Japan :Oct/Nov'14 (USJ,Hirakata,NSpaland,Tokyo,TobuZ,Disney)

[davidm]

(this might take a while...)

I had cruelly taunted you all with a "trip to the East" earlier this year, well as time passed and I
found myself (I'd explain, but its dull and not really important) with holidays from work to take before
the end of the year and a nagging "must go back to Japan at some point" thought lingering at the back of
my mind - I took the opportunity and booked myself a quick 2-week trip to the real East.

(I've been to Japan a couple of times before ; 2002 for the World Cup for a month and I only really
went to the Disney parks and Palette Town in coaster-terms then, and 2008 when I had a bigger trip
up from Space World in the South to Tokyo hitting up some of the other parks then (annoyingly the TR
from that 2008 trip has been 'archived' from this site so I can't link to it (its on TPR somewhere if
anyone cares)). So there is a reasonable amount of "been here before" in this trip, but also a fair
bit of "new to me" stuff too.)

--

Found a good price on some flights Sunday-Saturday (would have preferred to go out on the Saturday to
be honest but there wasn't the late availability on that and I only booked this about 10 days before I
left), booked up some hotels and off we go...

Sunday 26/10 - Logistics...

Get a plane at Manchester...



Swap to another plane in Amsterdam...



Watch a couple of films on a rubbish in-flight screen, try to get some sleep (don't get much but I don't
remember being awake all the time so must have succeeded in part) and then you are at Osaka's big offshore
airport;



and it is Monday morning.

Monday 27/10 - Osaka in a daze

About the only other thing I'd pre-booked was my train from the Osaka Kansai airport into Osaka itself
since there is a combo-deal you can get with that express-train and a local ICOCA card (the NFC cash card
thing that make trains/subways easy - think "Oyster card"). So after picking that up from the JR office
at Kansai (where on a previous visit I'd picked up a full JR-rail pass but didn't need one for this
trip) get on a train for the 40min or so trip to Osaka itself.

Osaka's outskirts are, frankly, pretty ugly. Low-rise sprawl lasting mile after mile.



Eventually you get to some sign of built-up sprawl though



and get into the city proper. One of the last stops of the express train is in one of the city-stations
'Tennoji' where there used to be a complex housing a big roller-coaster 'Delphis' - last
time I was in Osaka I made a trip out to see what was going on and the site was still there, just
mostly abandoned - looking on Google Earth prior to the trip it was apparent that the whole complex
had been levelled to the ground (and the coaster obviously long gone), but as the train went past I
could see that some new building was going up on the plot now - tries to take a pic but it didn't
come out. Anyway, none of that is interesting, just passed a few mins on the train. (the now-out-of-date
Google maps link is here just for info)

So after changing trains at Shin-Osaka, I get to the Osaka main station (my hotel is conveniently part
of the vast station complex). Japanese main-city railway stations are awesome, Osaka's has this big
roof structure over the tracks that you can see in this phone pic I snapped on arrival - more of that
later though.



I find the entrance to my hotel (not quite as easy as that sounds given the chaos that is a major
station in Japan) and dump my luggage (they are not at all keen in Japan (nor South Korea last year)
in letting people check-in early to hotels - check-in time is 3pm so you will NOT check-in before then -
not very firendly customer service, in other countries I've often checked in early but Japan does
like its rules!).

Had a plan to occupy the rest of this travel-dazed day with a wander around Osaka city and try to get
myself onto the right time-zone. So I start off with a wander around the Osaka Umeda area (basically
the area around the main station (I say "station", there are a number of stations all in the same
complex.

By accident I end up somewhere I recognise (accident because while I had meant to find this area I
didn't know how to get there on the surface road, only via the (vast) underground shopping malls that
spread out under the Umeda area.



Not that this area is particularly interesting to anyone else, but it was near where I stayed the
first time that I was in Osaka in 2002 and I had vivid memories of being very drunk in this area and
being amazed that I could find my way back to my hotel (in what was apparently back-street red-light
district) having only been at that hotel for about 10 minutes.

I re-found that hotel a little bit later, back in 2002 it was full of England fans and the block
opposite full of Nigerian fans ahead of the dull 0-0 draw that was the last WC group game.



Whilst wandering these back-streets, looking for that hotel, a rather heavy thunderstorm happened. I
was rather expecting the weather on this trip to be a lot worse than it actually was, but this rain
storm was easily the worst weather - almost typhoon conditions and because I'd just stepped off a plane
and all my luggage was in storage at a hotel, I wasn't best prepared for it. So I just hid out in a
building door way for a while. After a little while some woman in the restaurant next door to where
I was sheltering popped here head out to look at the rain and laugh at the silly tourist. Few minutes
later she popped out again and gave me an umbrella - how lovely! So now armed with some rain-protection
I could continue my wanderings.

Got the subway out to the castle area,





Which I'd been to in 2002 - quite nice, looks good, shame its from 1997 rather than 1583 like it appears.

For a few Yen you can get an elevator (an elevator in a castle for crying out loud) and go up to the top and explore the
fairly dull museum (mostly dedicated to an olde local warlord type) housed in the castle.





But the view is quite cool, not that its very high up though



Back towards the Umeda area (spot the ferris wheel - come back to that in a bit)



In keeping with the ex-coaster at Tennoji earlier, I next headed down to the Minami area where there
are a couple of other defunct-rides (both of which I'd ridden in 2008).

Drop ride is now a climbing wall (!!!) - (S&S?) drop ride mechanism still there though behind the wall



But this is just SBNO;



The area is really just one of the main entertainment districts, famous for the canal that over-excited
locals often jump into and the amount of neon signs.



Bit disappointed that the famous Glico man (above) is now all a video-screen rather than an actual
neon sign though.





(I'll come back here later when its dark for some pics though).

Check-in time rolled around so was able to get into my room by now, had a bit of a view of that
big roof over the railway station...



After a little rest (might have fallen asleep for an hour), it had got dark so ventured out again mostly
to go have a go on the ferris wheel...

