Robb & Elissa in Japan - 2015!

Amazing trip reports!

Seeing that picture of the standup train really made me miss the little piece of Japanese rides we just recently lost (Skyrider at CW). It wasn't the absolute best coaster, but whenever I rode it, always made me think about heading over to Japan someday. Now it's gone, I just wanna head over there even more.

Speaking of TOGO, do you guys have any video of one of those crazy TOGO para troopers in action?

For those of you who miss the Jaws ride at Universal Studios Orlando, here's a new multi-angle, 60FPS version of the ride we shot at Universal Studios Japan!

That inside storage barn was one of the awesome parts of this ride, IMhO.

And then - it wasn't the end, with more encounters! And with all the crazy

dialogue I could not understand at all - priceless.

Great video Robb.

Any tips for getting a good DisneySea day and how did the rain affect the lines for Disneyland? That's the second TR of yours I've seen with 30 min waits for Journey and I've never been able to time it right for TDS. I've been on a snowy day for TDL where everything was walk-on by afternoon (seems the Japanese are a lot less tolerant of snowy days than rainy ones) although it was a shame that day was before Once Upon A Time, but for all my TDS trips I've hit lines of 3-4 hours from opening until the lines close just after fantasmic (thank god that year was when they decided to try single rider for tower of terror).

I'm starting to think I need to flip my logic, maybe since TDS has quite a lot of big indoor rides so I think that it seems to be on bad weather days that most people also go there and do Disneyland on good weather days perhaps? I know Disney also has a lot of indoor rides but more outdoor ones than sea does. My 1st trip to TDS was after a few days of snow and the sun came out and the park was packed and time after that I decided to try during really bad weather but went too far it was torrential rain and wind so most of the rides were closed.

At opening this was the sign, most people went to tomorrowland at opening or to an indoor ride, lines went down by 15-30 minutes about 2 hours in and the lines dropped off completely by 2PM ironically around the time they got most of the closed rides open

by around 11a.m.

Any tips for getting a good DisneySea day and how did the rain affect the lines for Disneyland?

Our Tuesday/Wednesday days were pretty light at both parks. I think it has less to do with weather and more to do with timing. Sunday/Monday were significantly busier at both parks. We saw 60-90 minute lines for Journey on Monday, but 25-45 on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Rain most certainly will affect the crowds, but on a weekend day, not as much as you might think.

Yes, I do miss the old Jaws ride in Florida--rolling around in front of a bunch of video screens isn't nearly as much fun as good old physical effects.

Any tips for getting a good DisneySea day and how did the rain affect the lines for Disneyland?

Our Tuesday/Wednesday days were pretty light at both parks. I think it has less to do with weather and more to do with timing. Sunday/Monday were significantly busier at both parks. We saw 60-90 minute lines for Journey on Monday, but 25-45 on Tuesday/Wednesday.

 

Rain most certainly will affect the crowds, but on a weekend day, not as much as you might think.

Thanks for the advice, maybe it's just me stuck with the Korean school year deciding my holidays that leaves me with 3-4 hour lines. Apart from either the last week of July or Christmas week, I get some time off in February every 2-3 years as a reward but I think like Korean schools, a lot of the Japanese schools are probably closed then. Maybe I just need to wait even longer between trips and hope the Korean Thanksgiving lines up nicely with a weekend to give me a 5 day break

Japanese Jaws = Best Jaws. I love the amount of effort the boat captains put into their performance. Makes an awesome ride even better. Really hope to get back to USJ some day so I can experience it again.

And that video looked amazing. Thanks for shooting it!

dt

...They also had one of these awesome Togo Paratrooper/Enterprise rides.

(Sorry, But I am catching up, here)

Also, seeing those photos of Gao... I can still remember the smell of tires burning on some of the track, lol!

Great park MItsui Greenland is, definitely.

Turns out we have a KidZania here in Korea too, not sure how it would compare to Japan but was quite surprised how many options they also have: http://www.kidzania.co.kr/web/eng/facility

Turns out we have a KidZania here in Korea too, not sure how it would compare to Japan but was quite surprised how many options they also have: http://www.kidzania.co.kr/web/eng/facility

I'm sure it's VERY similar. We have seen 3 or 4 of them now, and from the outside that all looked pretty much the same. Even though we've only been in the one, I'm sure they all feature a similar layout and amount of activities.

Our next day took us to the town of "Beppu" which offers quite a bit to do in Southern Japan. One nice thing about the way we put this trip together is that we had a lot of days where people could just go and do whatever they wanted based on preferences. For our group, we either had been to parks in the area like Kijima before, or wanted to do something different, so while some of the group went to go ride one of the few wooden rollers in the country, we went and did a selection of more random things this day, starting with Hello Kitty and ending with monkeys!

This is a BIG day of 100+ photos so be sure to get through all of them! Lots of fun stuff in here!

Today was one of the days we all split up to do different things. While some of the group went out to Kijima to ride Jupiter, some of us wanted to go see one of Japan's biggest celebrities...

HELLO KITTY!!!!

