David H

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out here who celebrates this holiday! And even to those who don't!

Day 8: Busan/Gyeongju, South Korea. A ferry, a tower and lots of culture. A warning: this is a pretty big update with no amusement parks or coasters. However, there is a lot of interesting Korean culture that you porbably haven't seen on TPR before! Parks and coasters will return with the next three updates, though there will be lots of culture interspersed, as well. Hopefully, some of you will appreciate some of the other things that Korea has to offer. And if not, skip this stuff and there will be a few world class Intamin coasters and a B&M coming up soon! So, a little introduction to the Korea portion of the trip. When I decided to do the TPR China trip, my very first thought was to try to add Korea to the trip. It’s nearby. But more importantly, it has two world class parks right outside Seoul, one of which has one of the top 3 wooden coasters in the world, and the other of which has a top rated unique Intamin coaster. I’d want to get there eventually, and what better time than when I’d be literally flying over the country anyways? Originally, I thought I’d just make it a 2-4 day stop and just hit those parks and do a bit of sightseeing, but one thing I learned from past trips abroad is that I enjoy and appreciate them more when I take the time to see other things in the country besides parks and coasters. Plus, there was another park in Gyeongju, far South in the country that I wanted to visit because it had a B&M inverted, and that is my favorite type of steel coaster. When getting some advice form a few other well-traveled coaster enthusiasts, one of them urged me to allow more time for Gyeongju to see the city, because it has a lot of ancient historic sites like burial grounds, temples, etc. And several people recommended the unique tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. This was now sounding less like a quick coaster stop, and more like a real vacation, which was perfect for me! Originally, I’d planned to fly to Seoul, and take the train down to Gyeongju, but when I discovered that there was a hydrofoil ferry from Fukuoka to Busan, South Korea – the second largest city in South Korea -- this seemed perfect. It was quite a bit more expensive, since I’d have been able to use miles for an award flight, but it would save me time from not backtracking and allow me to visit another city, as well. The down side would mean that I’d be lugging my big, heavy bag literally across the entire country. Which actually brings me to a point I really wanted to make about Korea: the people were extraordinarily friendly and helpful. Since I was lugging a rolling suitcase and a big backpack, I moved much of the heavier stuff, like my laptop into the rolling suitcase, which made for easier going most of the time – until I hit stairs! And on two different occasions, random middle aged women who didn’t even speak English saw me struggling and just walked up and grabbed one side of my bag and started lugging it up the stairs with me! Could you imagine an American doing that for a foreigner here?!? Almost everywhere I went, people went out of their way to try to help me. And the early Southern portion of my trip was very challenging because very few people speak any English, and I didn’t have access to Google Translate or Google maps, because it’s very hard to get a sim card or wifi if you’re not a Korean resident. This should have been the hardest leg of the entire trip, but thanks to the people, it wasn’t at all. Almost every time I was on a train, especially in Seoul, when I’d be looking at my subway map to make sure I knew where I was going, someone would take the map from me, ask where I was going, and show me how to get there. (Which actually became a bit annoying, because I actually knew, but they were just trying to be nice, so it was hard to get mad at them.) At one station, some young guy actually missed his train to show me where to get on mine, despite my insisting he ge ton his train and saying that I could figure it out! Here I was, a foreigner with the arrogance to visit their country without learning so much as 10 words in their language, and they seemed grateful when I could say “thank you” in Korean, and got frustrated when THEY couldn’t help ME. The people really made visiting their country a pleasure I wasn't expecting! It was so very different than with Americans, who get angry with foreigners who don’t speak a lot of English. So, today was mostly a travel day, with some quick sightseeing stops. Once I checked out of the hotel, I took the bus (which actually left from the other side of the train station) to the Hakata ferry terminal. Then I took the ferry from Hakata, Japan to Busan, South Korea. There is a slow ferry that takes over 6 hours or overnight, but I took the fast ferry that’s only 3.5 hours. It was a nice trip, with some nice scenery leaving and entering the ports. Getting through customs is much easier and faster by ferry that it is at the airport, too. At the ferry terminal, there was a tourist booth that gave me advice on getting around and told me that my best bet would be to leave my bags at the train station a short bus ride (or a couple of subway stops) away. From there, I took the subway – which had English signs on the trains and in the stations! – to Yongdusan Park that’s up on Mt Yongdusan, named because it’s appearance resembles a dragon’s head. This park was the center of the city when it was occupied by the Japanese as well as the base of the South Korean Government during the Korean War. It’s also home to the tall Busan Tower, which affords great views of the city, the port, the sea and the surrounding mountains, which was the reason I was there. You have to take a long series of escalators to get up to the park, several of which were down for maintenance. I was glad I'd left my bags in the train station! There are also a few small museums and temples and statues at the base of the tower that I stopped in briefly. A quick stop, but the view was worth the trip. And it gave me a taste of a city I’d have otherwise just traveled through. There are actually three different ways to get to Gyeongju: bus, train and high speed rail. The HSR was the most convenient for me, although it meant having to take a bus into downtown Gyeongju, because the HSR train is quite a way’s outside town. But the bus station is right downtown and where I had decided to book my hotel. For a hotel in Gyeongju, you basically have three options: a very cheap hostel or guest house or the equivalent, a cheap “love motel”, or an expensive nice hotel that’s way over by the lake in town, which just happens to be near the city’s amusement park. The hostels, while VERY cheap (often under $20!), seemed really sparse, many of them without even real western beds. The nicer hotels were significantly more expensive at $150 and up. But more importantly, while they were convenient to the amusement park nearby in that tourist area on the lake, they were pretty inconvenient – well out of town – for everything else. Staying there would have made it very difficult to do very much sightseeing in the day and a half I had there, and that was one of my major goals for the stay. So I opted for a “love motel”, doing my best to find one that got good reviews on TripAdvisor and elsewhere, as well as one where I could reserve a room in advance, and one where I could leave my bags the next day, while I was at the amusement park and the tourist spots. And I got one for around $40. I’m certainly no prude anyways, even if the places were somewhat tacky and garish. While the idea of a “love motel” where one can have some fun makes some sense to me, I found the whole area in Gyeongju to be somewhat puzzling. The ENTIRE area around the bus stations was full of love motels. Like 10-20 of them. Normally, I’d expect to find hookers and strip clubs and pick-up clubs and the like in such an area. I think I saw one small strip club, and that’s pretty much it. Not even one street hooker, and I seem to have a knack for unexpectedly finding those on vacations abroad! Maybe the area is just dead on weeknights, but is hopping on weekends? Otherwise, who’s filing these love motels? Are there that many men in south/central Korea with mistresses? Or that many couples looking for a sexy getaway, away from the family? It’s rare that a sleazy area like this puzzles me so. Does anyone know? I’m genuinely curious. Interestingly, many of the love motels in Gyeongju advertise on many of the online hotel sites like Kayak and hotels.com without mentioning their more sordid uses, although it’s often brought up in the user reviews by offended unexpecting tourists! In any case, my hotel wasn’t really that bad. At was actually pretty nice. Cheap, convenient, clean and spacious. Yes, it had pictures of scantily clad women on the wallpaper of one wall. Yes, it had a full collection of condoms and lubes and ticklers and the like, along with hair and skin supplies. And it had some tacky fringe as shower curtains. (My room didn’t have a hot tub, although some of the more expensive ones did.) The most jarring thing for me was actually the toilet. They had one of those super toilets you find all over Japan. But unlike those, the heater on the seat was already on. Not what I was expecting, especially in 80 degree heat! I also wasn’t expecting the bidet attachment to be set on super high pressure! OK, let’s bring this back to a G rating, ok? The funniest thing about the place was it was owned and run by this nice old couple, which wasn’t exactly what I expected. The lady even came into the room a while after I checked it to try to show me how to use the TV remote control (which was useless to me, since all of the channels were in Korean) and how to turn on the various lights, which included several colors of LED’s! So, after checking in to my hotel, I headed out to the nearby Tumuli Park, with its royal burial mounds. Apparently, there are over 200 of these mounds scattered all over Gyeongju, but 23 of them are in this one park (which happened to be right down the street from my hotel!), including the Cheonmachong (Heavenly Horse) Tomb, which is open to the public. During the Silla Dynasty (which ruled eastern Korea through most of the first millennium AD), kings and queens were buried in tombs that were then covered with sticks and/or rocks into those sometimes huge burial mounds, which were then covered with soil, which eventually started growing grass. As the center of the Silla Empire, there are also lots of other temples and artifacts all over the area. First, I checked out a nice temple across the street from the entrance of the park, then entered the park itself. Strangely enough, most of the tourist sites in Gyeongju require an individual ticket, but the tickets are really cheap, like the equivalent of a dollar or two. It’s odd that they even bother charging such a small admission, and staffing the booths for so little money, but I guess it buys a lot more in Korea, outside Seoul, at least. I walked around the park and through the Heavenly Horse Tomb, which had most of the artifacts they unearthed displayed in the tomb. To see artifacts from other tombs, I’d have to go to the city’s national museum the next day, because like most museums in the world, it’s not open on Monday. I exited the back exit of the park to do some more sightseeing. But first, I decided to have some dinner. Western food is pretty scarce in Korea outside of Seoul, so I opted for a traditional Korean barbeque dinner, which includes a TON of side dishes of a whole lot of vegetables I was unfamiliar with, plus kimchee, which is very popular, and which I’d tried in Tokyo a week earlier. Honestly, the beef and soup were pretty bland, and most of the veggies were weird to my tastes. But at least I got a taste of Korean culture, literally. From there, I stopped in a bunch of tourist trap souvenir stores. One thing Gyeongju is famous for is their Gyeongju bread, filled with red bean paste. But they only want to sell it to tourists in these big boxes with dozens of pieces in them for like $10-20. I had to try like 10 places before I could find one that would sell me ONE piece of each kind of the Gyeongju bread. It was ok, but nothing special. I’m glad I didn’t buy the big box of it! From there I did some more sightseeing, even though it was pretty dark by then. I went to the Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia from the 7th century, which is a whopping 9.4 meters tall, but the city is very proud of it! Then I stopped by the Anopji Pond, with its pretty lotus plants and the rebuilt Imhaejeon Palace. I ended up taking a taxi back to the hotel, since they’re very cheap in Korea, unlike in Japan! I actually got a lot more sightseeing done in Gyeongju than I expected to, given that I had a late start. Tomorrow, I’d see the other big sites in town, but only after hitting the city’s big amusement park, Gyeongju World. If you're looking to get from southern Japan to southern Korea, the ferry is a nice way to go. The JR Kyushu Beetle is the fastest boat. Asians love to wear English. At least this shirt has correct, if obvious, English. The Beetle. Goodbye, Japan. For now, at least! I'll be back in 5 weeks! Hello, Korea! Busan is actually much bigger than I'd expected. It's actually the second biggest city in South Korea. To the right, you can see the top of the Busan Tower I'll soon be visiting Here's the very modern train station. I was leaving my bags here, and taking the subway. The high speed rail also leaves here for Gueongju and Seoul. The Korean subway stations have doors thet open when the train arrives. Somehow, they manage to perfectly line up the trains. I'd never seen this before, but it's pretty common in Korea, Taiwan and parts of China. Many of the stations also have video screens that tell you where the next train is and when it will arrive. It's so much less frustrating to know how long you'll have to wait! To get to Yongdusan Park from one side, you take a long set of covered escalators. On the way up, there was this colorful temple. Yongdusan Park, home to the South Korean government during the Korean War, as well a home to the Japanese local government during its occupation of Korea. The Busan Tower. Dragons are always cool! Where's the Khaleesi? Some old Korean clothes on display at the museum at the base of Busan Tower. The view of Busan and the surrounding mountains from the tower. For those keeping count, this is the second tower or tall building I've taken pictures from on this trip. Plus a funicular and a cable car. There will be many more! On to Gueongju, where they're very proud of the area's historic artifacts. They even have a small museum in the train station, which is miles outside the main city! (The HSR station is actually called SinGyeongju.) The burial mounds that Busan is famous for. They're so widespread that these ones aren't even in any park or tourist area. They're just randomly scattered around the city. The entire city is a Unesco World Heritige Site because of all of the historic burial mounds and temples there. The entrance to Tumuli Park, which is home to more burial mounds than any other place in the city, including one of the only ones open to tourists. IN Gueongju when you go to "the throne", you REALLY go to the throne! A pond in Tumuli Park. The Heavenly Horse Tomb, named after one of the artifacts found inside. Inside the unearthed tomb. This crown is among the artifacts found in the tomb which are still displayed there. More burial mounds among some pretty flowering trees. One of many temples scattered around the city. My Korean barbeque meal. Usually, this would be enough beef for 2-4 poeple, but since I'm a fat western carnivore and not much of a vegitarian, they game me more beef than usual! Geoungju bread, generally only available in big boxes. I finally managed to find a store willing to sell me individual pieces. These are the two main kinds, both of which are filled with a sweet bean paste. It's better than it sounds, but I wasn't a big fan either. Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia, from the 7th century. You'd think you'd want to be higher than 9.4 meters/31 feet to see the stars! I guess that must have been tall in the 7th century! Anopji Pond, with it's lotus plants. And a glowing heart. Part of the rebuilt Imhaejeon Palace. A large model of one of the original gates of the palace. Some artifacts found on the site. The palace overlooking the pond. The klassy part of town I'm staying in. You'd never guess that these were "love motels", would you? Very klassy! But not my hotel, actually. This was my hotel. The J Motel. It got decent reviews on TripAdvisor. And was actually pretty nice, believe it or not. Look at how klassy these rooms are! They have pictures of them advertised outside, so you can choose the one you want by number. I loved the signs on the elevator doors! Now THAT'S klass! Let's get a close-up of the well-stocked sink area. Have you ever seen a hotel room with so many hair brushes? Not to mention the French ticklers! (I actually took these to give as gag gifts to Robb and Elissa in China, but forgot to give it to them!) The Japanese-style super toilet! But the seat heater was left on! And watch out for the bidet spray, set on super high pressure! Talk about a "shocker"! More Klass! Strangely enough, the shower was alone behind these curtains, but around the corner and down some stairs.

