these were or what was going on

We wanted to do Dodopna or Takabisha again but they both had big queues so we headed down to the suspended family coaster. Unfortunately just as we got there they closed the queue (closes earlier than the rest of the park). So we decided to spend the rest of our day wandering around and just riding random attractions. We started with Red Tower, an S&S shot tower. Pretty standard really.

As it was getting dark now all the lights were on and the park looked really great (I love a well-lit park at night). As part of our research for the trip we watched a lot of youtube videos of other people’s opinions on things to do etc. One of the vloggers that Nic had been watching had made one about going to Fuji Q with her new family and how she went on the tea cups and ended up feeling ill for the next couple of days. Oh how we mocked her. We had both totally forgotten this tale before getting on said tea cup ride. They were absolutely ridiculous, we barely touched the spinning disk in the middle and we still span like crazy, there were other riders who were spinning a lot faster than I had ever seen before too. So now we know how you can end up feeling ill for several days, crazy ride.

It looks so innocent

Duelling <3

The coloured lights run all the way up the lift hill, down the first drop and up the first hill

Cool photo location. You could press a button and a massive fan would turn on

I want to be the white [strike]Power Ranger[/strike] Fuji-Q Highlander

We were running out of time now so we headed over to the new French area near the exit. The goons that we are we rode both of the new attractions. We started off with the carousel and then rode the car ride. The car ride was really cool, the two characters actually sit in the back of the car and they appear to be giving you like a guided tour of some of their adventures (several of the books from the series appear throughout the ride with some models and animatronics). The ride randomly goes over this rather steep hill at the end, sounds like it struggles to get up it and then there are some fairly sharp brakes at the bottom of it so you don’t speed into the station and crash lol. Loads of the signs were in French instead of English so I decided to say thanks and goodbye in French and the staff member in the station totally played ball and responded in French <3

So, the carousel is in a French themed area and so it's themed to Venice?

It’s a really fantastic area, the attention to detail in the theming is incredible, the park clearly spent a lot of money on it and it pays off. The main shop even has loads of models of the characters in various poses etc, it’s fantastic. At night it becomes even more beautiful too with their mini Eiffel tower changing colour and the millions of fairy lights all over the place. Great stuff.

Running out of time we popped into the big shop, purchased some tat and then discovered frozen coffee machines and became intrigued. We just had to get one. It was a fun game but the end result was not to either of our liking.

Stirring the random concoction

The result

Goon fact banners

The waiting game for the bus then began with the masses of other travellers. I should probably note that your bus ticket mentions a specific bus number, so you have to keep an eye out for that bus because there are so many doing the same journey at the same time. We played the check every bus before finding our own one game. Finally on the bus we had some snacks and then fell asleep until we arrived back at Shinjuku station. We walked back to our hotel and slept ready for day two of Fuji-Q Highland.