For some it was about riding one of four wooden roller coasters in the country....

for us we wanted to check out Sanrio characters, Ocean Sunfish, and Monkeys!

Our day started off on a train named after a video game character. This was the "Sonic" train! lol

Each train comes equipped with an emergency door penis.

Yes! We are in the area where everything is going to get sugary sweet!

Harmonyland is basically the home to Hello Kitty and all her cutesy Japanese friends.

It's a legit theme park which much of it being themed better than 95% of the parks in the USA.

And yes... you can meet Hello Kitty!

And many of her friends are here, too!

We figured we'd get the Hello Kitty roller coaster out of the way first.

Yes, it's a Vekoma Roller Skater, but it's a completely custom model and it's actually really good! It feels more like a "mine train" and less like a "Roller Skater."

Some funky little pops of airtime on this ride, too!

Next we hit up the controversial "Hello Kitty Train."

The controversy comes with the coaster nerds. Yes it runs on "tubular steel track" and is powered on it's own gravity for some of the trip.

The girls don't give a crap what coaster nerds think, they just want to ride to get down the hill to the Sanrio Boat Ride!

But as you can see, the ride does have familiar looking rails...

It does climb a lift hill on one of the legs of the ride...

...and it does coast downhill with the speed controlled by the operator. So what do you think?

The girls say "Anyone who counts this as a roller coaster is not someone we would ever go out on a date with!"

Next up was the star attraction of the park... the Sanrio Boat Ride!

It's sort of like "It's a Small World meets a LOT of Sugar!"

The storyline is simple - All of Hello Kitty's friends get an invitation to her party....

And then they spend the first part of the ride getting ready to go!

And yes, a penguin (Badtz Maru) gets spanked. This right here makes it an AWESOME ride!

My Melody & Kuromi are both going to the party....

Pom Pom Purin seems pretty happy to have gotten his invite!

And then they all take off to the party! Badtz Maru chooses jetpack to get there...

My Melody takes some sort of dirigible.

Yay! They gang is all here!

And let's celebrate Hello Kitty!

"The rest of you all suck! My Melody is my TRUE friend!'

Here is the ride-through of the Hello Kitty Boat Ride. We got a lot of complaints about this on YouTube, which kind of surprised me. Yes, I get it that the ride is very sickening "sweet" but it's also a totally legit, very well done ride! If this was in Orlando, it would be one of the better dark rides in the area! Check it out:

After the boat ride, Kristen went to do this sort of Sanrio "Ninja Warrior" course.

There was a lot of money bars...

slides...

climbing walls...

And falling on faces.

She is a true Sanrio Ninja Warrior!

The park is really a lot of fun, and all the rides are totally themed to Sanrio.

The Ferris Wheel has each cabin themed to a different character.

And there are a lot of different Sanrio characters!

There goes a few of them...

The girls got the Little Twin Stars car.

Hello Little Twin Stars!

And YAY! We got Badtz Maru!

We are all bad penguins.

The park most certainly seems to have an "old and new" part, with the newer, more well themed section being towards the front of the park...

and the less themed, more "pavement" part towards the back.

The girls loved it!

And yes, there is a little powered coaster here, too.

There are just so many things wrong with this picture! lol

I love these random little "put your kids on display" rides that you see all over Japan!

Hello Kitty themed Tea Cups.

Hello Kitty themed roulette wheel to the death.

The parade was about to start and this area went from empty to totally packed in about 90 seconds!

More sugary sweet Sanrio stuff...

More Hello Kitty....

...and lots of bubbles!

Elissa hanging out with her favorite character.

The girls just chillin'

Yes, because headbands make you awesome!

I'm not exactly sure what this character is...

but apparently he's totally naked!!! lol

All the Hello Kitty stuff you could possibly want!

Tons of plush...

seriously TONS of it!

The umbrellas were amazing!

And plenty of Hello Kitty swag to take home and make you cool.

Kristen is channeling her inner Pom Pom Purin at Harmonyland.

Next we went to do some more random stuff in Beppu.

Found at the train station....

Kristen looks absolutely thrilled about this! lol

This was the zoological park which included an aquarium and a "monkey park."

Yup, there were sharks...

...and some big ass ugly fish.

And these really screwed up looking sand worm things!

Dr. Shrunk from Animal Crossing was here, too!

But this is what we were really here for...the Ocean Sunfish!

Kristen is obsessed with this really bizarre looking creature.

She calls it the "half fish" because it looks like someone cut it in half.

Make no mistake about it, this is one UGLY animal! WOW!

But, it's also a very rare animal and they are difficult to keep in captivity (the USA only has one) and Kristen loves it, so we accept it...but man is it UGLY!!! lol

Wait, what is this? The tortoise and the rabbit?

Oh, I get it...

Yup, they hang out together!

In the "Never in America Department" we have the kids splash pool that is actually PART OF THE DOLPHIN ENCLOSURE! Yes!!!

You can see the kids splashing in the foreground and there are the dolphins swimming in the background!

From above you can get a better look at this.

But it's Japan, so all they need to do is put up a sign, and people pay attention and obey it.