^ But the evil minions were actually really nice. After they jumped out at me a few times, when they saw my camera, they insisted on taking the pic of me on the weel. It kind of took away from the whole "evil bad guys out to kill you and take ovfer the world" schtick, but it was pretty cool. And it was a really unique concept for a walkthrough scary attraction, ^^ I suspect that much of the business on that day at Wonder Rakutenchi was due to the cosplay contest. Most of the people at the park were either in costume or with people in costume. Given how much Japanese kids love to dress up as their favorite cartoon characters, it was pretty ingenius of the park to come up with this idea to get the usual sunday cosplay crowd away from shopping areas like Shinjuku and into their park. There were a bunch of families there too, however. Also, it was the last Sunday of the Summer, so that might have brought out many of the people, especially once the weather quickly cleared up. Still, it was a nice, quirky park in a stunning mountain setting. It's worth going to the park, just for the views, which admittedly was the main reason I went. (I got to get some sightseeing done with the views, plus get a credit too! And bet on duck racing! Coming up shortly: Korea!

I don't think I ever noticed the IV bags. I certainly don't remember them!

I think the name thing isn't really an issue for 99.99% of the people who visit these parks. After all, even in a big park, the name is mainly used to promote the ride and to differentiate between multiple coasters. For a small park in China like this, with only one or two coasters, it doesn't really matter to anyone what it's called. They just ride the roller coaster. OIf course, those of us who count our rides need to know! But no one else -- including the park -- really cares.

I'd imagine that was the entire point of the suit anyways. To stop them from selling things at IAAPA and US trade shows. And maybe to stop them from moving more into the Central and South American markets. After all, why else would an Italian company sue a Chinese company in the Florida court system?

