Airtime&Gravity Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 ^^So is it like Europa in that (in this case) companies show off their rides, or is it like Prater Park in that the rides are owned by various companies, but it is more of a traditional park? Either way, this looks like one cool park. Just asking, was it Nasu or Mitsui that was the "coaster snow day" back in the 05/06 trip? Cool photos Lou, and it looks like you all had a great time on your trip to Japan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRapidsNerd Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 You had me smiling at the Archery part. You had me laughing at the following: Jeff remembers the days when mankind HAD to use bow and arrow to hunt, before guns and microwaves and stuff were invented. And that was a clever and well positioned reflection pic in the elevator. Nicely done. Enjoyed this latest installment. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Mitsui was great--my favorite non-Disney/Universal park in Japan. The Haunted Shrine drak ride with the headphones was pretty cool, too. So, the rides are baically run by independent contractors? No wonder the ops were always trying to herd people into their sections. It's an interesting way to run a park--and helps explain why there's such a great variety of stuff there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteornotes Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Mitsui Greenland rocks. My favorite non-Disney park of the trip (though Space World was very close). It was brutally hot that day, but the park was awesome fun. And you cannot forget the simulator ride, where Chuck proclaimed at the end, "Now I know what it would be like to watch TV in my car". So randomly entertaining. dt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absimilliard Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Europa Park is owned by Mack and is used as a "showroom" for their various rides. The only times they'll call an outside company is because Mack can't build the ride, like Silver Star (B&M), Fjord Rafting (Intamin) and the Zierer Wave Swinger. They also got cool prototypes, like the double elevator wild mouse and Euro Mir. Its the Vienna Prater that is filled with rides ran by independant companies. That's why their crazy Boomerang now has a lapbar train! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrillerman1 Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Lou I'm loving the TR updates. I can't believe I missed seeing the Hello Kitty urinal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted February 8, 2008 Author Share Posted February 8, 2008 Seriously, does anybody actually know what that thing WAS?! I never even looked, I just shoved Joey in front of it and snapped the picture, from the angle I was at I couldn't tell what it really was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeemerBoy Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 ^ I'm not sure. But I do know that the chair lift without restraints is simply awesome. And it'd be ginormously a thousand times awesomer with varied open pits below. I'm thinking one full of gators, one with venemous snakes, and for good measure, sharks with laser beams on their heads. Ooooo, wait, and make it like Splash Bandit. Have people shoot streams of water at you. Still loving the report, Lou! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 ^^Lou, I'm pretty sure it's a kids sink/place to get water. I believe they were at several of the 'family' restaurants in parks. ^And yes...any attraction with pits of fiery death and sharks is instantly perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteornotes Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 ^ I'm not sure. But I do know that the chair lift without restraints is simply awesome. And it'd be ginormously a thousand times awesomer with varied open pits below. I'm thinking one full of gators, one with venemous snakes, and for good measure, sharks with laser beams on their heads. Quit stealing all my awesome ideas for my back yard... dt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjaco Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 ^ I'd like monkeys with chainsaws added please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 ^Would you settle for very irritable sea bass with laser beams? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagemaster_b Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Lou, I apologise for creating a such a train wreck on your thread. I'm a GINORMOUS idiot. Feel free to Oh, and "forget" is one word, by the way. Yeah, I'm notorious for misspelling words that the spell checker doesn't find. Even worse, I still don't find them after numerous proofreads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted February 9, 2008 Author Share Posted February 9, 2008 ^ For get it. The thread was dying, you created interest by randomly attacking me... It's fine! Moving on toooooo..... Day 20-something of my trip: Three parks in a day, and the epic journey to Nagoya! We had to be up at stupid-o-clock (4ish I think) to get our bags ready as they were heading to Nagoya on a bus, and we were going there by train after finishing our park visits. I don't do mornings. Jeff, being a mailman, doesn't seem to mind them. The bastard. At least I got to watch the sun rise through the train window. Shame about the streaky window, but the sky was pretty. Arriving at Himeji station, we were to be picked up by a coach... Spotted this rather snazzy tower on top of a building... No idea what it was, but it looked cool. Bahahahahaha!! I will never get tired of this sign. This guy was so bewildered as to why we were all laughing and taking pictures of him. Bless his little heart. The sign came in handy later too! After arriving at Central Park and having ERT on Diavlo (it was pretty good, but not my favourite Batman), and something else... The itinerary tells me Hurricane, but that doesn't ring any bells! Anyway, whatever it was it was surprisingly fun and I remember Barry