This is the station/hotel building I was staying in;



The station at night was rather cool-looking



and a few minutes walk through the station brings you to that ferris wheel, sat on top of one of the
buildings (housing a load of shops).



Some shots from the wheel then;







Rubbish selfie though



Wandering back later then was this rather splendid thing advertising something or other - who knows,
anyway I liked it...





And that was me done for the day - been mostly awake for 2 days by now so was looking forward to sleep
by now.

(edit:fixed ex-Yabafo pic link thanks ↓)

 

[TilenB]

Re: Japan

As always a great report coupled with some amazing shots from lord Morton!

Why did they build that hideous climbing wall over the S&S Tower (I went on your flickr page to see it, since it didn't show in the report)? And that Intamin ferris wheel kind of thing, was it the only one in the world when it was still operational?

EDIT: Is the drop tower really S&S? Isn't it Intamin?

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Is the drop tower really S&S? Isn't it Intamin?

Actually I don't know - I thought it was Intamin, but they looked like S&S air tanks in that pic (which I've now replaced thanks) - anyway its SBNO (unless you like climbing walls). Makes more sense being Intamin as it didn't "shot" only "drop". Well never mind.

 

[TilenB]

Re: Japan

^ I'm asking because I've once seen it mentioned on Intamin's webpage. But, as you said, it probably doesn't even matter because it's SBNO anyways.

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: Japan

Damn - It's another bloomin awesome trip report, coupled with fab photos!

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Ok, bear with me, got another days worth of "culture" to get through before any amusement park shenanigans.

Tuesday 28/10 - Kyoto

So staying at a hotel that is literally on top of the railway station makes it easy to get an early
train the 30mins or so it takes to get to Kyoto from Osaka. So I find myself at Kyoto station around 9am -
now I'd been to Kyoto once before in 2002 and we wandered around a load of temples within walking
distance of the station (actually looking back, the walk up to Kiyomizu-dera (one of the famous
temples) is a fair trek so we were doing well that day). Anyway, I planned to go to some more far-flung
bits of the city this time to see some of the other sights.

But first, I accidentally came across the vast atrium space that is part of the Kyoto station complex
itself - I had recalled reading somewhere about Kyoto's space-age station but back in 2002 we didn't
end up in that part of the complex - and it was purely by chance that I double-backed to find the
tourist-info office to pick up a map and then wandered out into this bonkers space;



There is this bonkers vast atrium (open to the elements at either end) under a big glass and steel
roof



but then it gets more bonkerers - because you walk up some escalators to the top-ish of the atrium
(where that first pic is from) and then up behind you it goes up another 4 floors of this vast wide
staircase affair (presumably an open-air performance thingy).

Then at the top there is a little roof-garden (bit of a disappointment after all that bonkers modern
architecture (place dates from 1997 according to Wiki) you have walked through to get there.



Also visible from the bonkers atrium is the much-older Kyoto Tower, which I'll come back to in a bit.





So after wandering around the station for a while (well worth doing if you are in the area), I get a
local bus (note about Japanese buses - pay when you get off, some routes have flat fares wherever
you get off, some routes you pick up a little ticket when you get on and there is a display telling
you how much to pay the driver when you get off - coin-cash only, change machine are on the bus sometimes
as well). This bus is a flat-fare one and takes about 40m to take me up to the next sight (I spend most
of that time chatting to an elderly American couple who are disproving that "Americans don't travel"
thing by spending a couple of days sight-seeing in Kyoto after their 10 day walking-trek across the
mountains of Japan!).

The next place is one of the main sights here then, Kinkaku-ji or the Golden Pavilion. Its full of
tourists, local school parties spoiling the view though;



I elbow my way through to the front and take a few snaps (its very pretty to be fair)





(at home I've actually got a "noren" (Japanese hanging fabric doorway thing) up on my wall with kinda
that last view on it that I bought last time I was in Japan)





Processed pic;



Bit less pretty close up though?



Theres a temple complex associated with the place too, so have a look around that and amuse myself
taking some more pics for a while



Tourist stop #1 done, I wander done the street for about 15mins (Kyoto is a big sprawling mess of
a city, not somewhere that is just full of these tourist sights - I mean it _is_ full of these
sights (something like 2000 temples and stuff) but they are plonked inside this ugly modern city)
and get a local train off to the next place I wanted to get to ; Arashiyama.



This place is at the end of the line, where the city-sprawl hits the mountains and so is a bit less
ugly-city and more olde-world. Apparently the bridge over the river is a local favourite sight, but
was just a dull-bridge as far as I could tell?



But the view of the river/mountains was pleasant enough



Usual temple stuff going on (not to be too cynical, but seen one Buddhist temple you've seen 'em all -
not quite true as some (like the Golden Pavilion one earlier) have something a bit more interesting
going on, but I wouldn't care to "do" more than a couple of different ones on a trip).



So after wandering around a temple and a mountain or two I find the sight that I came out here to
see, this "Bamboo Road" place that is a little walkway through a large bamboo-grove - pretty cool
actually, full of tourists of course though;



But managed to grab a few shots devoid of tourists;











So I liked that place (perhaps as you can tell) - couple of "processed pics" below;





Another larger temple next to the grove so had a look at that;









and then got another train back to the main Kyoto station and go up that tower we saw earlier;



The outside of the bonkers station complex from that tower then;



One of the main tourist sights Higashi Hongan-ji, is right by the station (I looked around it in 2002), but under
repair at the moment so covered in scaffolding and stuff, so didn't bother this time;



Panoramic shot from up there - didn't quite work as intended though;



I did wander off after that towards another temple that I was going to see - in this general direction;



but I got a bit lost to be honest on the city streets and ended up at a different temple (should have
taken the train again but I was feeling bullish) - d'oh.

After me being lost for a while (wasn't a problem, I'm on holiday wandering around places, its all
good), the light was going so hopped on a train back to Kyoto station and then back to Osaka in time
to catch a dusk view out of my hotel window of the Umeda Sky Building (which to be honest I had not
realised it was the Sky building at that time because it was side-on and I hadn't paid it much
attention - d'oh again).



