PTR: My 2007 Japan/Korea trip with TPR

[Loefet]

A new year, new trips.

 

But, I have to finish up last year and do a trip report from the best trip EVAR!!

(and by doing this it will give me some light in the dark and cold winter up here in northern Sweden).

 

For anyone who is interested in some kind of list of all parks we visited, I don't have any but the parks are in order.

 

To start things off:

 

I have been waiting a long time to go on some kind of trip to Japan, and then this came up and I couldn't pass this opportunity up, so I actually to a break from the University to work so I could pay for all this (I needed a break anyway after living one year in Kiruna (possibly the most boooring town ever)). So after working a year talking about nothing other then about this trip with my coworkers (thanks to you all to not go insane) the time for the trip to begin came. And this is a recap of what happened......

 

 

August 31:st

Day 1, The Flight.

 

Coaster today = 0

Coasters in total = 0

 

The started on a rainy August day from the Landvetter airport outside Gothenburg and there i boarded a SAS MD-80 at 10:40 to fly down to Copenhagen (Kastrup airport), after waiting a few hours and exiting the EU I boarded the SAS A340 at 15:45 towards Narita Airport in Japan.

 

Pictures:

 

Flight from Gothenburg

 

Japan here I come...

 

Isn't she a beaut

[Loefet]

September 1:st

Day 2, Arriving in Japan.

 

Coaster today = 5

Coasters in total = 5

 

Arrived at Narita Terminal 1 at about 9:30, rushed through immigration and customs, and after that meat up with Tom by the JR Travel Center at the station, but he wasn't there...

He had some trouble with his flights and arrived about an hour later with another flight, I didn't care really since there were an abundance of Japanese chicks to rest my eyes on .

 

After we met up and got our rail passes we caught the train towards Shinagawa, Tokyo to meat up with the rest of the group, check in and start getting credits.

 

We had 2 parks on the itinerary today with a total of 5 coasters.

 

First up was Aqua Stadium, which was conveniently placed in the back of the hotel complex we were staying at.

 

First coaster of the trip was Galaxy Express 999, a cool Intamin hydraulic launched coaster, with single row cars with T-bars, I wished that I had watched some Galaxy Express episodes before I left so i knew what they were talking about in the long pres-how, but the ride was good anyway. The ride is more or less just a big helix and took some of us by surprise with it's loop and it's power.

 

After that we headed for LaQua, and on the way there we made our first acquaintance with the mass transport system of Tokyo. All went well except for Robb to get caught in the door of the train.

 

First coaster at LaQua was Linear Gale, this is the first Intamin impulse coaster, and it was pretty mediocre especially since they only run it at half speed, but it made a pretty cool noise when it passed through the station.

 

Next up was Geopanic, this was my first encounter with Togo designed rides, and it's good but very WTF at the same time, a fun coaster that I love to ride again.

 

Then we went for Spinning coaster Maihime, this was the tamest of the Maurer Sohne spinner I have been on, but it was pretty fun anyway.

 

Last coaster for today were Thunder Dolphin, and it looked better then it delivered, even though the first drop was awesome. They had the weirdest safety regulations I have ever seen, and the ops were running around and checking everyones pockets for loose objects. But the key for the lookers wre fine to bring on the ride. WTF...

 

We managed to get a few rides on Tower Hacker at the end, this must be one of the best Intamin drop towers I have been on, especially in the side facing the spinning coaster, since the roof over the coaster fools you that you are going to hit the ground.

 

Pictures:

 

Narita Express toward Shinagawa

 

Lobby of our hotel

 

Our room

 

Most awesome toilet ever!!

 

Outside Aqua Stadium

 

A part of our hotel complex

 

Waiting for the train towards Akihabara

 

Mmmm, Intamins

 

Looks fast, but should be faster

 

Somewhere here is Geopanic

 

Wonder if the train designer is a Baseball fan

 

Spinnnning...

 

Next Thunder Dolphin

 

Boarding

 

Thunder Dolphin area by night

 

It gets dark pretty fast here.

[Loefet]

September 2:nd

Day 3, Togos and fast trains.

Coaster today = 5

Coasters in total = 10

 

This day we started early so we could go to Yomiuriland before it opened to get some ERT.... I mean for us to have a Filming Session on Bandit.

 

So we arrived a while before they opened, but somehow there was people in the park riding, but they were so few and the ops let fixed so that we could all ride together as a group.

