Louise

Wow, I really like the new designs!! Not that it really makes any difference, money is money, but I do like it when they freshen it up every once in a while. Oh, and I too don't quite understand why this isn't suited to the Random board, so I'm gonna go ahead and move it across.

LOL, I noticed that too!! Cracked me up!! Great report Rich, enjoyed it as always. But, erm, where the hell are the Rich pictures?! C'mon!!! That's what I'm in here for!!! Still can't believe you're not coming to Europe.... Your failure level is almost as big as Mike's ego. Which is considerably taller than Acrophobia... and therefore Godzilla.

HAMAMATSU!! Thank you!! I was like "Ha.... ha.... Not Hakata... Not Hirakata... Not Himeji... Ha...." I miss Japan too. Roll on 20....whenever I next go. Thanks for the backup on the bug. Those things are so creepy looking. It's like those evil creepy sea creatures that I can never remember the name of (Robb might post a picture if he reads this, he always remembers). Eww eww eww. Though, the mantis does get cool points for its female's mating rituals.

^ Miss you Jeff.

Continuing on as if I never stopped.... Day X94 - Nagashima Spaland! Well, this day ended up being pretty much a total bust, not because of anything trip or park-related, but because I got sick. After ERT and the bobkarts, my whole memory of the day involves being in pain and trying not to pass out. I had a thumping headache, and then we got off a coaster (don't remember which at this point) and I just pretty much blacked out. I saw my vision going and sat down on a wall as quick as I could, but after that... I was fairly useless. Aaaaanyway. Whilst Robb was taking this photo on the train in the morning.... ... What I *didn't* realise was that *this* was above my head: I hate to admit that I'm this girly, but yeah, I freaked out and moved seats before Robb could put it on my head or something. Some things I'm fine with, like I hate spiders if they're moving, but I could cope with one if it remained still up there, though I'd have to keep checking it hadn't moved, but praying mantises are really creepy looking. I was gone. Hi Jow! After our ERT on White Cyclone, which was actually pretty damn fun, we had a quick spin on the ferris wheel... Hi Hector! ...before heading over to Steel Dragon... Going up the lift-hill and waving at the large crowd already queuing up right as the gates opened was quite amusing. Steel Dragon... I really liked it, a lot actually. But perhaps not as much as I'd expected to. I didn't really feel like I had particularly high expectations beforehand, but for whatever reason I came off it feeling just a little disappointed. HOWEVER, the airtime... I giggled uncontrollably through I think my second ride, simply because my feet were barely touching the floor. If you're on the light side, it's actually amusing how little your arse touches the seat with even just a little space in the restraints. Much fun. One random interesting note about this park... The smoking areas. It's actually funny. There is *literally* one about every twelve to fifteen feet. On every path. I'm totally supportive of park smoking areas, but if you're going to have them *that* close together, you seriously may as well just let people smoke walking around! It was ridiculous! But anyway. After Steel Dragon, we headed over to the BobKarts... They were fun, I think maybe a little faster than others I had ridden. Richard seemed to enjoy them too. Sadly, those are all my pictures from Nagashima! Tragic or what! And I took absolutely none the following day... I was planning to cobble something together from other peoples' generously donated pictures, but in actual fact I think I'll just skip ahead and post some random thoughts. As I say, Nagashima is pretty much a blur... I do remember riding the Giant Frisbee which almost killed me, and which made Richard extremely nauseous. There was also some strange operating policy on that, though I'm struggling to remember what it was. I think you stowed your stuff, rode, then every single rider had to have collected their stuff and be out of the station before they would even let the next cycle of riders in through the gate. It also took them a REALLY long time to check restraints, and we were stupidly facing the sun, so that almost killed us. It took us ages to decide what to eat, but I remember the food as being pretty good although the water tasted of... soap. Don't ask. Other coasters... They had an Ultra Twister which wasn't as much fun as Mitsui Greenland's, a Corkscrew which I think worsened my headache, some coaster which was apparently COMPLETELY forgettable except for the fact that the brakes made the most horrifically loud squeal that sounded like a herd of pigs being slaughtered... I know there was a kiddie coaster that I skipped and a couple of others, but honestly, this whole day is a blur. I did enjoy the Mouse though, which Bob was happy to see was running the other side from when he was there a couple of years back! When the early group left to head to Nagoya Zoo, I left with them, popped some painkillers somebody gave me, and headed back to the hotel to sleep. After three hours dead to the world, I felt much better and was ready for a night out in Nagoya. I'm sure you're all simply dying to see pictures from that, so I shall be annoying and talk about the next day first. Lagunasia: What a lovely park! I had no expectations from this place and knew absolutely nothing about it, but was so pleasantly surprised! The Pirate-themed coaster was all kinds of fun, and Aqua Wind had a surprising amount of airtime and was far speedier than it looked! A really good pair of coasters, and the indoor theming on Pirates Blast was fantastic. Oh, also, this was my only onride photo of the trip, and I *LOVE* it : On the downside, Stellar Coaster was crap (not bad, just mediocre and dull), and their Imitation Indy ride had been removed, but they did have a simulator which has the distinction of being the worst memory of me ever wearing 3D glasses and which had its seating so close to the screen that I was cross-eyed for 40 minutes afterwards! This