So I headed back to where I was the previous day for some night-shots of the area;











Bit busy down there for a Tuesday evening;





Anyway, good "tourist-day" there, some theme-park stuff tomorrow I promise...

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Wednesday 29/10 - Universal Studios Japan

Finally we get to some theme park stuff. And what a park - take some of the best bits of (and to be fair
some of the dross) from Florida's two Universal parks, stick 'em together with a bit of Japanese-ness,
throw in a couple of pleasantly odd coasters (B&M and Mack) and we have Universal Studios Japan.

Been here before, in 2008, and I remember then walking up to the park through their Citywalk-like area
that it was a bit odd, only one side of the entrance was built-up, the other side was a big hole in the
ground...

Well not that that has changed much,



still a building site (but a couple of hotels seem to have gone up since I was last here).

Get to the entrance plaza and its heaving





Clearly the locals not averse to spending the day at a theme park on a school-day in late Autumn! This
was right in the middle of the HHN season, but due to my late-planning of this trip all my timing was off
and I managed to visit on a non-HHN day - park was open 10-8 but on a HHN night they open a bit longer
and there is all the HHN stuff going on when it got dark (which was ~5pm this time of year). Never mind
then, can only imagine the place been even busier with that stuff going on as well!

Their Harry Potter-land had only been open a couple of months, so as soon as I fought my way into the
park it seemed all the locals were off towards that - I followed of course but its not quite that simple
just to wander-in. One needs a timed-entry reservation ticket to enter the Potter-area so in fact all
the masses were queue-ing for the machines that dispensed said tickets rather than for the land itself.

I get myself a ticket for later in the day then (thinking dusk is a better time to take pics and I'll
"do" the rest of the park first) and immediately spot a flaw in their timed-entry ticket logic - in that
they didn't scan your ticket or anything (like Disney fastpass machines do) when dolling out the tickets,
so I double-back a bit and pick up another ticket for almost-immediate entry as well.

The Potter-land itself has been built on a car-park out the back of the park, so there is one way in
and out along a newly built pathway (works OK to be fair, there is a little plaza where they check
your entry ticket then let you onto the tree-lined pathway that takes you out of the original
park boundary and at the end of which is the entrance to the village-area.



which is all heaving with locals.



The village is much the same layout as Florida's version - it felt a bit more spacious I think (wider
'street' perhaps) and the wand-shop thingy was on the left-side (as you look at it) rather than the
right-hand side as per Florida.



Food place;



Wand shop place;



Unlike Florida, lacking a couple of big B&M inverts behind this doorway though



The lead up to the big ride is pretty much the same as Florida's;



as is the ride building itself



The Q layout is a bit different then (I think, I've never had to do the full Florida Q) - I check-out
whether the trick of nipping into the SRQ from the gift shop was possible here (its not) so end
up joining the normal Q which they route away from the castle and off behind it at the first set of
gates in front of the ride (I have it in my mind that Florida's version you go into the castle before
the Q routes you off to the cattle-pens at the back?)



Same "greenhouse" thing at the back of the ride houses the cattle-pens though;



But since its still early in the day the Q has not built up too much and the pens are not yet in use
so its only a 20min Q or so before I get into the castle proper.



A bit of faff then ensues since they have a "no loose articles" policy so they hand you a card and
make you walk through the locker-area before rejoining the Q - faff because obviously people exiting
the ride are also fighting their way through the lockers (not armed with the card that lets you back
into the ride Q of course).

Faff over you then get to Q through the themed rooms (which since they don't let many people through
at a time are mostly empty of people and so you walk straight through - can't imagine that that was
the designers intention at all?). I'd noticed at the ride entrance that they did a "castle tour" as
well and figured I'd come back later for that to look at the rooms themselves.

Ride itself was as per Florida - I think the cine-screens might have been higher resolution, but could
have been imagining it. Obviously all the characters were wittering away in dubbed Japanese so that
was a little odd.

Exit through the gift shop naturally...



Next door (as per Florida) is the mini-coaster Flight of the Hippogriff, so this has the distinction
of being the first coaster of the trip - yay! Something like a 40min Q for it though - pah.





Since Japan's land doesn't have the pathway to Jurassic Park leading away from it, they have built
a little lake and viewing area over which to view the ride building;





Trouble is its too close to the building to make any use of the rather good reflections in said lake,
but if you wander out the back of the food place back in the village a much better view can be had;



The lake thing works really well to be honest, I took some pics of the ride building at various points
in the day from the back of the food place which I'll dump at the end of this post. Shame that the
ride building "box" is still so visible though, they need to grow some trees or something to obscure
it.

Did I mention that the place is heaving by the way?





I exit the potter-world and next to it is the rather large kiddy-ride area, quick walk round that and
end up at the coaster that I managed to forget to ride last that I was here Snoopy's Great Race
(yep honestly I forgot - I had seen it during the day and thought "must come back and +1 that later" and
only when I was sat in a restaurant outside the park after it closed that evening did I remember that I
had forgotten to come back for it - fool!).



So after making a point of +1-ing that kiddy-ride (was OK to be honest, some interactive themeing alongside
it made it interesting at least) I headed over to the other +1 for the day and a ride I was looking
forward to Space Fantasy The Ride.



Presumably themed to some IP I have no idea about, this ride has a SRQ so I was able to get on pretty
quickly - was really rather good though. Its a Mack spinning coaster (something that was a surprise
to the Malaysian chap I ended up sitting next to - "Is this a roller coaster" he asked me, "yes, a
spinning one" I say - "oh, I have no idea what anything is, none of the signs are in Malaysian" he
says (odd that he couldn't decipher the English signs since his English was clearly good enough to
engage in random Q-line conversations).

Something that really took me by surprise was the last 'room' of this indoor coaster; which is this
huge explosion of strobe lighting and flashing stuff - quite brilliant I thought. Rode it again
straight away and a bit later in the day too, was very good all round.