making me laugh on the lift hill, horror of horrors... ... So after all that... Joey and I decided to switch glasses. Seriously, I'll NEVER learn. And what the hell the wind is doing to my hair I don't know. I'm rocking the '80s look. All I need is a keytar! Whores on the kiddie coaster, one of few on the trip I actually rode! And I'm glad I did, because I got to witness Jeff lose his sunglasses! This park had one of my favourite ice-houses. Along the ledges in front of the little "exhibits" was actual snow, not just clear frozen ice! Oh, and . We're wearing shades in an ice house... We're so rebellious. Snowball fight... So much fun, just what we needed. Barry, is that... Wait, that's JEFF?!?! Inside the "Shoking *not a typo* Horror Museum"... Apart from falling over, I did really well to not get too freaked out, until right at the end, when the woman reached her hand through the window to take our "flashlight" from us as we exited... Then it was new pants time. Hi Wes! Wish you were here! (And if anybody should happen to remember Robb requesting captions for a photo rather similar to this one... I looked so sad because my giraffe would only go half the speed of Richard's panda. These animals were awesome, but the novelty soon wore off. Ahem.) GIRAFFE POV. LOL!! A hemp shop in a theme park! I love Japan! This park is actually set up ON the mountainside, there's a giant conveyor belt that you can use to get up the side, and it's really quite steep. Next, we moved onto Tegarayama Yuen... I'm sure many of you know the story by now, but for those who don't... We headed to this park to ride their three coasters. I don't know if they outwardly TOLD Robb that the coasters were open, or just implied it, but basically they led us to believe that they were. We get inside, no coasters open. No rides at all open in fact, except I think the ferris wheel. One of the coasters, the slope car, had obviously not operated for quite some time (like, months if not years), and the others were closed because of the impending doom-like weather. Upon complaining, Robb was basically told that we were free to enjoy the waterpark. Gee thanks. This was probably the only poor bit of service I think we recieved anywhere on the whole Japan trip. So, the rain begins, we grab what drinks we can from the slightly dodgy vendor, and sit to wait for the bus to come back and pick us up. Not impressed with the first missed credits of the trip. (And you can see the nasty heat rash on my neck from the previous day.) After the bus collected us, we headed back to Himeji station to catch our train to Kurashiki Tivoli. Chris displays rather impressive breast-feeding skills. Arriving at Tivoli, I was *dying* of starvation, so Richard and Jeff and I went immediately to find food.... This is the size of my burger. I included my thumb to give you the scale... And my thumb isn't particularly big. The burger was ridiculous. But for dessert I had soft ice cream with cornflakes so it's allllll good. I loved this park, I thought it was stunningly beautiful, and would love to see it at night someday, but apart from the atmosphere, greenery, theming, and service (even the park staff emptying the bins and sweeping up were entertainers, dancing and singing and juggling, the sweeper did some really cool tricks with his broom!), not much stands out. The coaster was really fun, sad I didn't get to re-ride, Chris and I rode the flume and enjoyed it muchly, and the kiddie coaster (which I'm slightly reluctant to even call a coaster!) is incredibly sweet, and it was a highlight seeing Kristen ride her first coaster, but I don't think there were any other really amazing attractions. Except for the dessert ride, obviously. However, seeing as a few of us spent half our time at the park sitting around on benches chilling out, I guess I'm not the best judge. Kristen's first coaster. She's all "Yeah, what the hell is this, I've ridden bullet trains, and Mommy can push my stroller faster than this thing moves!" The family car, surrounded by their photographers. Bob's happy to be leading the train! This was hysterically funny and so adorable at the same time. "THE PAPARAZZI, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, I CANNOT ESCAPE!!" "What does this say on the back of here? Can I eat it?" And now, The Journey... To cut a long story sort of short and now bore you with too much detail (again, many of you already know this or else were there to witness it), we had just a leeeetle bit of trouble getting to Nagoya, caused by the typhoon that was hitting Japan. High winds were stopping the bullet trains from getting through, and we got stranded at the station. Some people seemed unnecessarily worried if I'm honest, but most of us kinda figured, we're indoors with comfy chairs and air-conditioning, plenty of places to eat and drink, stores, each other for company... We're fine. And we'll get there. The worst that can happen is we have to spend the night in the station, and even that wouldn't have been too bad. Eventually, rumours start fizzling through that there might be an attempt to get a train through if the winds die down... So we all head up to the platform. At this point Robb started holding up the "Them Park Review" sign in order to keep us all together, the crowds were kinda crazy. On the platform, we're all waiting on a particular platform when Elissa finds out that the train on the other side of the platform might just get us to Nagoya with our tickets... And the mad dash commences. It's all kindof a blur, suddenly we're all legging it towards this train, jumping into different carriages wherever we could fit (it was like a cattle market, no room to even stand comfortably in some cars), with no idea if everybody made it on. Once somebody said Robb had made it I figured we were all okay, he had the stroller and was at the back of the group, so if he was there everybody else should have been. And then, we stood and waited. Eventually we moved a few stops, a bunch of people got off and we got seats, I fell asleep for an hour and a half, woke