 

First up was Bandit, not a bad coaster at all, it's somewhat like Lisebergbanan, with swooping drops close to ground and trees and have some forceful turns and some helices. They were running 2 trains this day, one for "normal" Bandit and one for "splash" Bandit. They had multiple places where they soak the "splash" train down with fire hoses, they even gave water guns to by standing visitors 8) .

They also had one Backwards train standing on the transfer track for using when it's to cold to have the wet train running.

 

Then we got on White Canyon, my first RCCA woodie, and I don't think that it to bad, some of the Blackpool ones are worse then this, but it wasn't still all that good either, so one ride would do.

 

Momonga is another shape shifting Togo coaster in this park. On one side it's stand up and on the other sit down. We rode both sides and they are equally good. And I didn't find the Stand up side train be that nut bustin' ride that everyone is talking about.

 

Wan Wan Coaster Wandit, just your average kiddie coaster, but with added bubbles.

 

SL coaster is another strange Togo coaster with really slow lift and heavy breaking on the MCBR:s so it wasn't as wild as it could have been.

 

After a few hours in the park we headed back to the hotel, because we were going to make a 600 mile transfer to our next hotel, and the best way to go long distances in Japan is by train, bring on Shinkansen...

We made a quck stop in Osaka to change train and grab a snack to eat, and we arrived at our hotel in Hakata pretty late that night.

 

Pictures:

 

Train to Yomiuriland

 

Looks like we are in the right place

 

Skyway to from the station to the entrance, that's service

 

And there is Yomiuriland

 

White Canyon

 

Poor mascot

 

Welcome

 

Bandit's entrance

 

Every park have one, and I don't like any of them...

 

Give me some Aquarius now

 

Momonga comes in 2 fashions, sit down or...

 

Stand up

 

Wiii

 

Helixy

 

Enthusiasts doing what they do best

 

SL Coaster

 

Haunted house

 

See last caption

 

The flying Robots Ride

 

Some live action Senshis

 

Battling a pen holder, WTF...

 

Now onto more Bandit shots

 

Robb spots a camera

 

Typical reaction

 

Yes Kitty-chan we will visit you soon

 

Cool Shinkansen trains

 

The red one is our

 

Thats our car

 

Man these trains are fast

 

Whoosh

 

Nice scenic view from the train

[Loefet]

September 3:rd

Day 4, Space and the most insane go-carts ever.

Coaster today = 7

Coasters in total = 17

 

Started our day with a quick stop at "Mr Donut" at Hakata station (as we did every day in Hakata) and headed towards north-east to Space World. The whole park and all the rides have some kind of Space theme, which makes this an awesome place. Another fun thing about the park is that every coaster have some kind crazy thing going on (more of this later). But we got there early for some "filming" and arrived before the park opened and the management were really happy to see us and guided us around between the coasters we were going to film on.

 

First up was Venus GP. This is one of the best coasters I have ever been on, fast, smooth, forceful helices and makes one of the coolest sound ever. The ride goes around a cool replica of a Space Shuttle, and this is the feature that most people know about this coaster.

Before the ride starts the rideop have some kind of game where he screams "Ve!!" and you have to reply "Nus" a couple of times, and then there is some kind of meter that reacts to how loud you scream, and the meaning of all this is beyond us.

 

Then we headed for Zaturn, the non Thorpe version of Stealth. A little better then the version at Thorpe, but still managed me to get an headache down the top-hat. (Can't remember what they did in this station).

 

Titan V is the better of the Arrow hypers I have been on (Ok so I have only done PMBO before), it have some nice airtime and the twisty section after the MCBR is crazy, during one ride it almost felt that I was falling out of the car in the bottom of that part. (On this you also had to do some screaming before they let you go.)

 

Then we had Black Hole Scramble, Clipper and Boogie-Woogie Space Coaster left. Black Hole was a cool indoor coaster with nice light effects and sudden pops of air. Clipper is a small Togo coaster with Shuttle themed cars. And the Boggie-Woggie is the strangest of them all, half the train is backwards, and then you are going through a tetrahedron which is "space", and everytime any of the rideops saw you on the ride they were wiggling their hands in the air (with thumb, pinky pointing outwrds) screaming "boggie-woggie" and all you would do is do the same back. Totally Crazy.

 

Next park this day was Uminonakamichi Seaside Park.

It's a huge recreational area with a small park with playground. The coaster isn't really anything to write about, but the playground are had some cool obstacle course, roller slides and the most insane go carts ever.

 

The carts the self were normal, but the track they ran on OMFG. Some of it were rough concrete, other parts were dirt, water, 5 inch washboard bumps, anything that isn't normal. This a thing you can't find anywhere else.