Day 7, part 2: Fukuoka/Beppu, Japan. Wonder Rakutenchi, Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway. I arrived back at the Beppu train station from Kijima Kogen park to discover that I’d just missed the bus to Wonder Rakutenchi. Since I was now going to try to make it back along that first bus route to visit the Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway, I didn’t want to wait another 45 minutes or so, so I took a taxi. Taxis in Japan are very expensive, but the park wasn’t very far. It would have made more sense to visit the ropeway while I was already there, but I didn’t want to risk missing out on Wonder Rakutenchi if time ran out. Wonder Rakutenchi isn’t all that much of a park. But what it lacks in rides, it makes up for in location. It’s built on the side of a mountain, much like Tibidabo park in Barcelona, Spain, although there aren’t elevators between levels. The rides are more built along the winding paths. To get to the park, you have to take a funicular, which offers nice views of the surrounding city and countryside, as does the park itself. For rides, they have a medium sized Jet Coaster, which is nice, but nothing special (other than the views), a Haunted House walkthrough, Jungle Safari (a shooting dark ride, where you shoot animals!) and a few other small rides. The park is probably most known for its double Ferris wheel, which presumably gives great views. It had the longest wait in the park, and since time was a bit tight, I didn’t ride it. Most importantly, they have live DUCK RACES! Yes, some may think that it’s exploitative, and I’m usually uncomfortable about such things. But it seemed ok to me. They’re running for food. And after the race, they all get food, so it’s not like they have to run to keep from starving. I can’t see this as any more exploitative than having a cow on a regular farm or riding a horse. And it’s really neat! One weird thing about the park was that they were having some sort of cosplay costume contest of anime characters. So there were all sorts of kids dressed up as characters I didn’t recognize (other than Nintendo’s Mario) with all sorts of fun hair colors. There were even one or two guy in drag as girl characters! At one point, nearly half of the people in the park were inside watching the judging for this contest. Another weird thing about the park is that there are a bunch of animal displays randomly placed mostly around the back of the park. You wouldn’t expect to see a zoo in the middle of a small amusement park on the side of a mountain. There weren’t that many animals, but it wasn’t just ducks and goats and sheep; they had large monkeys and even penguins! I walked around for a couple of hours and rode the coaster a few times, plus the two dark attractions, took a ton of pictures and made my way back to the funicular. I started to walk back to the train station, but ended up hopping a taxi so that I didn’t miss the next bus back towards Kijima Kogen and the Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway. So, I took the bus back to the ropeway, which is what they called a cable car. The ropeway takes you up Mt Tsurumi from about 500m to 1300m above sea level. From there, there are paths to various observations platforms and the summit, plus shrines to “The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.” The views are supposed to be spectacular. Note that I say “supposed to be”. I was walking in the clouds, which blocked out much of the view. Still, it was a neat experience walking among clouds. It’s kind of like breathing in a cool sauna. It was a shame that they blocked much of the view, but I’d been wanting to walk in clouds on the mountains for days now, and I got my wish. I still walked around the entire set of pathways, which takes around 45-60 minutes. And it cleared up somewhat just as it was time to leave for the second to last car down, so I was still able to get a bunch of pictures. I headed back down, took the bus back to Beppu and the train back to Hakata. I'd originally planned to do some minor sightseeing in Hakata, but the ropeway was way cooler. I finally had some time for a real dinner, rather than pub or fast food, and decided on some Yakitori. After all, you can’t go to Japan without having some meat on sticks, right? I walked around a bit, and took a few pictures, packed up and that was pretty much it for Japan for now. In the morning, I’d be taking a hydrofoil ferry to Busan, South Korea. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day! Especially when you consider that there was a solid chance I'd spend it sitting at an amusement park waiting for the rain to stop and for the rides to open. Instead I quickly got through both parks on my agenda and had bonus time to take an unexpected cable car into the mountains. Again, thanks to Elissa for the hotel recommendations. Both of these hotels in Japan were extremely convenient, not to mention both nice and cheap! For Japan fans, the good news is that I saved the best of Japan for last on this trip, and at the very end of the trip -- after Korea, the long TPR China trip and Taiwan -- I went back to Japan, and visited Universal Studios (for their first full blown Halloween Horror Nights!), Parque Espana, Nagashima Spaland and the two Tokyo Disney parks! And all of those except for Parque Espana (which you can easily get to on your own) are part of the TPR 2013 Japan trip if you do the pre-trip add-on. So stay tuned, Japan fans. Next up: Busan and Geongju, South Korea. A ton of culture and Gueongju World amusement park. The castle gates of Wonder Rakutenchi. You have to take a funicular to get up to the park. POP QUIZ: What other parks can you name with a funicular up to the park? The spectacular view from the park is one of the main reasons to go! For some weird reason, they have this big-ass bridge across the park. And they charge 100 yen (around $1.25) to cross it. The bridge, up close. Screw the credit, THIS is why you come to Wonder Rakutenchi! Live duck racing! You gamble 100 yen on a duck! Come on, pink! My gay duck isn't doing so well. If you win, you get your choice of a crappy little souvenir towel or some duck stickers, both of which cost probably a nickel! And hot chicks in anime costumes! Admit it, some of you boys (and a few girls) are jealous! Wait, that's not a chick cosplayer. Japan's getting modern. Work it, girl! There was apparently some sort of cosplay contest going on at the park that day. Here is the judging. Each one would go up and say something to a judge and the audience. Note Mario way on the left! The park's jet coaster, conveniently names Jet Coaster. The coaster sprawls around the middle section of the park. Such a nice setting for a coaster, eh? Haunted Houses don't usually look so medern. Didn't I just see you in Tobu Zoo the other day, Timon? You'd better hide, befor Tokyo Disney realizes you escaped! OK, I'll feed you, poor guy. Despite the warmth, the penguins seemed happy. LOL! Can we pay extra to see this? A cute kiddie flume. The Double Ferris Wheel. Such amazing views! Me, on the bridge. The cat funicular car. The other one is a dog. The Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway. Aka cable car. You can still see most ofthe city below during the ride up. A look down, back at the long, winding rouad through the mountaisn that the bus takes to both here and Kijima Kogen park. Up on the mountain, I'm literally walking in the clouds! At last! There are temples and shrines up on the mountains. That seesm a long way to go to pray to your gods! They're probably mostly there as a toursist trap, Fukurokuju, the diety of happiness, wealth and longevity. He may not look wealthy, but he certainly looks happy and old! So, this is what I'm supposed to see... And this is what I can actually see! Oh, well, I might as well take a picture of me in front of the vast whiteness. So, I'm walking along the paths, and I run into this. And all I can think of is Blair Witch! The summit of Mt. Tsurumi. It's starting to clear up a little. I can see land and water! The sourrounding mountains in the clouds. Back outside Hakata Station. With my hotel in the far right. A ate in the little yakitori restaurant with the red front. Drinking some hot saki (which I didn't like) and some apple liquor (which I did!) And having some meat on sticks! Not just meat on sticks, but bacon-wrapped cheese on sticks! And onions on sticks, too! (both are on the right.) This is just the second round of the meat on sticks, plus some meat dish the restaurant is known for. It was all very tasty!

What exactly does a supernatural drama have to do with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? It sound like someone is trying to add a Disney connection to a show they were already planning to try to get it picked up by ABC.