But being an indoor coaster, nothing really to take pics of, here is a crap pic of the trains then;



Took a ride on their Spiderman next - little Q which is odd, Floridas is usually pretty popular - its
had the high-def upgrade since last time I was here, still a great ride of course, even with a Japanese voice
track.



Next up was the (ironically) blast from the past which was Back to the Future (seem to recall that it
was the last of its kind 6 years ago when I was here before, its still hanging in there though).





Ride is pretty ropey these days though - the film looks very dated for a customer base used to high-def
CGI. Simpsons doesn't mean too much in Japan so not sure what they will do with the thing once the
future dates become the past (if you see what I mean!)



Also very ropey is Backdraft - this was removed from LA years ago and was pretty lame here today,
definately a "filler ride". (Was Backdraft even a movie of note, or did it just come out at the right
time when Universal was looking for stuff to fill their parks with?)



More long-standing and significant IP was next up with their Jurassic Park ride



Presumably will get a resurge of interest when the next movie comes out, but was also looking a bit
ropey - the finale T-Rex was totally absent for instance - shame, so it becomes little more than
a not-very-wet splash ride.



Much more worthy blast from the past (and a real joy to be honest) was the Jaws ride. Always liked
Florida's version and was a shame it was ripped out for more potter-stuff I thought.



There was a pretty decent Q for it as well, so the locals obviously still like it. Really detailed
Q-house was very cool, full of Amity-memorabilia and junk - the park designers paying a lot of
attention to this ride I think - cool.







I'd looped the park by now, but headed back to the main entrance for a go on their B&M Hollywood Dream.
Been on it before a couple of times, but they had reversed one of the trains for some reason so I
had to have a go on that. Huge Q for it though, so I SRQ'd it (which still took 40 mins or so) in the
knowledge that it would be luck whether I got the reversed train or one of the forward ones - luckily
I did get the backwards train and it was an interesting ride. Not convinced "air time" works as
well going in reverse, but it was certainly an interesting ride nonetheless.

One mess-up that I made was that they had a Biohazard The Real ride/show going (a live action
Resident Evil thingy of some sort), but by the time I came across the show-building and discovered
that that as well required timed-reservation tickets, they were all gone for the day. Had I realised
this (stupid Dave) I would have had time to get a ticket earlier in the day. D'oh.



My later potter-reservation time came around so headed back into there and did the "castle tour" -
which essentially is an opportunity to walk through the potter-Q-line without actually riding the
ride. There was a Q for this too though; so I actually Q'd for the opportunity to walk through
a Q - hmmm.

The real ride Q was filling the pens by now though;



The Q-tour entered the building through an entrance I'd never seen before though before it joined
up with the Q that you would walk through on the way to the ride.











The Q-Q just ran alongside the real-Q for a while, until you got up to near the sorting hat bit
when they let you through a doorway and you are at the ride exit. Again, can't think that that was
all part of the original ride design.

150 mins for the ride by now - nope from me then.





Light is going by now (which was my plan), so take some dusk-snaps of the place











Went to have another ride on the B&M about an hour before the park closed, but they had closed the
Q lines (even the SRQ) - place was still busy then. So I had a visit to the Japanese T2 show instead;



(which I do like - one of the few 3D shows that really work for me)





And then I had that final re-ride on Space Fantasy - no SRQ this time so had to Q with the masses this
time - still worth it though.

As I exitted that, the night-time parade was passing by, so I watched that for a while - was quite
nice I guess (not that I'm into parades at all but it passed 20 mins or so and let me play around
taking snaps in the dark).





Slightly confused by the presence of Cinderella in the parade - I know the IP is probably public
domain, but hasn't Disney rather grabbed all of that?







Right then, park closed at 8 and I was done - grabbed some food at the (actually pretty rubbish) Citywalk
place - rubbish because its not really that different from any Japanese shopping complex. Where I
was shocked to be sat eating at the bar of a TGIs with people smoking next to me - foreigners eh?

--

Some processed pics of potterland through the day then;

Morning;



Afternoon;



Night;



(I posted that night pic up on 500px earlier and it got picked up as an Editor's Choice - it has now had >1200 views in the 3 hours since I posted it - fame at last? I prefer the afternoon pic myself.)

Selfie ;

 

[Serena]

Re: Japan

Your photos of Hogwarts are stunning. Great report so far, glad you finally got onto the cred stuff the Mack spinner sounds fab!

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

^ ta... presume you mean the one with my lovely self in front of it?

(that Hogwarts at night pic is currently on the first page of the 500px "Popular" list with >4.5k views in <24h! Blimey!)

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Re: Japan

Really enjoying your report so far! Not sure Osaka is high up there on my list of places to go in Asia, but still an interesting read regardless! I also enjoyed reading the parky bits too, as I didn't know too much about Universal Japan. I didn't even know they had the Potter thing over there! Some enthusiast I am! Great pictures as usual.

 

[mcgoughchris]

Re: Japan

Wow Morton I've got to say your photography skills are second to none on this site.

Really enjoyed reading this, even the none theme park related bits. Always been very interested in visiting parts of Asia. Excited to see more of your work!

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Thursday 30/10 - Hirakata Park, Umeda Sky

Today was a trip to a new-to-me park, one that I'd managed to miss the last times I was in Osaka (annoyingly
the first time I was in Osaka Expoland and Nara Dreamland still existed and that ex-coaster in Tennoji was
also running, but I'm a lot more clued up these days than I was back then).

So I set off on the simple trip from central Osaka to Hirakata Park (only complicating that trip somewhat
by getting on a number of wrong trains, but we'll just ignore that shall we...)



Park was pretty empty - few school groups knocking around (how cool must Japanese schools be, they always
seem to be off on a trip to an amusement park ) - about the only Q of the day was when the entire
school group Qs up for the same ride at the same time;



So first up was what I had always thought was just a great named little coaster;



Fantastic Coaster Rowdy, despite such a fantastic name, is a rather dull little jet-coaster
style thing though

Fantastic train though;





Park has a smattering of flat rides, mostly deserted today;





I did ride the wave swinger later on (always liked these )



Next coaster I come across, slightly up the hill from the bottom of the park was one of the parks
two big coasters...