park also had the *incredibly* Magic Power ride, which was almost as much of a trip as Parque España's "Owls Getting High In The Woods" attraction. The ingredients for Magic Powder include "displeasure of a stewardess". This should tell you something about the awesomeness. The merchandise stores were also fun, and I was excited to win Meatcow, and then introduce him to Sushifish. If only we could have won CannibalisedMan, I would have been ecstatic! Hamanako Pal Pal... I thought Megacoaster was going to be the biggest piece of crap ever built, but it was actually surprisingly fun! My first Batflyer was pretty cool, though I actually found it odd being up there alone! The mouse was fairly painful but still fun, and the Togo flatride of awesomeness and death.. Well, the name speaks for itself! Riding with different weight distributions definitely makes a difference with that thing, but even if you didn't flip completely over it was still all kinds of fun, and watching and hearing others flipping over was hysterical. I didn't ride the logflume, though it got good reviews, and the park had some great other rides; the Pinocchio Lobster ride, a tiny frog-hopper that they let adults ride, and those jumping fountains that everybody loves.... I was dared to play in the fountains, and did, and ended up more drenched than I think I ever have been in my entire life. I had a dry hoodie on the bus, but I still ended up absolutely shivering, and I left wet footsteps and patches wherever I sat for the next five hours!! Ridiculous. Half a dozen of us decided to stay at the station for a few hours (somebody give me a reminder of the name??) on the way back to Tokyo, getting a later train back up, in order to watch the Shinkansen fly through... Man those things go fast!! You're obviously aware of it when you see them from a distance, and to a lesser extent when you're on one, but until you feel the force of one flying past you, you really can't conceptualise it. We were all fascinated by them. During our time at the station we also had a buffet meal, in a restaurant inside an old train car, which was kinda cool! Fatal mistake: some varieties of tea look like Coke. Don't make this mistake. Okay, this post had waaaay too much writing, thanks for sticking with me! Returning to the previous night, after Nagashima Spaland, five of us headed out into Nagoya, staying in the region of the hotel and just wandering to see what was out there. We spent yet more time in a Yodobashi store, wandered the red light district, and just generally dossed about on the streets, before eventually finding a little out-of-the-way upstairs restaurant to eat. As we're leaving the electronics store, Chris asks if he can borrow my camera, as his friend wanted him to take pictures of Japanese fashion, and he doesn't have his camera with him. Okay fine. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you, a series of pictures denoting Japanese "fashion"... Chris, if you want to use my camera to take pictures of a hot chick without her knowledge, that's fine. Just tell me the truth, K? In the restaurant, we had a nice little comfy booth with a bell to attract the waiter's attention... I kinda liked the power of that but it was a little bit against my sensibility! We had no real need for it though, despite the fact that this picture would lead you to believe we had been waiting so long that Jeff had died. We're far more awake on the other side of the table. We ended up just ordering one dish each and then various extras which mostly got shared around if people wanted them. The food was really great at this place (except for me discovering that although I love to eat the skin off of chicken, chicken skin cooked on its own and put on a skewer is vile), and from what I remember it was really reasonably priced! This is Bob eating his sushi "seductively". Oh, and Chris's head got in the way. I was planning to ask the waiter to take our picture, but Richard spotted a ledge that was about the right height... And so becomes one of my favourite pictures of the year, which is one of my framing pics. Chris's noodle-omelette was amazing!! Rice and noodles wrapped up in eggs are one of the best things the Japanese have created. After pooling our money for our meals, we realised we didn't quite have exact money, but were "close enough". By which I mean we were probably about 300 yen over (about what, a little under $3??). Rather than waiting for our change, we decided to make a run for it... We left our money, arigato'd our way to the stairs, and then RAN down them. We get out to the street and all burst out laughing, before somebody goes "Where's Jeff?"... We had lost him. We were devastated. Knowing that we had escaped and he had been caught and dragged back... *sigh* Eventually he emerged, 300 yen in hand. Bless the Japanese and their unwillingness to be tipped. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at Nagoya Station, which is partly made up of an enormous skyscraper, complete with top-storey bar and magnificent view. On the way up, I counted the dots. The numbers LIE to you. I pushed the button. It made me happy. View from the bar. I wish my camera and photography skills could do it justice. It was kinda cool up there, as there are really only these few very tall buildings clustered together, then a pretty flat surrounding area. We each had a parfait for dessert.... YUM!! And LOL at Chris holding up a cushion as backdrop!! Told you all I loved reflection shots. This is a TERRIBLE photo (I actually thought I took another but I guess not!), but on our way out, we walked through the little gardens they have atop the roof of the main building... It's actually quite peaceful, and nice to walk through and look at the greenery before hitting the hustle and bustle of the station. So, after those two days of few pictures, next we're off to Disney... And believe me, there is no short of pictures from that particular four-day stretch. Thank you all for your patience, and if anybody read this entire post, thank YOU, as this one had a lot of rambling text!! Won't leave it quite so long until my TDR pictures... I promise.