Day 7, part 1: Fukuoka/Beppu, Japan. Kijima Kogen – coasting in the clouds! This was the day I was nervous about. The whole reason I went to Fukuoka was to ride the Jupiter, one wooden coaster in Japan I hadn’t ridden on my last trip there. Weather reports for the entire weekend had been changing daily all week. In the end, the forecasts settled at about a 40% chance of rain for most of the day, but slightly less before noon. This changed my original plans, which were to go to Rakutenchi first, since it was a smaller park, and then spend the rest of the day at the larger Kijima Kogen. I always like to try to ride wooden coasters as late as possible, since they tend to get faster and better as the day goes on. But with the threat of rain, I didn’t want to risk missing Jupiter completely. And let’s be honest, Jupiter has never been a top-ranked coaster anyways, so I wouldn’t be missing too much by not riding it later in the day. I was already taking a huge gamble by leaving the woodie for the last day, since they would likely keep it closed if it rained. If it rained all day, I’d miss it, which would be a huge disappointment. If it did end up raining, I’d stall at the park, eating and doing whatever they had indoors, hoping for the woodie to eventually open. So, I got up early to ensure I'd be at the park before opening. To get to the park, you can take several different limited express trains to the Beppu station: Sonic or Nichirin Seagaia or Yufu or Yufuin. The limited express trains make many fewer stops and take around 120-130 minutes. If you take the local versions of these trains, it will take significantly longer, which means it would have actually been better to wait for the next limited express train! At about $60 each way, this train ride is NOT cheap. So, you might want to double up and hit both parks in one day! Note that Beppu is also the train station closest to Wonder Rakutenchi. Both parks have busses that run to them from the station in opposite directions, although you could also walk to Wonder Rakutenchi. In fact, the busses leave from stops at opposite sides of the station. I had trouble finding most Japanese bus information online, since the bus schedules were only in Japanese, and it’s hard to figure out which bus goes where with only Google Translate or Babylon, especially when you don’t know the last destination of each bus, which is how the busses are listed. But after e-mailing Kijima Kogen, a nice PR person sent me the bus schedule for the days I’d likely be there. He also let me know that I could buy an “enjoy ticket” at the tourist office at the train station which included admission and the round trip bus ticket and would have saved me over $10, but it wasn’t open when I got there, and I didn’t have the time to waste, with rain looking very possible. Also, you can get the bus schedules from the toursist office, if they're open. The bus ride to the park is a long, winding trip through the gorgeous mountains of Beppu. It was actually only 30-40 minutes, but with the ever-present threat of rain, it seemed like forever! But I really enjoyed the mountainous scenery. When I got to the park, the park PR person actually came up to me in the line to buy tickets and introduced himself and welcomed me to the park! As the only white person in line, I must have been easy to spot. He also wanted me to let everyone on TPR know that they are very welcome at the park! Meanwhile, the weather wasn’t looking good. It was VERY cloudy and looked like it could rain at any moment. In fact, about 5 minutes before the ticket booth opened, it started drizzling, while I was talking to the park representative. He assured me that Jupiter was open, at least for now. Wouldn’t it have been really crappy if it started raining minutes before the park opened, and Jupiter closed for the entire day?!? Luckily, the drizzle passed fairly quickly and never came back! Needless to say, I rushed right over to the Intamin wooden coaster Jupiter, which was all the way in the back of the park! Luckily, it was open, and I got a few rides with no wait. I didn’t find it as rough as many enthusiasts have, but I also rode early in the day, when it wasn’t so fast. But it wasn’t exactly smooth, either. It was decent with a few pops of airtime. What was really cool though was that because we were way out in the mountains, there were actually clouds covering several of the hills. So, for the first time in my life, I was actually coastering IN THE CLOUDS! How cool! When you’ve been in this hobby as much as I have and have traveled as much as I have, it’s not often that you get new coastering experiences! From there, I headed to the other coasters in the park to get my credits in. Although I did stop first at the nearby Intamin 2nd generation freefall ride, which I still think give the best freefall sensations of any of the many freefall types out there. And I’m not just saying that because they’re from Intamin! Plus, the view of the park and the surrounding mountains with the storm clouds all around was pretty spectacular! Next up was the Meisho looping Super LS Coaster, which was fine, but nothing special. Then there was the Vekoma Roller Skater with the ingenious name of Roller Skater. Dragon was a powered coaster, and I don’t even remember for sure if I rode it, since I don’t count them, but I think I did. With so many of them in the trip, especially in China, they’re all a blur at this point. The Gold Rush compact mine train coaster would have actually been really good if there had been anything resembling leg room. I’d been warned that the seats were a tight fit, but this was crazy! I did barely fit, but it made for some painful riding! Which is a shame, because it was a pretty nice ride, otherwise. The park had a short, but decent shooting dark ride and a neat haunted walkthrough with the unique theming like one of those old serials with the evil society of bad guys. Two of the villainous henchmen types even took a picture with me strapped down to some spinning wheel! It was kind of odd having a villainous henchman taking a picture of me, but it was pretty neat, too! Then I went into this TINY 3D 360 degree theater with little stools in it to watch the surround 3D movie Poseidon, which had some of the more effective 3D effects I’ve seen in an amusement park. I’d later see this movie at other parks on the trip as well, though I didn’t sit through it again. The park also had another haunted walkthrough that had theming that was very cartoonish. I’m not sure if the characters were unique to the park or from some popular cartoon. By this point, the clouds started clearing away somewhat, so it was time to get a bunch more pictures. I gave Jupiter another couple of rides. And I was pretty much done with the park in a few hours. There was hardly anyone in the park. I’m not sure if the threat of rain kept people away, or if it was just the end of the busy season for them. All in all, Kijima Kogen was a nice medium sized park with a decent collection of rides and an ok wooden coaster and some unique haunted attractions. While I’m not sure how soon I’d return, I’m definitely glad I went. So, I headed back via bus to Beppu Station to go to Wonder Rakutenchi. Since it was a small park, this would likely leave a lot of free time later in the day. As I headed back to the station on the bus, a solution presented itself. As I passed this stop that a lot of people had gotten off the bus on the way to the park, I noticed a sign for the “Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway”, which was a cable car up into the mountains. I always love cable cars with great views, and I’d been admiring the spectacular mountain views all day. However, I didn’t want to take the chance of getting rained out or running out of time for Wonder Rakutenchi, so I skipped the stop, but planned to possibly return if time allowed. Which it would. But that’s to come in part 2.... Coming up in part 2: Wonder Rakutenchi and the Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway. Plus meat on sticks! And the last update in Japan for quite a while. The bus ride through the mountains to Kijima Kogen park. This clouds are not looking good for the weather today! I might as well enjoy the gorgeous scenery. There isn't much I can do about the weather, other than allowing extra time. Kijima Kogen park. Jupiter, in the clouds. It may be a little rough, but it's still an Intamin! You can see the clouds from the station. Those hills are right up in the clouds! A train at last! It's hard to get coaster pictures with trains when there's hardly anyone in the park! Most of the time when a train was running I was on it! Another Intamin in the clouds! Super LS Coaster, a pretty typical looper. Dragon powered "coaster". A Zamperla Roller Skater. Guess what it's called. Roler Skater, of course! I love the little roller skate cars, especially the bumper brake on the front. The Gold Rush mine train coaster. An evil minion in the walthrough. It's so slow in the park that he's gotten bored waiting for people. Aaah! The minion's got me! Evil minions unite! An overhead bat-man who flies out at you as you walk by. The shooting dark ride had round cars you sit around. A nice carousel. A tiny theater with 3D SUPER 360, new for 2012. It was actually very effective 3D. The little stools in the small room. In the kiddie haunted walkthrough, dinner is served. WTF?!? Is this even allowed on TPR? A scary skeleton in the kiddie walkthrough. Ghosts with candles. Driving lessons for kids. Hey, it's clearing up. I can actually see the freefall! The weird levelled queue for Jupiter. Yay! I can see Jupiter now. And I even caught a train! And a train on Super LS Coaster, too. It must be time to leave! Hey, that looks cool! Maybe I should come back here later. The Kintetsu Beppu Ropeway from the bus. The busses in Japan have an interesting way of keeping track of your fare. When you get on the bus in the middle door you take a ticket with a number that shows where you got on. As the bus goes along, it shows the current fare for tickets with that number. When you get off at the front exit, you pay the amount showed for you ticket number. Even a foreigher who doesn't speak any Japanese can understand it! Back at the train station in Beppu. In Japan, Mister Donut's featured item is... pasta?!?

^ Well, the Fukuoka area parks aren't part of next year's TPR trip, although Fuji-Q and Tokyo Joypolis (and maybe Tobu Zoo) are. Plus Nagashima Spaland and Universal Studios Japan, which didn't come until the end of this trip over 5 weeks later, are part of the add-on. I've put basic public transportation information in this report to help anyone who wants to go early (or another time) and try to get to these parks on their own. And if anyone needs any help or advice, just ask. Remember, Hyperdia is your friend! I'm not sure if Universal or Nagashima Spaland would be first on the pre-trip. But Hakata is about 2.5 hours to Osaka and 3.5 hours to Nagoya by bullet train. So, it's pretty easy to get there. You'd probably need three days to hit the three main parks, and could possibly add in the other two parks I did, as well. Just in case any of this tempts anyone to try to get to these parks on their own. If not, I'm sure TPR will go back to Fukuoka soon.

I think the main reason it was busy was because the park heavily promoted that day as a last weekend of summer promotion. They stayed open much later than usual (until 11PM, something rare for Japan, outside of Disney or Universal for Halloween) and had a LONG fireworks show, as well as lights all over the park, which they heavily promoted. They even had lighting all around the alpine slide, though it wasn't lit when I rode it a couple of hours before sundown. Plus, it was a Saturday in the Summer. Luckily, the large number of attractions spread the queues out, with only the bigger attractions having longer lines. Basically, Gao, the SLC and the pipeline, plus the alpine slide had long lines of 40-60 minutes each. Nothing else was much longer than 10-20 minutes maximum. And I didn't end up waiting for the SLC, because no one was in line at the end of the fireworks. But for the alpine slide and the pipeline, the queue was mainly because of such low throughput. If the coasters at the park had been good enough to ride many times, I wouldn't have had time. But since they weren't, I had plenty of time for everything, even though I arrived a couple of hours after opening, since they closed at 11 PM. Despite being summer, it wasn't all that hot. I suspect that the typhoon that I'd just missed a few days earlier cooled things off quite a bit. Plus, whatever weather systems had had them predicting rain for all weekend, until things cleared up at the last minute. Perhaps the more moderate weather (still in the 80's, but for southern Japan in the summer, that's quite cool!) helped bring out more people to the park as well?