But cruelly I am DENIED as it it is seemingly "closed for inspection"





So ignoring the presence of that big jet-coaster, next up was a Reverchon spinning mouse, imaginatively
named Crazy Mouse.





rather oddly, this spinning wild mouse didn't (spin that is). The spinning-train was locked in its non-spinning
position all the way around. A little internet research indicates its been like that for a while.
How very odd, made for a strange ride at least then, but real non-spinning-trains are much better
than non-spinning spinning-trains of course.



Kiddy ride next to the non-spinning-mouse; Peekaboo Town, ride op was quite happy for me to
have a go though and seemingly wasn't laughing at me for doing it (perhaps inwardly?)





Carrying on up to the top of the hill that the park sits alongside, is the last coaster, and the park's
other big ride - a nice mid-sized woody Elf (which seemingly also stands for Episode of Little
Fairies - hmmm).







Elf is pretty good then, have a few rides then. They also had a do-it-yourself dark ride option
going on where you could ride the coaster wearing a eyemask to shut out all vision. Weird, I didn't
indulge though - if you want to close your eyes on a ride then just do so, always seemed like the
wrong thing to do though.

Next to Elf is the park's ferris wheel so have a go on that and to take some better pics of the woody
and the rest of the park;





Rowdy, looking just fantastic from afar;



Non-spinning spinning mouse and spite-coaster;







Coasters 'done' I do wander around the park for a while, have a play on some of their smaller rides,
the log flume promised wetness;



but didn't deliver (which was fine, don't get me wrong!), drop tower was pretty tall, only running
one side though due to lack of punters



There was an ice-house (as seemingly is popular in Japanese parks), themed to a giant fridge;





was rather rubbish though.

Also rather rubbish was this Legend of Luxor thing, which I had no idea what it was until I got
into the rather small building and the ride op shut me in what can only be described as a small
cupboard with a seat on it. There was video screen in the door of the cupboard and a couple of
holes in the door through which I was encouraged to hold onto a couple of handles. Oh and I had to
wear some headphones too. Some strange video played for a while while someone babbled to me in
Japanese through the headphones.



It was over after a few minutes and I was released, the ride op gave me a printout of something
and I realised that the handles I was holding onto were probably measuring my pulse while I was being
'scared' by the video/spooky soundtrack. I probably passed that test then, being more bemused than
scared.

Rubbish 3D shooter;



Some smallish, but quite fun rapids



The park also had (in the way that these sort of parks do) a small animal bit, which was reasonably
unpleasant







Back at the entrance to the park was this artificial mountain thing. Again, no idea what this was
but wandering in they handed me a card in English explaining the setup;



Which was that it was a treasure hunt of sorts - they gave me small sack of a certain weight and then
the idea was that you search the mountain (which has a few themed scenes in it) for another bag
of the same weight. The mountain being rather full of small sacks of varying weight.



So I wandered about for a bit, picked up a sack of the correct weight and presented it to the
ops at the exit who were most pleased with my work and rewarded me with some tat (some plastic
halloween themed document folder worth a few yen at most I would assume).

So that was the park - nice enough to be fair, liked Elf quite a bit, but nothing too spectacular.



--

Headed back to the city mid-afternoon and my timing was (deliberately) such that I could then head
up the rather splendid Umeda Sky Building near Osaka station in the last of the daylight.

Firstly a view of it all from my hotel room were I stopped off to pick up the big camera



On the way to the building through the station, there was some Halloween/Ping pong ball thing going
on (yes, no idea what it was all about), which involved some loud music and a number of people
throwing buckets of ping pong balls down a staircase covered in pumpkins.





To get to the sky-building from the station you go though a long underground tunnel beneath the
train tracks. If this wasn't Japan, such a tunnel might have been a bit threatening.



The building itself is just a little odd, couple of skyscrapers linked with this observation gallery
'floating' between the two





You can see the high-level escalators up near the observation deck;



Quite odd experience being in those escalators so high up then



So anyway I took a load of pics up here, but not really sorted many, so just some quick snaps for now;







Universal Studios out there if you know where to look;



My timing was such to get dusk up there (here, have a processed shot)



and then the night-time views too;



Another processed shot;




--

Stopped off in the station on my way back to book a goon-tastically early train ticket for the following
morning and grab some food and that was Osaka "done" for this trip.

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Friday 31/10 - Halloween at Nagashima Spaland

So the early train (6:45 out of Osaka) was designed to get me on a nice fast train around 7am...





...and then up to Nagoya for 8am where I could dump my stuff at the next hotel (also conveniently booked on top
of the station building) and then get a local train and bus...







...out to Nagashima Spaland for opening.



I'd been here in 2008 and in truth hadn't originally planned to stop off in Nagoya and come here but
figured that I'd have enough time in Tokyo to spare a day en-route and have another play on the many
coasters out here.

The entrance that the bus drops you off at it at the back of the park (they have built a quite
large grand entrance on the other side nearer the car parks since the last time I was here), so the
first coaster I encounter is on the edge of the kiddy-section and is the mini-tivoli Children Coaster.



I'd redden that tivoli before, but nearby was another kiddy-coaster that was new for me, albeit a
powered ride Peter Rabbit Coaster (Peter Rabbit is the mascot of the park, quite how that
fits in with Steel Dragon I'm not too sure...)



Detailed train then;



They have relocated a couple of coasters (the Corkscrew and Ultra-twister) and built a big covered
kiddie play area in their place since I was last here, so the next coaster I encounter is one I
was really looking forward too as I had been denied this one back in 2008.

White Cyclone - the huge white woody.



So today this HUGE wooden thing is running and I get my ride. Really liked it actually, big lumbering
wooden thing so not very subtle, but good drops, good speed and there is a wonderful moment just at the
end as you approached the station when you are travelling through this tunnel between the huge white
wooden support structure that I just loved. Yum.