Nope, I still have another eight days of Japan left, plus South Korea, my final stop in California on my way home, and a last visit to Alton left to post!! Ugh, I'll be lucky to finish before the end of 2008 at this rate...

Jacob this is really cool! I have a seriously low tolerance for looking at this kind of thing but I've really enjoyed reading through all this just now. Good luck finishing it, looking really good so far, I'm impressed!

I told you guys I'd update Monday/Tuesday!! It's still Sunday!! I have time, damn it!!! And LOL at all the recent posts, you guys are so funny. Except Brian, who thinks I'm not funny and therefore instantly lost cool points. Page 4..... *sad*

Matt, Nice report, I absolute loved the "artsy" shot, and your pic of Infusion's track is really nice too. Sucks to hear about the ops at Revolution... My last visit was around this time last year and I remember we waited a *lot* longer than we should have had to from the length of the queue. Ordinarily I'm not sure we would have bothered getting in line, except that everything else was worse!! Couldn't even find the ends of Nash's queues. Anyway. Nice TR, *almost* makes me keen to get back to BPB soon... --Lou

I was sooooo not expecting Ramses to be anything good at all but it was 46 kinds of awesome. And no, I don't understand why either. It just was!!

Just adding my two cents on Dodonpa (generally I don't post in these threads because I don't take part in the polls): I agree with Joey on the launch and hill being an amazing 1-2 punch. Seriously somewhat insane and I really think that launch kinda pushes the limits, though somehow it didn't mess me up as much as I had thought (hoped? ) it might. However, cresting the top of the tophat involves one of the worst blows to the head I've ever experienced on a coaster. The onride photo was hysterical, we were all either clutching our heads or else just had horrific looks of horror and pain on our faces. Thank God it's only that height!!

Hey, at least you're not a whore who apparently lets people grab her boobs on over 75 occasions!! ^ And I wish you'd come to Spain too! Spain and Japan were both such amazing trips, in such different ways. I wanna do it all again!!

^ That's a horrible picture of me but I love the framing and everything, I remember that ferris wheel, I borrowed your fan for a few seconds as it wasn't an air-conditioned car!! Sorry for the delay, I'm doing a 50 hour week at the moment and it's all a bit manic. I've also been trying to decide just exactly what I'm going to post for Hamanako/Lagunasia seeing as I got nothing. RICHARD! FOOTAGE!