Day 6: Fukuoka, Japan. Mitsui Greenland. Of the three major parks I was hitting in Fukuoka, Mitsui Greenland was added last. My priorities were the woodie at Kijima Kogen and the theming and Intamin and Arrow coasters of Space World. But Mitsui Greenland is probably the biggest amusement park in Japan that I hadn’t been to, so if I could add it, I wanted to. And when I rearranged some of my trip to allow another full day in Fukuoka, it was mainly to add this park. I originally planned to visit this park on Sunday, my last day in Fukuoka. With the threat of rain being able to close either or both of the other two parks that were higher priority, this would have allowed me to rearrange things and replace the other park or parks with Matsui Greenland. But just before the trip started, I discovered that the park had changed their scheduled hours for this weekend since I had last checked them, and was staying open until 11PM on Saturday, which was a big deal, since they’re almost never open that late, and were originally supposed to be open until 5 PM that night! They were doing some sort of nighttime celebration of the end of summer that night which they advertised as being about all of the night lights in the park, and which I’d later find out included a quite long fireworks show. Plus, having the park open so late might allow the possibility to visit two parks that day if I got rained out of one of the other parks, even with the parks being so far apart. Mitsui Greenland is a very big park, both in terms of the number of attractions and rides and in physical size. There is even a section up a mountain that you take a chairlift to get to. And another chairlift across a park of the park, which has been nicknamed the “chair lift of death” on TPR, for reasons I’ll go into in a bit. Depending on how you count your coasters, they have anywhere from seven to ten coasters, with two powered coasters and a pair of coasters, with one sitting and the other standup. They also have a good collection of dark rides and walkthrough attractions scattered all over the park. Plus the usual assortment of flat rides and water rides, few of which I’d have time for that day. They even have an archery range, something I’d see at several parks in Asia. To be honest, they don’t have any coasters that are so good that you’d go to the park just for them, but the whole collection overall is decent. An interesting side note for those I work with, the park is near the city of Kumamoto, famous for its oysters, some of the most popular in my restaurant, although we get them farmed from Washington state. But they're orginally from near here. To get to Mitsui Greenland, you can take the JR Kagoshima line (the same one you can take to Space World, but in the other direction) about an hour to Omuta station. From there, there is a bus to the park that should take about 20 minutes. But since the park was open extra late, I had to take two different trains back to Hakata, because the last direct one from Omuta leaves at about 9PM. If you want to take a taxi and not wait for the bus, the Tosu station is actually somewhat closer to the park (which means a cheaper taxi), but the bus doesn’t go there. Since the park was open so late, I took the opportunity to sleep a little late. And, of course, when I got to the Omuta station, I’d just missed the bus. Who plans these bus schedules anyways? You’d think that if you run a bus whose primary function is to get people from the train station to an amusement park that you’d run it AFTER the train from the largest cities in the area arrives, not just before it arrives, right? I’d run into this wonderful scheduling again several times in Asia. So, I used the time to pick up some snacks at the local store while I waited, since I might not have time to eat at the park. Once I got to the park, I saw that it was much busier than I’d hoped, although it really wasn’t as busy as I’d feared either. But with so many coasters and dark rides, this day was going to be tight, even with the late closing time. It turned out that with so many rides there, only the top coasters and the alpine slide actually had significant lines. I had planned to start at Gao, the biggest coaster in the park, which towers over the entire middle area of the park, but it had a line that was over an hour long, so I decided to get some of the smaller coasters out of the way. I ended up pretty much taking a route around the entire park going clockwise, starting with Grampus Jet, one of the few Vekoma suspended coasters left out there. It was nice, but nothing special, which would be the case with pretty much all of the coasters at the park. I would have ridden the Ladybird powered coaster, but since there was somewhat of a line for it, and since I don’t count it as a coaster (coasters need to coast to count in my book -- it’s in the name!), I skipped it. But I was pleased to discover that the Milky Way pair of coasters, with one standing and one sitting, had pretty different layouts. Different enough to count twice in my book. I only count racing coasters once if the layouts are essentially the same with minor variations. But these were different enough to count them. That made up for not getting the powered credit! From there, I went around the park, making my way to the first chairlift. But the chairlifts at Mitsui Greenland are an attraction unto themselves. Since they have no lapbar or restraint of any kind, they’re scarier than any other attraction at the park! It says something about the Japanese that they even let little kids ride by themselves, since the Japanese aren’t stupid enough to do anything that will make them fall off the ride, unlike Americans – who would undoubtedly sue the park into oblivion if they fell off the ride, entirely of their own doing. The main charlift is a regular sized charlift fairly high off the ground, which made me nervous. But the smaller chairlift in the park was MUCH scarier because the seat was TINY, even though the ride never went terribly high. I’m talking my fat ass barely fit on it at all, and there’s nothing whatsoever to hold you in. And then there’s only the bar that goes between the seat and the top to hold only – for dear life! Look at the pictures and see what I’m talking about! In any case, I got up to the top of the park and enjoyed the view and the horror Tower. Then it was time for the alpine slide. Normally, I’d go pretty fast on these things, but with one of the longest lines of the day (45 minutes or so), the ride was croded enough that you couldn’t get up a really good speed before you’d catch up to the person in front of you. Which was actually good, because I had visions of the accident that Scottish Steve and TPDave had – and their extensive bloody scars – on this ride! I basically made my way around the park, deliberately leaving the Vekoma SLC for last, because even though it was probably the most popular coaster in the park, I’ve ridden so many of them – and would ride many more (both real and Chinese knockoff) on the trip to come. So if I ran out of time, it made sense to leave out a coaster I’ve essentially ridden many times, especially since it had one of the longest waits in the park. This would actually turn out to work out very well for me, because during the fireworks, the queue went from about an hour to essentially ZERO! The longest waits for the day were for Gao, the huge coaster that didn’t really do very much, but had a really cool dinosaur façade around its main lift hill, and Ultra Twister, which had a long line because of its low capacity, with 6-seat cars. The weird thing about Ultra Twister is that you could buy a stick of wood that you could write your name or a slogan on, which they would display in the very slow moving queue. And they also posted computerized pictures of the Ultra Twister champions who had ridden the most times, and the number of times each had ridden. The winner had ridden over 200 times, which is about 190 more times than I’d ever need to ride an Ultra Twister. They’re nice, but over 200 rides on one?!? A quick note on park operations. While they weren't super efficient, they were a whole lot better than at Space World the day before. Of course, they only ran one train on everything (except for the mouse), no matter how many they actually had! It's Japan, after all. So, I managed to get on just about everything I wanted to except for the SLC and was about to go on the Chair Lift of Death, but it was shut down. I was really disappointed, because it was one of those crazy Asian rides you’d never see back home in the US, Luckily, it turned out that it was only down for the fireworks, which I didn’t even know about at that time! The fireworks show was quite good and quite long. Around 30 minutes, which is among the longest fireworks shows I’ve seen at any park! Clearly, the show was the major draw for the day, since afterwards, the park CLEARED OUT. I was smart and headed to the SLC anyways, but there was literally no line! Woo hoo! All credits done! And the chair lift of death opened up, So I got to experience that, and rode it both ways. Overall, Mitsui Greenland was a really nice park, with a nice collection of rides. I'm glad I managed to get there, though I wouldn't be in any hurry to get back there. Who knows if or when I'll ever get back to Fukuoka. I managed to get through everything I wanted to an hour or so before the park closed, so I headed back to Hakata early. I was worried how I’d get back, since the busses were supposed to have ended many hours earlier, and with so many people leaving the park (although I stayed nearly an hour after the mass exodus after the fireworks), I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find any taxis. Luckily, the city or the park was smart, and they actually ran busses as long as the park was open! Unfortunately, traffic getting out of the park was hell, and took and extra 20 minutes or more to get back to the train station. Since I was already cutting it close to make the train, and the next one was an hour later, I was getting nervous. It didn’t help that bus drivers in Japan drive about as slowly as someone in a wheelchair! So, even when we passed the traffic backup from the park, we never drove much more than 15 mph or so! Of course, that made me miss my train by about 3-4 minutes, dammit! So I was stuck sitting at the station for nearly an hour. I find it odd that with the busses in Japan generally being owned by the various train companies which are SO efficient and on time that the busses in Japan run so DAMN slowly. I could have used that extra hour of sleep, since with the threat of rain the next day, I needed to get up very early to catch my 2.5 hour train and 30 minute bus to Kijima Kogen to be there at opening. Taking the train through the countryside of Fukuoka and Kumamoto. I wonder if you can actually buy these dragons in the park's gift shop? You gotta love Japanese t-shirts! They love their Enrish, even if they have no idea what it means or that they have the word booby on them! Not quite a boob credit, but close! Sorry, Robb! But at least I have Slowly life now! Grampus Jet, one of the few Wekoma suspended coasters left. It's nice when a park has the room for a little nature amidst the coasters and rides. I didn't have time to wait for a train for the pictures, but I did manage to snap one from way over here. The Ladybird powered "coaster". I didn't have time to wait for it, since I don't count it. I wish I'd had time to ride the wheel to get some nice pictures of the park and the surrounding mountains. Luckly, I'd be able to get some good pictures from a distance from the upper section of the park. Gao's giant dinosaur towers over the park. Gao sprawls all over the middle of the park. it's pretty fast, but doesn't do all that much, in terms of forces. You have to be really patient and have a lot of time to spare to catch a train on a coaster in Japan. Neither of those describes me! A first look at ... THE CHAIR LIFT OF DEATH! Is my fat ass really going to fit on that tiny seat? That tiny Japanese girl barely fits! Milky Way. One side is stand-up and the other is sit-down. To me, that's not enough to count them as two coasters. But, as you can see, the the profiles are very different. Yea, two credits! Gao and Milky Way. Sphinx. Pretty nice theming for a family coaster, eh? You can see Gao from anywhere in the sprawling park. Mitsui Greenland is nicely spread out, with mountains all around it. Spin Mouse, which didn't spin too much and had a surprisingly short queue. The alpine slide. I wonder if I can find any of Steve or Dave's blood? The big chairlift up the mountain. note the lack of any lapbar or restraints. And the lack of stupid people falling to their deaths. They even let little kids ride alone! Never in Americe! Then again, they wouldn't run with no lapbar in America! A nice view from the chairlift. This view gives you some idea of how big this park is. That's not even half of it! Inside the Horror Tower on the mountain. A head in the head. This might actually be the safest way to use a squat toilet! Ohh, sexy! The view from the upper part of the park. That's a long line for an alpine slide! And that's not even half of the queue! That's the Horror Tower behind it. Apparently, they left the loop from the Atomic shuttle loop coaster when they shut it down in 2009. Such a tease! Spin Mouse behind the rapids. The Panic Jungle dark boat ride. Scary! I always thought that this was a weird idea for a ride, but they're all over Japan. But usually, they're taller than this one. Megaton! Aka low capacity Arrow pipeline. Something to read while you sit in line forever! I'm not sure I'd be proud of having ridden a pipeline coaster 210 times! Hopefully, he did it on days with no wait! I wonder what the 390kg signifies? Megaton! The sun went down while I waited in the queue. The long queue for Gao. I can't put it off any longer. You walk through a dinosuad mouth. The park also has an ice house. The park decided to throw a fireqworks show in honor of the American who came thousands of miles to visit their park! Thanks, guys! Actually, it was an end of summer celebration. It was actually a pretty nice fireworks show. At around 30 minutes, it put Tokyo Disney's 5 minute show to shame! After the fireworks, most of the poeple in the park left. Which meant the SLC which had had an hour wait all day was now walk-on! I actually forgot to take any pictures of it! I could probably just post a picture of any of the doaens of other SLC's in the world, and no one would know the difference! The wheel lit up. At long last, the CHAIR LIFT OF DEATH. I was holding on to that pole for dear life! Seriously, look at the size of that seat. That tiny girl barely fits. I was all panicking on the thing, and she's just sitting there casually checking her watch.