They have a brace of standard Wild Mouse coasters here, park is empty so they are only running
one (the left hand one) and I can't at the time remember which side I had ridden before (only running
one side in 2008 too).





(looking back at pics from 2008 when I got home, it was the left side then too, so still missing
that +1 then!)

Some way behind the wild mouse is the entrance to the park's big signature ride Steel Dragon 2000,
I am confused a little by the sign in the Q, something about 13:30...



but immediately gladdened by the sight of the not-very-huge Q for this thing...



rather than the prospect of Q-ing through these huge pens





Lovely looking new (B&M) trains too since I was here before, the original old Morgan trains were
a but lumbering, but still good fun I recall, these new things looked most promising though...



Lovely clamshell restraints...



In truth, the shin-guards were quite annoying, not the freedom to float around like you get in the
big B&M 4-across versions, but a real improvement on the old trains. The ride itself is awesome of
course (its third hill still being the size of Blackpool's "big" one for example) - I like the big
Morgans in the States (Wild Thing earlier this year for example), but the size of this one combined
with its new comfy trains really tops them all. Lovely stuff, have a few goes then.









Relocated from the the other side of the park to out near the exit of Steel Dragon is their Ultra Twister.
This is not a good ride. Ouch (a lot).

I confuse the ride op by trying to take a few pictures (after retrieving all my crap from the locker
that they make you stick *everything* in)





The other relocated ride Corkscrew was also down back in 2008 when I visited so with at least
a little enthusiasm I approached this...





Ouch again unfortunately, pretty old ride and feeling it I think.



Better pic of it looping;



The area that the corkscrew has been relocated too is is all-new to me and fills in the gap between
Steel Dragon and the back of a run of other coasters, the first of which is their Looping Star



which I remembered being good and was still fun for an old-shaky Schwarzkopf. You can see from that pic
that they have a little Star-Flyer in that new area too, rode that in the rain later in the day.

Another new-to-me coaster is the Jet Coaster which was being painted last time I was here,
not too much excitement to be had here, not really enough to be be a mine-train this thing doesn't
do too much;





So still not 100% sure what that 13:30 sign was all about in the Steel Dragon Q (turned out it says
something like "inspection at 13:30, should only be down 30mins but we are not promising anything") and
the time by now is 12:30 I think I should make sure I get a few more rides on the big thing.

The Q had built up a bit by now (OK, not really true),





They are insisting on assigning you to rows though, so it takes a couple of goes to get lucky with
row 1



Lovely stuff still



In truth the Q isn't quite as non-existent as that pic above makes out - they have switched to 2 trains
by now (were only running 1 earlier) and that helps, in fact they close of the last few rows for
a while so that they can consistently send the trains around with people on. After a little while
the ops spot that I am marathoning the thing and start waving to me/laughing at me.

13:30 rolls around and they shut it down and set the guy off on his inspection...



Grab some noodle-lunch (buy a ticket from a machine, present ticket to food-vendor person and they
give you your noodles, seems to me that the machine/ticket is a little bit redundant in all this).

And have some ferris wheel minutes for a while...









The Dragon is operating again by now, but I've had my fill for the day I think.



No kidding;







Back on the ground, wander over to the missing coaster for the day, past the looping star again,





But this one is not running... I remember enjoying it last time. Boo.





the huge amount of themed clothing that they had here, clearly ride-t-shirts not big business in Japan!



Overdose of Pirate-ships



Its started raining a bit by now, I hear a few announcements in Japanese seeming telling me that they
are shutting rides down, so have another ferris wheel ride in the dry for a while before I call it a day.



You can just about see what I assumed is the construction area for their announced B&M flyer for next
year Acrobat - there is a big cleared area the other side of Steel Dragon and there was some track
on-site, but nothing more than that to be seen really.


Oh and yes, just because its Halloween today and lots of places had at least some halloween themeing
going on, doesn't mean that there was anything Halloween-y at Spaland at all that I saw.

--

Getting back to Nagoya was another bus and train (there are direct buses to/from the park (that I think
Nic&John used last year when they were here) and Nagoya station but there didn't seem to be much difference
in the travel times and I like the flexibility of the trains rather than the charter buses.

Hotel was quite posh, but I was only staying there 1 night so didn't really make the most of that (its
location in the station was the real draw for me allowing a quick getaway to Spaland that morning).

View from room;



Wandered around the immediate locale of Nagoya station in the evening in the, what was by now, pouring
rain - I'd spent a couple of days in this area in 2008 and been most confused by the underground
shopping malls surrounding the station. So after getting a bit lost in those malls again I found some
food and gave up exploring for the day.

Hotel is top half of that tower on the right;









Next up, more rain.

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

Re: Japan

Very nice trip report so far! Keep it coming!

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Saturday 1/11 - Rainy Nagoya

Bit of a duff day today. Weather forecast for Nagoya was saying rain, all day. And it wasn't wrong.





I headed up to Higashiyama Zoo a few stops up the subway (Nic&John were reasonably bullish towards this place last
year), but I wasn't optimistic about anything running in the rain.

Was cheap (¥500) to get in, so no great loss, and I wandered around the zoo bit for a while in the
rain. Was reasonably unpleasant to be honest, lots of large animals in small pens and certainly
didn't help elevate my mood.





Made my way up the hill to the amusement section (there is a big observation tower here too, but pointless
going up that today as you could barely even see it from the ground because of the weather) and as expected
the place was mostly shut down - a couple of small (covered) flats were running but no life at any
of the coasters.

Powered coaster in the foreground, jet coaster in background;



The other 'coaster' is rather dubious anyway - it has a lift hill I suppose but then is a car running
downhill rather than anything running on a track (bit optimistic to describe it as side-friction even).



And of course not running in the rain so doesn't even matter.

My enthusiasm has faded further so I head off across the city to somewhere where I assume I'll at least
be out of the rain for a while, the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium.