up, and the train still hadn't moved out of the station, as the winds had picked up again. Five hours later... we reached Nagoya. Interestingly, it turned out ours was the last train to make it there... If Tegarayama Yuen hadn't been closed, allowing us to leave Tivoli early... We may not have made it. The fates were smiling down on us that day! I love that kind of excitement, it totally made the trip for me! Everybody was pretty tired when we got checked in to the hotel, but Richard and I were both dying to stretch our legs after being stuck on the train all evening, and neither of us had had a proper (hi Bob) dinner, so we headed out in search of a 24 hour restaurant and to do a bit of exploring. The weather was dying down and the rain had pretty much stopped, though the winds were still quite high and there was very little traffic on the roads and everybody seemed to be hurrying to get inside, looking worried. Another huge electronics store... Deja vu. (Apologies for crappy photo.) Ooooooh, pretty!! Another crappy photo, this time of the two huge towers built on top of the JR station. We'll be back in one of them in a couple of updates. Eventually we found an open restaurant: Denny's. We had to wait for a table, but it was worth it. Does this menu bear any resemblance to any other Denny's anybody has ever been to?!?! I was totally confused by it and ordered French Toast to be on the safe side. Exhaustion was kicking in and I was ready for bed and then Universal (YAY!!!) the next morning! More soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagemaster_b Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 ^ For get it. The thread was dying, you created interest by randomly attacking me... It's fine! I don't know. It seems of late that I have been acting like a troll. I certainly caused an uproar in the "Cloverfield" thread before my infamous post in your thread. And then there has been all my remarks about X and Japanese X that people seem to take offense to (usually by people who claim that it's the best ride in the world). Oh, and that Denny's had some awesome food. You missed out by playing it safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRapidsNerd Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Another update?! Now this is turning into a good weekend. Glad to see it. Half the fun of travel is the random wierdness that just happens, like the typhoon and getting stuck in the train station. Glad all worked out for the best. I'm rocking the '80s look. All I need is a keytar! (looks around innocently and twiddles thumbs) doop doop de doo..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Tivoli was a beautiful little park. I wouldn't mind spending some more time there and exploring it a bit more fully. My favorite thing there was the walkthrough haunted house with the "Viking" guide--surprisingly gory for a family-oriented park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 These pictures are great. Brings back lots of good memories. It's a lot of fun to see the different pictures eveyone has from the trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrillerman1 Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I like Chuck's reference (err at least I think it was Chuck) to the park name as Tegarayama RUIN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I swear I have read every trip report but this is the first time i remember hearing of the either the park with no open coasters or the train station amazing race-ish antics. Maybe i just have bad reading comprehension? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryH Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I don't remember what I said to Lou to make her laugh on the lifthill, but it was probably something dirty. At Tivoli, I couldn't stop singing the "Welcome to Tivoli" song. Too bad the park didn't have a soundtrack CD or I would have used it in my video. The "Amazing Typhoon Race" was a very interesting time. I remember standing in a crowded hallway between trains. By the time we arrived at Nyoga, iwe just encountered high winds. The typhoon was just a category. As a Floridian, I laugh in the face of cat 1 hurricanes. It takes at least a cat 3 to scare me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebl Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 So you guys are "them Park Review" people. I thought so... Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COASTER FREAK 11 Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Lou, that water on the splash down boat was disgusting, it had orange foam! Haha. I love looking at your pictures, every one has a story and makes me remember so much from the trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagemaster_b Posted February 16, 2008 Share Posted February 16, 2008 Lou, I was hoping for another update before I took off for Germany. Guess I'll have to wait until I get back. Oh well, I'll wave to you as I fly over England. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted February 16, 2008 Author Share Posted February 16, 2008 Universal Studios Osaka, YAY!! Other than Disney, this was the park I was most excited about. I loved Universal Orlando as a kid, as much as if not more than Disney (I always liked Disney, but I think my real love and appreciation of it came later, strangely), and although Universal Hollywood had disappointed me somewhat, I like the chain muchly, and was excited at the prospect of what is almost a Greatest Hits park in a somewhat similar way to TDR. Oooooh, iconic!! After collecting our awesome voucher books that Robb and Elissa had arranged in order for us to be able to get on everything major at least once, we headed inside. After posing for a quick snap with Betty... ...we ran straight over to Hollywood Dream, the park's new B&M hyper... Or mini-hyper... Regardless, it was really fun, I didn't like it quite as much as Raging Bull, but I *loved* the music gimmick, which involved you choosing from one of five songs (Beatles, Bon Jovi, Eminem, or one of two J-Pop songs) to be pumped