^ Yeah, it was really frustrating. But a few factors mitigated that somewhat. First off, the park was pretty dead, at least by Western standards. I mean, it was never more than two train wait for anything, and that's with one train going out every 10-15 minutes. So, even with such poor operations, the wait was never much more than 20 minutes or so. Also, the park was open until 9 PM, so, even with flying in that morning and stopping at the other park first, I still had plenty of time there. And I really didn't have any other plans for the day, other than possibly walking around Hakata a little. So, I didn't feel stressed or rushed to get everything in, like I might have felt on a slower or more busy day. Still, it's frustrating waiting so needlessly. I mean, I'm used to getting excited to ride when I sit down in a coaster train. At Space World, I knew that I wasn't going to ride for at least another 5-10 minutes! But they get away with it because the Japanese never seem to mind waiting. It's definitely a cultural thing. I'm not sure if it's because they as a rule don't generally question anything and just accept that this is how things are. Or if they're just used to accepting how things are and waiting for everything and genuinely don't mind. It shows in the behavior of Japanese both in parks and elsewhere. For instance, in the US, if there were an empty seat, someone would try to ride in it. Or at least ask. But they don't in Japan. And someone will ask to sit in the front or the back rows, because they want to sit there, and who not ask, even if it means waiting an extra train. They very rarely do that in Japan. They're conditioned to just go where they are told to and not even ask for anything else. I saw this again and again across Japan. And if I would ask for anything even slightly out of the ordinary, like no sauce on some food, they would seem genuinely confused. Like when I asked to have my ice cream cone in a cup at McDonalds, and they said no. It's just not how it was done, and the clerk didn't even understand why I would ask. It's very different from the American standard of giving the customer whatever they want, no matter how unreasonable the request. And it probably doesn't hurt their business, because that is how it's expected to be. And it's not like you can just go somewhere else, where they'll accommodate special requests.

I was just editing my last post to note that the index lists drop towers, but I don't remember riding them. And I don't have any pictures of them. So, I imagine they're gone. If they'd been there, I'm pretty sure I'd have ridden them. Not only do I like them, but for the view of the park and the surrounding mountians. And the park was slow enough that I'd have had the time, even with the park's operations! What's up with the park taking out ALL of their flat rides, anyways?

You make a great point. I really just wanted to see why people think it's better than el toro because i really don't think i will ever find a roller coaster that will knock el toro off the top of my list. As for what happened to you that actually happened to me this year. I went to Cedar Point really to see if millennium force would knock off el toro for me. An absolute huge letdown for me. I didn't hate it but it's no where near my top 10. No airtime and it went so fast that bugs were being smacked into my face and they hurt. On the other side of that was magnum. Did not expect much from this ride but i found the airtime to be INCREDIBLE! I ended up riding that ride more than any other ride during my stay and it actually moved in front of nitro on my top 10 list. Maverick was somewhat the same story. I questioned how good a ride could really be only 110 feet off the ground. The only ride i've been on more intense than that is el toro. 2 incredible rides get overshadowed by an overrated millennium force so great points dragonkhan. Personally, i think Voyage is miles better than El Toro. But that's my taste. But if I were going to go to Holiday World, if would only be during an event with night ERT, since all three woodies get way better late at night. Admittedly, I haven't been there in a few years, so if it's gotten rougher, I haven't experienced it. It's deifnitely a rough and tumble ride. But I like those! But wherever the trip goes, I'm sure you'll have fun. It's a TPR trip, after all.