Odd place - split over two linked buildings, a seemingly older building housing lots of smaller tanks
and a newer building with a bunch of big show tanks. Unusually for these places, you enter in the
new building and are immediately presented with the big tanks - a dolphin show was about to start
in the rooftop auditorium so headed up there;







Place was pretty busy (Saturday and its raining, where else you gonna take the kids?) so not the
most pleasant experience and I seem to have failed to take many good pictures either.





Their whale sharks have apparently all died , so the big fish were a few Orcas in one of the big
tanks;



Really like these fish though (very friendly when you meet them out in the real ocean)



Busy then;



Bad pic of a crab





I managed to kill a couple of hours in there though - can't say it was one of the better aquariums
I've been to, fairly large but a confusing layout and no real great exhibits either.

Headed back to central Nagoya (the aquarium is right at the end of one of the subway lines at the
port area - which might have been nice to wander around for a bit had it not been raining ; there was
an observation platform down there as well which looked like it might have some views), picked up
my stuff from the hotel and hopped on another fast train up to Tokyo.

View from my next hotel room in the rain, pretty uninspiring, but that is Shinjuku out there



So it rained all day, but luckily that seemed to be the end of the bad weather, few bits of rain
later that week but nothing too bad or for too long, so today and the big downpour for a hour or so
in Osaka when I arrived was all the 'inconvenient weather' that I had - think I'm pretty happy with that.

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Sunday 2/11 - Tokyo

Today's plan was to wander around Tokyo, visiting the various places that contained a ride-or-two
(all of which I'd been to before) and a bit of sight-seeing as we went.

So the rain had passed and blue skies were in order first thing in the morning.





Stop one was 20-or-so mins across the city from Shinjuku;



Tokyo Dome City / LaQua / Whatever its called, home of Thunder Dolphin a big Intamin thingy perched
across this inner-city shopping/amusement area.





The thing had had a fairly lengthy period of SBNO-ness since I last visited, but had reopened last
summer with some additional netting to catch anything that might fall off the ride - not that anything
should fall out since you have to empty your pockets of everything before they let you board the thing.

No real Q though;







Have a couple of rides on that - its good but not great. Good drop and the hills/speed are good, it
doesn't do too much with the speed though, no big airtime hills for example - there is a speed hop at
one point though.



Hop on the ferris wheel as well, just for the views/pics.



TD meandering around on top of a building;



Thats the speed-bump bit;



Certainly looks impressive though, so definitely worth a trip to see it.





Gives me an opportunity to take one of those silly multi-exposure pics like what I do as well;



Next stop was towards the southern end of the city-centre; Shinagawa, where a local hotel has a
dolphin show/aquarium attached to it and a couple of rides, one of which was the indoor intamin
coaster Galaxy Express 999.



The operative word in that last sentence is "was" however, since I turn up and am standing
at the ticket machine trying to spot the "roller coaster" ticket option when someone comes up to help
me and explains that the thing closed down on Friday!



Sign outside the entrance says;



which Google translate says something like ; "Announcement of the close of business due to the Shinagawa Aqua
Stadium redevelopment". Further investigation on the website seems to confirm that the hotel is
redeveloping the whole area and the coaster isn't part of that plan.

I'd ridden the thing in 2008 and it was interesting rather than particularily good, but I did fancy
another go on it so I was a bit hacked off by all this. The fact it had closed only 2 days earlier did
make me laugh at myself a bit though.

The other rides were still there/operation for the time being;





Not sure how long for though - there was a closure date of the end of the year associated with the
motion theatre that I saw.

Couple of trains later I am at stop #3;



This is out on a reclaimed-island (as is a lot of Tokyo's waterfront) in the bay and I had been here
in 2002 and recalled that it occupied a few happy hours back then.



There are a few things out here, all within a few minutes walk of each other - first thing I wandered
into was a big car showroom place "MegaWeb" that had had a load of car-themed mini-rides last time I was here



but a lot of these had gone, there was a ride-experience thing (but you needed a driving licence
with you to do that) and lots of cars, clearly they are focussing on the showroom aspects of the
place a bit more now than the entertainment aspects.



Out the back of the car showroom is a big ferris wheel which I had not been on before, so I get the
ferris wheel +1 for a little while;



From the wheel you can see this building, which used to house a roller coaster Future World Experience
which was rather odd as you wore 3D glasses when riding, you picked a few scenes to experience on the
lift hill and these played out on monitors as you rode the ride. Anyway its long-gone now.



Some stuff happening off in the distance, flags and drums it seems;



Big exhibition centre in that area too





Next to the ferris wheel is this place;



Which is a huge hall of entertainment-machines, video-games, photo-booths, etc.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/pSWgP2]

Pretty sure that this place used to have a little coaster in it too, but that pre-dated even my 2002
visit here and could see no signs of it these days.

That ex-coaster building I mentioned above now contains a little car-ride experience thingy - such
a waste.





And there were a couple of shot/drop towers out there back in 2002 as well - heres a pic I took back then
with the towers and when the circular building still contained a coaster;



Back out the front of the car showroom place is a big shopping mall - Venus Fort, at the far end of
which was a history-garage associated with the car-showroom place (I recall riding one of the rides -
a self driving mini-car - at the car place back then which made its way as far as this end of the
site) - it had a fair smattering of old cars set up in it.





Mirrors make it look bigger than it is!







Back towards the bayside is yet another shopping-zone overlooking the bridge back to the city;





This particular complex also contained a Legoland thing that I ignored and a Sega Joypolis place
which I'd been to before. However since I'd been before, they'd ripped out one small, odd indoor
coaster and replaced it with another small,odd indoor coaster Veil of Dark.



Being a weekend and being a small,odd low-capacity ride, there was a hefty wait for this, but I held
out and 50mins or so later I got to ride - most odd, most of the ride is a slow moving crawl along
some rails following a screen or two at which you are shooting targets. After a while that stops and
there is a quick proper coaster section where you race around for a bit and have a quick inversion.
Not great then.