If this sign was in America, instead of not throwing things at the dolphins, people would probably be smacking them with their selfie sticks or throwing their kids in the water. But in Japan, people actually obey the rules.

Here's another dolphin enclosure where they allow people to get very close to them.

"Dolphins like the taste of human arms...don't put your hand in there, stupid!" And people respect this. (Yes, it IS too much to ask at our parks here in the USA.)

Random stuff to do at the aquarium.

This chameleon took a liking to me and my cell phone.

It was awesome you could get so close to all the animals!

Across the way was the "monkey park."

We kind of knew what to expect here, but it sort of exceeded those expectations.

You could either take this tram to get up to the monkeys, or you could walk.

They monkeys were everywhere! And they really seemed to spend a lot of time grooming each other!

Some of them even groomed each others butts!

There were hundreds of them, just hanging out everywhere you turned.

"I find these monkeys are cooler to hang out with than most people!"

Monkey Boobies.

Is this one alive? Who knows!

They were everywhere! Climbing around and pretty much didn't care about the people around them.

So many of them had monkey babies.

"Yes, hi...there are monkeys here...can we go now?"

"Yup, that's a pile of monkeys over there!"

Not sure what's going on here...

"Will work for bananas."

I love that they were doing the "Share a Coke" thing in Japan, too!

Next stop was Canal City.. I mean.... um... Oh....

"Hey Reed! Check it out!"

Yes...Japan has Shakey's Pizza! lol We had to try it.

They menu was totally bizarre! Yes, those "Mayonnaise" pizzas had some sort of cream based sauce instead of normal pizza sauce! (the original pizzas were actually pretty good!)

This was the "Rosemary Potato" pizza! Really weird, but actually good!

It was all about the dessert pizzas, though! This was the Cinnamon Apple!

And "Quatro Chocolate!" Yes, it had four kinds of chocolate for all your diabetic needs!

The REAL meal of the night was... you guessed it....

YAKITORI!

Ooooh, soooo good!

This place is Fukuoka does "Bacon Wrapped Cheese!"

There it is... perfection! DELICIOUS!

Yakitori and beer...now we can go to sleep happy!

Although Derek found Zima in Japan! Yes! They still have it! lol

We will end this update with some Japanese porn...because shouldn't all updates end up with a bit of Japanese porn???

Great coverage!

Damn! That Yakatori looks sooooo good!!!

Yeah, I would choose the Sanrio boat ride over Jupiter.

Thank you for more Japanese porn! Looks like you all had an awesome time!

I really miss the Yakitori!!

Ocean Sunfish FTW!

Yeah, I would choose the Sanrio boat ride over Jupiter.

This is true.

Dude in the ferris wheel totally looked like me, but Japanese.

Also, I totally need to get back to Japan for the Hello Kitty park. And I'm a straight guy. Looks way more interesting than anything in America!

Ocean Sunfish FTW!

Thad?

Great coverage! Next time I'll do your route instead. Ours was quite exhausting with 3 parks and Fukuoka night adventure. That boat ride looks slightly better than It's A Small World!

I loved the free day options on this trip. It was so hard to decide what to do since there were so many things to see and do and I would have had a great time no matter what I chose, but I stand by my choice to go see Nagasaki, which was very interesting. The Sanrio park and the monkey island looked pretty cool too and I'm glad to see pictures of it. I'd probably do a trip to Beppu and some of its attractions if I'm in Kyushu again.

I'm kind of curious, I remember Robb saying in an older post or TR (sorry if that wasn't stated and I've accidentally made something up) that blue-fall was the best drop tower in the world. I'm wondering if that is still true with the opening of Lex Luthor, Zumanjaro and what is probably the biggest contender to steal that crown: Falcons Fury.

I'm kind of curious, I remember Robb saying in an older post or TR (sorry if that wasn't stated and I've accidentally made something up) that blue-fall was the best drop tower in the world. I'm wondering if that is still true with the opening of Lex Luthor, Zumanjaro and what is probably the biggest contender to steal that crown: Falcons Fury.

I would put it Falcon > Blue Fall > Zumanjaro > Lex Luthor

I dunno, though. Blue Fall is still REALLY REALLY good. And Falcons is just really different. I'm not even sure I should compare them.

I'm kind of curious, I remember Robb saying in an older post or TR (sorry if that wasn't stated and I've accidentally made something up) that blue-fall was the best drop tower in the world. I'm wondering if that is still true with the opening of Lex Luthor, Zumanjaro and what is probably the biggest contender to steal that crown: Falcons Fury.

I would put it Falcon > Blue Fall > Zumanjaro > Lex Luthor

 

I dunno, though. Blue Fall is still REALLY REALLY good. And Falcons is just really different. I'm not even sure I should compare them.

Thanks for the clarification, I really need to get out to Florida eventually and try FF. I guess since FF is different from all the other drop towers, it'd be like trying to compare one of the Intamin woodies to an RMC coaster. Both of them would be world class wooden coasters for what they are but different enough experiences that they can't be lumped under the same category.