You know, after a few rides, I was convinced it was a Schwatzkopf, actually, though I hadn't really remembered the details from RCDB. It definitely RIDES like an Uncle Anton coaster. It wasn't as intense as some of the crazier Schwartzkopfs, but it definitely had that feel, with some nice positive G's in the turns. I'll have to see what other pics I have. I mostly took pics of the coasters. Now that I think about it, there weren't actually a lot of flat rides. It was mostly water rides. I think several of the flats have been closed or removed. (According to the TPR park index.) It was mostly water rides, with a rapids and a really nice log flume, plus some water park rides. Most of the other non-coaster rides, were indoor stuff. A whole indoor kiddie area, though most of that was kiddie play areas. The bubble trampoline thing I posted a picture of. A 4D theater, showing the panda movie -- which I just relaized that I've never actually gotten around to watching in any of the languages it's been at the many parks I've seen it at. A simulator. A really cool alien themed haunted walkthrough. A drop tower is listed on the park index, but i don't actually remember riding, so it might be gone. And a ferris wheel. Plus the shows and museums. I think that's it. The Space Disco Nights show was pretty silly, but decent for a park show outside Disney or Universal. I mean, it had a ton of characters, a live band, live singers, a troop of dancers, a confetti bomb and even a train. (?!?) I mainly just went inside to get some pictures of the characters, since they don't roam the park. Probably more than 3/4 of the people in the park were at the show. I think they only run the show in the Summer, because that's the only time they're open nights. I planned the trip to be in Japan for the last week of Summer/night operation of some parks to give me some extra time at Fuji-Q and the Fukuoka parks. I was worried that that would mean summer crowds, but luckily, it didn't. (Well, Fuji-Q is nearly always busy, but the fastpasses and the extra time made up for extra crowds.)

He's got literally weeks worth of video to go through. Give him time!

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone. No, I didn't get to try Fukuoka ramen. The Fukuoka leg especially was quite tight, since the parks actually closed fairly late. 9PM for Space World on Friday and 11 PM for Kijima Kogen on Saturday (but that's the next update.) Once I got back to Hakata by train, it was quite late, and food options were limited. (Though not as limited as the hotel desk who told me I'd have to have conveneince store food would have had me think.) So, I was stuck with the Japanese version of pub food, which actually had quite a bit of western options. I did manage to get some meat on sticks on Sunday, just before most of the restaurants closed. Honestly, I'm not all that adventurous of an eater. But I did make sure to try at least some new local food on various legs, like the famous Gyeongju bread (which was ok), Tapenayaki, Korean BBQ, etc. I didn't brave the stinky tofu in Taiwan though!

I never made it to the park, but I did get tro ride it at Kove Portopialand when it was BMR-X. It was an excellent ride! Hopefully, it can be saved!

I've got to say that T2-3D was always my favorite 3D4D attraction at any park. I've never even seen the original movie, but the whole experience is so well done that I love it. It was even worth sitting through in Japanese last month!

According to Mitch's internet woodie poll, Ghost Rider was top 10 for its first 4 years in 1998-2001. It stayed in the top 20 for 4 more years, and dropped fairly steadily for the next 4 years. It seems to have stabilized in the low 50's. It still ranks fairly highly at 56, but that's probably because of a lot of people like me who haven't ridden it in over 5 years. So we can only base our votes on rides we got long ago.