The rest of Joypolis is a bunch of other indoor rides, I had ridden a few of them back in 2002 and
couldn't face the hour Q for any of them today, so just took some snaps around the place.









Was rather amused by video-games linked up to the urinals though



MJ was here!





Dusk was approaching, so I amused myself with the views for a while;



(yes they have a mini statue of liberty here for some reason)





Before heading back to Shinjuku for the night.

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Monday 3/11 - Tobu Zoo

The last time that I was in Tokyo, I had favoured a days sightseeing over a trip out to Tobu Zoo - so
this time I made sure I had planned in a visit.

So a couple of train-rides/changes out from Shinjuku gets you out into the Saitama countryside outside
of Tokyo and the Dōbutsu Kōen stop ("Tobu" in Tobu Zoo is the name of the private company that runs
not only the amusement-park/zoo but the train line that you use to get out here, all horribly
convenient then). There is a bus from the train station to the park entrance, but you can see the park's
two (!?!) ferris wheels from the station and its only a 10min walk (and I think I beat the bus anyway).

Reasonably nice looking park, initial impressions good with a little lake greeting you upon entrance;



The drop ride was not running that day (shame) and the nearer of the two ferris wheels looked like it
was in the processes of being decommissioned (hence two ferris wheel's I guess), also a shame since that
wheel was nearer the coasters and seems to be from where a lot of pics of the coasters (on rcdb for
example) were taken from.

So the first working ride I come across is a little tivoli coaster Tentomushi (ladybug).





Not very exciting though of course.

However just around the corner from the little tivoli is MUCH more worthy ride, a the real reason that
its worth the trip out here from Tokyo, the intamin megalite Kawasemi. And no Q either - happy
days!





First ride I think I'm even going to get a train to myself but a couple of other punters do turn
up at the last minute. Lovely stuff though of course, oddly I thought that it was "smaller" than the
other megalite I've ridden (Piraten), clearly its not though, just my brain playing tricks on me.



I'd timed that first ride well then, since by the time I'd ridden some more peeps had seen the light
and joined the Q



Even that ^ is only a few minutes wait though even with one train operation.



One (minor) irritation was that for those first couple of rides they were quite happy for me to ride
wearing my glasses (with s strap of course), but later in the day they were not having any of that
and had to take them off too. Rode it a fair few times during the day of course and took pics of it
from all over the place (since the majority of the ride is over another small lake its rather
nice looking) so these pics are all out of sequence but I'll dump them together here.















and one of them silly multi-exposure pics what I do;



Wandering across the park a bit there was a sparsely populated kiddie area named 'Heartful Town'
(a large expanse of concrete with a few rides plonked in it), one of which rides was a kiddie
powered coaster Diggy & Daggy's Tram Coaster





As awesome as it looks then. ;-)





The last coaster of the day was the rather large looking woody Regina, also built over another
lake - not that I'm complaining, but they do seem to like building things over lakes here!



Was rather looking forward to this one too, the station and train were looking a bit tatty though...





But really enjoyed that first ride - nice big pile of wood, some good drops, bit of airtime, fast
enough but not too rattly - all good then.



However, I strolled around again for a reride, and that next ride was awful - got shaken around a lot,
thrown into the restraints, really painful - hated it. How odd - I was on the same train, think I was
only on 1 row different than the first ride but in the same carriage - just goes to show, one "rough"
opinion and one "great" opinion really can exist for the same ride let alone any personal preferences. Rode it again
later in the day and that was fine, no problems - weird.











The SBNO wheel;



Park mascot guy (quite liked him actually)





The working (presumably new?) wheel was sat between the amusement bit and the zoo bit and was
also themed to some happy farm stuff (similar to the kiddie area theme), obviously all that themeing
kinda passed me by though.



Old wheel from the new wheel





Worlds biggest KFC?



I'd spent quite a while playing on the coasters and stuff so had a wander around the zoo bit -
wasn't great, but was significantly better than the other zoos I'd encountered on the trip.













Camels are cool!



Their "star" zoo attraction seemed to be a couple of white tigers, but I wasn't too impressed by their
less than large enclosure





Back in the amusement park bit, there is a UFO-shaped building which was advertising a 3D film thingy
so had a go on that - the film was some odd power-ranger type affair that I really didn't follow
but the theatre itself obvioulsy used to be a motion theatre in that the seats were motion-seat
with seatbelt restraints etc, they just didn't actually move anymore - hmmm, hence 3D not 4D.



Managed to spend most of the day at the place though and had a pretty good time, despite the lack of lots
of quality attractions - I did Q for a while for their horror-walkthru at one stage, which was
awful actually (just rather poor, couple of actors banging walls and jumping out at you, but really
slow throughput and just a poor attempt at it all.



Getting the train back to Tokyo, decided to stop off in the place where I needed to change trains,
just to wander around the streets at random and find some food - always quite liked that in Tokyo;
just wandering around randomly in an area just to see whats around.





Tried taking a long exposure pic on my compact camera of the streets in Shinjuku when I got back there
later but wasn't really working, will try again tomorrow with the other camera then...

 

[gavin]

Re: Japan

Tobu Zoo is a bit of a dump to be fair. Kawasemi on;y just about saves it. How they can charge about the same price as a one-day Tokyo Disney ticket is beyond me.

 

[davidm]

Re: Japan

Yeah, wouldn't really disagree with "bit of a dump" to be honest - guess I didn't actually have that high expectations of the place and I did have a good mostly-full day there but there was a lot of rubbish and half-broken rides. And the entire park, whilst trying its best to be scenically spread out around all these little lakes, has a number of big pylons and power lines just running across it buzzing away - ugly!

(¥4800 for Tobu = ~£25, ¥6400 for 1 day at a Disney = ~£35 ; Tobu is not 2/3 of a Disney park by a long shot)

 

[gavin]

Re: Japan

That's the exact same price I paid for Tobu about 6 or 7 years ago, and Disney wasn't much more at that time. Good to see they haven't had the nerve to increase their prices since.