Really nice TR, Antonio! You and Brent look so different from a couple of years ago, you're making me feel old! What's with all the Ghostrider love here?! Ghostrider is seriously I think the only coaster in my count that I would actually enjoy watch burn... I don't think I've ever experienced so much pain on a coaster, except perhaps on Stampida at Port Aventura, but even that had some redeeming features! I've vowed to never ride Ghostrider again but all this praise is making me wonder! Nice pics, there were actually a lot of things I liked (individually) at Knotts, even though the park overall didn't impress me much. I really enjoyed Perilous Plunge, although I hate those OTSRs. And Xcelerator was goooood.

I'm up to Terra Mitica, I'll look at the rest later or tomorrow. Loving it. So much awesomeness. Oh, and: LMFAO!!!!!

This is also on that short list of mine, with Furius Baco: I love it and hate it. However, with Baco, even the parts that I hate, I kinda love. This one, even the parts I love, I sort of hate. It's one of those coasters that I would say I'd never ride again, but if I happened to end up at Lightwater Valley, I probably would. And then I'd set fire to it.

Sorry Bob!!! I couldn't remember who mooned us, though I did think it was only two of you. Soooo, Jeff and Richard I'm guessing?!?! I did take a picture, but it didn't come out at all. Was planning to do an update tonight but I've got home later than expected, and have had a few drinks and am exhausted so... Tomorrow, I guess. I don't even know what's coming up next... I guess Nagashima Spaland, which I don't have many pictures from because I was sick, another fun night in Nagoya, and then I suppose it's Disney, as I didn't take any pictures at Hamanako Pal Pal and Lagunasia!! NEV, if you're reading this, post the damn footage in this thread just so I can justify having a post dedicated to that day!! Thanks for the feedback guys!

^ Seriously, it's probably a good thing they didn't open late the day I was there, I could have spent hundreds of dollars playing that game! We played for half an hour, then when Scott arrived it was like "Ooh, there's a new person, I must play Fascination with everybody, let's go back!!!!!!". I miss IB. *sigh*

I must admit that although this is sad to read, I think it's a bit dramatic to assume the worst right now. Time will tell. If the new coaster and a few improvements increase the number of visitors (longer ride sessions will do that too), then they may not need or want to change too much. Hopefully (seriously, my fingers are all crossed for this one) the place will retain its charm and atmosphere. I guess I'm not particularly optimistic that the park will be as awesomely charming as it was on my first visit last summer when I next visit, but at the same time, there's no point in worrying right now, we'll have to wait and see. Fascination must stay. And so must the shooting dark ride, which is the only one I've EVER won! Great little park.

I think they're doing something with the supports... In fact, if I can find the other thread (which I think was also started by VerticalZero), I'll merge it with this one, maybe VZ or other people who are around regularly can keep us updated with pictures. EDIT: Merged the threads. Hopefully locals will keep us posted: This is one of only two coasters at Blackpool I actually really enjoy, and it'd better be open by my next visit!

Gah!! I haven't read anything about this for ages and was hoping it'd be back open and running by April... Booooo. Oh well, there's always Revolution!

Wes just got a free Flash Pass to my heart.

Oof, many responses, thanks guys!! I was brought up a United supported but I've drifted these past years. The only team I follow at all is my local team but they aren't even worth mentioning. It's okay, you're back on the friend list, your use of "football" instead of "soccer" gained back the points. Glad somebody enjoyed that. I kept saying everywhere we went that the three of us were like a bad joke, and then the addition of the Irish bar made us actually become one. I've told you a thousand times, YES! Bear in mind though that there's no intelligence to my statement, I basically just think they're pretty from the inside out! Jon, you have Polish blood?! Did I know that?! Yeah, I really need to start carrying sunscreen. In Spain, I don't think it even left my case, I just used Kyle's and everybody else's all the time (thank you all for that, by the way ), in California I left my bottle in Jon LoCoco's car and then didn't see him again, so I bought a fresh one the night before we flew to Japan, and then ended up not even opening it but lost the can somewhere along the way! Failure.

^ We are no longer friends!!!!!!

^ It's below zero here. I don't find you amusing. You need to call me while I'm on the Europe trip this summer, just on the off-chance that Jon forgets to remind me to apply.