into your personal speakers in sync with the ride. I chose the Beatles' Get Back the first time around, and Eminem's Lose Yourself on our second ride. Lose Yourself seemed to be a better choice somehow, though Get Back synched up better. I long for the day when you can choose from one of a thousand songs like this. Listening to your iPod while riding just ain't the same. So the coaster was good, and I was itching to go and ride some old favourites from my childhood! Starting wiiiith... E.T.!! Richard and Chris laughed at me because I cried!!! I only have fuzzy memories of the Florida version itself, though I remember riding it many times, if that makes sense (hence the tears), and I don't know how the ride itself compares, but I adored this one, I thought it was beautiful and moving and everything E.T. is supposed to be! And we're insensitive and laughed at the way the girl taking our names pronounced them and typed them phonetically so E.T. could say them. This was one of my favourite rides in the park! Heading over to Spideman, we spotted the Sesame Street characters cornering a bunch of people... I mean, literally. They found some young couple and surrounded them and wouldn't let them out, it was amazing. Richard was chuffed to find Elmo. Not quite as chuffed as Elmo was to find Chris though... I'm not sure which one of us has that picture (except that it isn't me), but basically Chris was sexually assaulted by a Muppet. This is where they would later set up for the Peter Pan show. I forgot my sunglasses this day, left them at the hotel. Not impressed. Props for the show. Which "Dumboed" rather badly, by the way, biggest anticlimax of a show ever. BTTF was okay. I'm still disappointed that no version of it lives up to my childhood memories, though this version obviously bettered California's. Hi Ryan, by the way. Your car sucks. "So you're saying I have commitment issues and an addictive personality? Interesting." Hi to those of you who were all "Where was the onride photo taken??". The giant camera that spins to follow you and flashes repeatedly didn't give it away!??! Richard working while on holiday?! NEVER!! I was amused by these posters, which perhaps says that I'm easily amused, but hey, I like Snoopy! SUBLIMINAL CHAUVINISM ALERT. I miss Spain. But Miles represented in Japan. Also, I love how PP looks like he's giving some kind of inspirational and profound speech here. I loved this section of the park, I thought it was awesome. I loved the whole park in fact, great theming and all beautifully done. We did some souvenir shopping and then stopped for beer and pizza (topped with sausage and eggs... It was delicious... Not that I would know, it was *not* me that took a huge bite out of Chris's slice when he went for napkins... ). Pictured with Richard and Elmo is Snoopia, by the way, named for the fact that he is a Sepia Snoopy. He accompanied me on all long journeys following this day. Even Snoopia couldn't resist having a pint. And apparently he was a bad influence on Elmo! Turns out he's even more of a lightweight than I am! And we all know where too much beer leads... REVERSE COWGIRL!!! (Hi Jahan! ) I love old cars. Know nothing about them but think they're pretty to look at! Ginormous covered areas which up until visiting Japan I had assumed were merely to protect from their heavy rains, but I now know serve the dual purpose of shelter and also to keep the brutal sun away. This was heavenly after such a bright afternoon. We bumped into Ryan and Bob on our way into the 3D Sesame Street movie (I believe Shrek was shown in the same theatre, I seem to remember us figuring out how they cleverly changed the theming between shows). Snoopia puts his glasses on in preparation. *sigh* Any fantasies I had about the Hoffman Guy just disappeared into thin air. Bob's and my desserts. So yummy. Sitting politely and in lines (a la the Japanese) to wait for the Peter Pan show to start... This was probably the only time the Japanese politeness irritated me: I couldn't see a damn thing, but because all the Japanese people in front and behind me were too polite to stand up, I had to stay sitting too. Eventually I got up and went to the back so I could stand up and see... But it totally wasn't worth it! The show wasn't bad at all really, but I had been told it was amazing, and it really didn't live up to that. The best picture of Chris EVER. He's so much cuter than this in person, honestly he is, LOL. Don't know if you're reading this Steve, but if you are, I took this picture for you! Bye bye Universal! I'll miss you! But before we leave, another Taiko drum game tournament. I believe I'm still undefeated (except by Robb). Bob: Hey Chris, does Lou play a musical instrument? Chris: The skin flute? I was going to post some of the pictures from the train journey home, but on second thoughts it's probably not a good idea. I just wanted to write this to remind those of you who were there of the hilarity. All in all, I had a fantastic day at Universal, probably my favourite park of the trip outside of the Disney resort. It was fun seeing different attractions in Japanese, and arguing with each other over what was different. I also got to see an "interesting" version of the show Wicked which people have been recommending to me for so long. It was a 45 minute truncated version, half in Japanese and half in English, but even if I found it hard to follow, I at least learned that I love the music and the costumes and effects are cool, so I'll have to check that out properly at some point. Oh, and the Chinese food at this park? GORGEOUS. After a hectic couple of days, it was wonderful to be able to chill out and spend the whole day at a really good park, and much kudos to Robb and Elissa for sorting us out with the Express passes and stuff so we could do everything at least once and in many cases managed to get re-rides too. I'll try not to leave it as long to the next update, thanks to whoever is still reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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