Day 5, part 2: Fukuoka, Japan. Space World. I know I tend to write a lot of text, which a lot of you probably skip over to see the pictures, but you might actually want to read my description of the park operations at Space World, because they’re damn funny. In hindsight, at least. Space World is a park that seems designed just for me. I’m a sci-fi geek and a sucker for all the spacey theming, even if it’s cheesy. I’ve been to Alabama’s Space Camp and Texas’ Johnson Space Center, although I’ve somehow never managed to get to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, despite its relative proximity to many parks I’ve been to dozens of time in the Orlando area. I’ll have to fix that some day. Space World is actually a pretty big theme park. It has 6 coasters, three of which are among the bigger coasters in Japan. It has a bunch of flat rides and water rides and a mini water park, plus a whole indoor dome filled with rides and attractions. It has some pretty good theming, even if it isn’t all exactly world-class. But they also have a full sized replica of a NASA space shuttle as the backdrop to one of their coasters, which is pretty impressive. They even had a small “space museum” with supposedly genuine moon rocks and models of moon rovers and space capsules and space suits and the like. And, of course, they have a whole slew of space themed cartoon characters with likenesses all over the park, including in their own musical shows, not to mention a bunch of actual genuine park merchandise – something that’s hard to find in Japan! Yeah, I FINALLY got a park t-shirt on this trip! And they stayed open until 9PM all weekend, too! Unfortunately, it also has some of the most excruciatingly bad park operations I’ve ever seen, which really made it hard to like this place as much as I wanted to. The wait to ride a coaster can be absolutely interminable, even with only one train of people waiting! Those of you who visited the park with TPR were probably spared much of this, since you mostly rode during ERT. You have no idea how lucky you are! Be sure to thank Robb and Elissa profusely the next time you talk to them for sparing you normal Space World operations! But if you go on a normal day, here’s what you missed: First they completely unload the train and make you wait completely outside the station until everyone is completely out of the station. With the elevated Titan V coaster, with its elevated station, that means waiting until EVERYONE comes down several flights of stairs. Then they start letting people up the stairs. They don’t actually open the gates until everyone is up the stairs and in the gate rows. Then they finally open the gates, and let people into the trains. Since this is Japan, you have to take EVERYTHING out of your pockets – yes, including Kleenex! They wait until everyone has everything in the cubbies and is sitting down. Then they give you the safety speech. But for some reason I can’t even fathom, this safety speech takes literally 5-7 minutes. I’m not exaggerating. I timed it several times. The ride op goes on and on and on, telling jokes and laughing as she’s going. I can’t imagine what they’re telling you that takes twice as long as the ride itself. (And about 5 times as long as the ride, in the case of the launched Zaturn!) And they continue to tell this 5-7 minute speech all day, even when it’s clearly the same people riding again and again, because there are less than 100 people in the park! It was one of the only times in Japan that I truly wished that I understood the language so that I could find out what the hell they were telling us that was so important that it took 5-7 minutes to tell us while we’re waiting to ride a damn coaster! At first, I thought that maybe they were telling funny stories about the coaster, and maybe people who are scared of it or some stats or something, but a person I rode with who could speak a little bit of English said that it was just safety information. Then, at long last, they actually check the restraints. Then they actually tell you a few more things! And then, just as you’re about to try to kill yourself, they actually send out the ride. Oh, and don’t even TRY to ride with someone you’re not with! They’ll make you get up, even if the person you’re riding with doesn’t mind – even if they’ve invited you to sit with them. One ride op explained that it was because “Japanese too shy”. So 2-8 seats go out empty on every train, forcing more people to wait another eternity for the next train. And Lord knows, they will only ever run one train! As a result, since they count how many people to let up, and since they don’t let people pair up, that means that inevitably, there are 2-10 people waiting in the station for the next train, while everyone else waits downstairs, which is somewhat absurd. In fact, one of the funniest moments of the day came when a big bee came into the station with 8-10 people waiting for the next train and EVERYONE freaked out. And it wouldn't leave for at least 10 minutes. Which, of course, wasn't even one cycle! After 1-3 minutes of actual fun, no matter how good the ride is, you have to decide if it’s worth sitting through all of this crap again to ride again. The sad part is that I’m not actually making any of this up. And those of you on the TRP China trip thought that the Happy Valley parks were bad! Luckily, I liked the park enough that I was willing to tolerate all of this bull, although it annoyed the hell out of me every time I tried to ride Titan V and Zaturn. I’m not the most patient of people. And absurd stupidity like this that makes me waste lots of time needlessly frustrates the hell out of me! I’m still amazed that I walked away actually liking the park! So, back to the beginning. To get to Space World, you take the JR Kagoshima line RAPID to the conveniently named Space World stop. Do NOT take the local train, or it will take you longer than waiting for the next rapid train would have taken! All told it takes an hour or so to get to the park from Hakata, or where you changed trains from Kashikaen Yuenchi. You can see the park from the train station, although it’s a bit of a walk. And you have to walk by most of the park to get to the entrance, though that walk is at least good for getting pictures of Venus GP and its space shuttle. So, when I arrived at the park, I was happy to see the looping coaster Venus GP running. But instead I headed to the side of the park with Zaturn, the Intamin accelerator, and Titan V, the Arrow mini-hyper coaster, since they seemed more notable coasters to start with. (Remember, there was still the threat of rain, although it never materialized.) As I got to Zaturn, the sign said that it didn’t open until 1 PM. And the sign at Titan V said that it didn’t open until 2 PM. Great! Especially with the sky being overcast and there being the ever-present threat of rain. But I did the only thing I could do and headed to the next biggest coaster, Venus GP, a surprisingly good Maurer Sohne custom looping coaster, designed by Werner Stengel, and reminiscent of a Schwartzkopf looper. The funny thing is that while the park doesn’t allow anything on your pockets on the larger coasters, they make you ride WITH YOUR BAG in Venus GP! They even showed me a little hand sign in English that they had ready for the occasion that said that the centrifugal force would keep my bag in the vehicle! From there, I headed to the kiddie Togo coaster Clipper, which was surprisingly painless for a Togo, but otherwise unremarkable. Then I headed to Senyo junior coaster with the absolutely silly name of Boogie-woogie Space Coaster, which has the back half of its cars facing backwards. But the ride op during her schpiel kept trying to get everyone on the train to yell “Boogie oogie oogie!” with their hands waving in the air, both in the station, and during the ride, which was actually hilarious and charming. She loved it when I did it! From there I headed to the indoor dome, since it hosted the indoor Black Hole Scramble coaster, which, you guessed it, wasn’t open yet. I walked around the various displays and kiddie play areas inside, and timed it well to ride the space simulator movie, which was so exciting that I think I fell asleep. When it was over, the coaster was open, which was good timing on my part! From there, I headed back to Zaturn and Titan V and began the long waiting game through a handful of rides on each coaster. Zaturn is pretty much a clone of Stealth in the UK, which I liked. Or a smaller version of Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka. But it’s a fun ride with a good launch, which had only a 1-2 train wait, although that meant around 20 minutes at this park! Honestly, I expected more from Totan V, since I usually like the Arrow hyper coasters. But this one didn’t do all that much. Not much airtime, not much laterals, long, boring helices, yadda, yadda. A decent ride, but nothing special. I walked around some more, and took a bunch of pictures, and got a few more rides, until I couldn’t stand it any more. I did the really neat alien haunted walkthrough, which had a couple of good surprises, one of which really got me. I did a few more random rides and headed back to the other end of the park to walk through the Space Museum, which had various displays of space memorabilia, as well as a display honoring the 45th anniversary of the Ultraseven show. I got a few more rides on Boogie-Oogie and Zaturn and decided to call it a day. Normally, I’d have headed back to Zaturn and Titan V, but I just didn’t want to deal with the operations over there any more. On my way out, I happened to run into the last few minutes of the park’s “Space Disco Nights” show, which I mainly stopped into to get some pictures of the actual life-sized characters walking (well, dancing!) around. It was a corny show, with a buncvh of characters, along with some live singers, and dancers who went out into the crowd trying to get everyone involved. Harmless fun. In the end, though, despite frustrating operations, I had a lot of fun at a quirky, well-themed park with some decent coasters. I’m not sure if I’d hurry back here if they didn’t add something major, but it was definitely worth the trip. I headed back to the train and the ride back to the hotel . When I got there, I was hungry, since I hadn’t eaten all day. But it was late, and the front desk clerks said there were no restaurants open anywhere in the area, even though the area was full of restaurants. They said I‘d have to get food at a convenience store. But I didn’t accept this and pretty quickly found a pub food kind of restaurant that was open very late and had a good mix of Asian and western mediocre food. When I told the clerk about this, he was very surprised. You’d think this would be the kind of thing that they’d get asked once in a while? What was even more surprising is that the next night I’d notice that the restaurant RIGHT NEXT DOOR was actually open every night until 2 AM! How on Earth did they not know this? The standing sign is right at the entrance of the hotel! Excuse, me? Is there a space themed amusement park around here, anywhere? Even if the coaster isn't the biggest in the park, the impressive space shuttle makes Venus GP the most iconic coaster in the park! Yay! It's running! Wait. Is that Intamin track I see? Theming! Pretty. AND educational! Back to Venus GP. What the heck does the GP stand for anyways? They added it later. Cool! Yeah, yeah. Everyone who's ever been here has this picture. Wait? Helices with actual forces in Japan? I thought they were illegal! Obligatory shot of the Clipper family coaster. Watch out for aliens crossing under this bridge! The dome that houses the Black Hole Scramble coaster and a few other rides and attractions. These are supposed to be cute, but I think they're creepy! Well, if the Arrow mini-hyper across the park isn't good enough, I can always simulate it's big brother from Vegas in here! Indoor theming that's supposed to make you think you're in space. Dinosaurs on a spaceship??? Wasn't that just done on Doctor Who? (Actually it was a week after this was taken.) At least it made sense on the show! Finally, they opened the Black Hole Scramble coaster. A pretty typical indoor coaster, with some space theming. Sorry, but if you have problem with your heard, you can't ride. So stop fighting with your boyfriend! Stay away, David. Resist the temptation! (The trampoline I dislocated my shoulder on last year at a park, was a standard trampoline, actually, not one of these bubble thingies.) Zaturn had better be running by now! Yay! it is! THAT's what I waited through a 5-minute safety schpiel for? 45 seconds of ride? Nice theming. And another mountain with clouds on it! I was wondering what it would be like to walk up there. (See day 6!) How about you, Titan V? Are you running yet? After all, just because i haven't seen a train in over 10 minutes doesn't mean anything here! Ah, there it is! It's a decent drop, but not much airtime. So, tnhey built this fairly big coaster, then hid most of it away back where hardly anyone can see it! A nicely themed log flume. I didn't know robots could go to the bathroom! See, Space World IS educational! An Intamin at night. Pretty again. The Space Museum. Another Doctor Who story title! Typical space museum fare. A space suit. Scapce capsules. And space monsters. Who smile and wave. No, they're part of the Ultraseven 45th anniversary display, which took up over 1/3 of the space museum. A moon rock that wasn't actually in the Space Museum, but in another building with a few other space displays. Boogie oogie oogie! (with your hands up!) Venus GP at night. I'm not really a show person, but how can you pass up something called "Space Disco Night"? Too bad I missed "VICKI the LIVE!" These gals went out into the crowd and really tried to get everyone dancing, especially the kids. The show had everything from park mascot characters to hot dancer chicks to live singers to a live band to a train! Is it me, or does this guy in the bluish silver look like a Japanese cross between Bowie and Jagger? The characters dancing, along with one hot Japanese dancer really putting her all into it! But I get distracted by the eagle character who really rocks that glittery dress and boa! Yes, I bought her stuffed character, along with the bunny in the space suit. The kids seemed to love the confetti-filled finale. Actually, it's goodbye, Space World. I actually did have fun here, despite my annoyance at the horrible operations. Some sculpture thing outside the park on the walk back to the train station. In the train stations in Fukuoaka, they had tons of ads for Universal Studios' Japan's newly updated kiddie section. but that's still five weeks away for me at this point. And just a a touch of culture to round out this installment. A statue at the Hakata train station.

Sorry! Someone had told me you guys skipped it! I should have checked, or better yet, remembered it from back when I read the TPR reports of the trip! I'll fix that right now!

I find myself asking myself this question more and more over the years. Because let's be honest, it's pretty stupid to go way out of the way for a kiddie credit, especially if it's a park or coaster you know isn't going to be very good. It's totally the collector mantality in trying to collect all of the credits you can, just like stamp or baseball card or comic collectors want more and more. Generally speaking, the value for me almost completely lies in what else it prevents me from doing. If I'm already at a park, I'll want to ride all of the coasters I haven't ridden. I'm already there, after all. Generally speaking, if I p'm in the US, and there's a park with a kiddie credit within an hour of where I'll be, I'll probably try to pick it up. But overseas, my time is too valuable to spend on parks with just kiddie coasters or other unnoteable coasters, unless the park had more to offer than I'm interested in. This year, in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, I skipped tons of little parks and kiddie credits, because it would have kept me from doing other things I wanted to do, or would have required a longer vacation with even more time off. But if I'm with a group, I'll generally just do what the group is doing, rather than try to strike out on my own during the day. During the TPR China trip, we hit way more kiddie parks than I'd have liked to, but since I was with the group, and since the vast majority of the group wanted to try to get all of the credits were possible, I stayed with the group, and generally managed to have fun. A lthough it did start to wear thin after a few weeks with a ton of credit whore parks. I did skip the pre-tour CreHo day in favor of sightseeing in Beijing, though. And I almost decided to skip some kiddie parks to stay at Happy Valley Wuhan for some extra rides on the high five woodie, but in the end decided to stay with the group. But if both sides of the high five had been open at that time, I'd have definitely stayed.

Although since it was her offspring, with half of her DNA, perhaps it could count somewhat. Especially if it keeps her from having kids again. But before nayone starts laughing at this situation, let's remember that a stupid, senseless, easily avoidable tragedy is still a tragedy.