 

Pictures:

 

Our room at Hakata Miyako Hotel

 

YAY Space World

 

This is what you see when you exit the station

 

Mmmm, smooth

 

Not at Thorpe

 

Entrance

 

I hate you all

 

Loop-di-looooooop

 

Twisty

 

Zaturn testing

 

0 minutes, nice

 

Titan V station

 

Looking tall

 

Crazy flume ride with banked helix drop and airtime

 

There is a coaster in here somewhere

 

Clipper

 

Boggie Woggie

 

Since when can you feel the Space? Maybe the Japanese scientists have found something

 

Nice area

 

The floor outside one of the scary space walk troughs, one of the few that had a room that scared many of us.

 

Business end of a Space Shuttle

 

<3

 

Twisty track

 

Arrow twisty section of death is behind here somwhere

 

Uminonakamichi Seaside Park

 

Jet Coaster

 

Obstacle course:

 

The coaster from the top of the roller slides

 

Best go carts ever

 

Wroom

 

He seems to like it anyway

 

Ice house, nice place to chill out in the hot weather we had

[Team Thriller]

HAHA Some of these made me laugh so hard! Great TR.

I think this is one of the best ones I've seen!

Again! Great job!

 

--James

[UniversalGSHo22]

Does the Obstacle Course have anything to do with NInja Warrior like Muscle Beach???

[Loefet]

^^ Thank you!!

 

^ Probably not, since it's made for children. The people from the park that were with us first tried to explain to us that it was for children and later were tying not to laugh at us.

 

Next update would be last for today, more tomorrow.

[Loefet]

September 4:th

Day 5, Gling, creepy place and worst coaster ever.

Coaster today = 8

Coasters in total = 25

 

After the standard breakfast at Hakata, we were on our way on our 5:th day on this adventure, today we were going to 3 parks and to do this easily R&E have arranged for a bus to drive us around.

 

On the train that morning was an interesting journey, where we looked like fools when everyone just started to rotate every seat in the car and this was also the day of the Chuck incident.

 

First of the 3 parks is Harmonyland, by us named Hello Kitty World. A hole

park themed around the Sanrio characters in Hello Kitty, the park would be suitable for an age around 6-10 bu we managed to have a lot of fun anyway. The parks have 2 coasters.

Rhythmical Coaster is a giant version of a Vekoma Roller Skater.

Hello Kitty Angel coaster is a small power coaster themed to our favorite character.

Other stuff included a Hello Kitty themed version of "It's a small world", a railway that almost could be counted as a credit, some random carousels and other things only found in japan.

 

Next park was Wonder Rakutenchi a weird small park up in the mountains, a small cable railway went up to the park, and the coaster was one of those that failed the big inspections earlier that year. Most of that place looked close but there were some rideops running around to help us get a ride here and there.

 

The coaster was named "Jet Coaster" like many of the other coasters in the country, it featured on of the slowest lift I have ever been on, and the rest of the layout were simple with some nice drops. Not the most thrilling ride but it was pretty smooth and had a nice view.

 

In the lower part of the park there was a canyon with some gas powered cars that were driving around a narrow twisty road by them self, scary to put that much trust in a machine.

 

Last park for the day were Kijima, where they have one of the Intamin woodies that we were going to ride and a lot of other crazy contraptions.

 

First we headed of towards our ride on Jupiter since we were going to film on it. And after getting of most of us agreed that it was one of the worst coaster ever created and it should burn in hell. They had even closed the back part of the train because of the roughness.

 

A little surprise were Super LS Coaster, it looks like it could be a Meisho death trap but this was actually the best coaster in the park. Super smooth and great fun.

 

Dragon and Roller Skater were standard Power Coaster respectively Roller Skater so not much news there.

 

The last coaster of the park was Gold Rush, not only looks like a death machine with tiny cars which you could barely fit, it really was. Even if you like crazy ejector airtime which this coaster have loads of, but by being pinned down in these tiny cars meant that every time you got some air would mean that it would feel that you were going to break your legs, this belongs next to Jupiter.

 

Except for the coasters in the park there was some nice flat rides, "standard" go carts, covered splashdown, Intamin drop tower and Zorbs.

 

Zorbs must be one of the coolest thing ever created. They strap you into a giant hamster ball end then roll you down a hill. This is the most fun I have had in ages, I was constantly laughing on the way down.

 

When talking about the poor ride on Jupiter with Robb during dinner, he didn't think that it was too bad in the front, so I went to find out for myself. During dinner there was a short drizzle so they had closed the ride, but I had nothing to do until the bus left so I decided to wait and see if they were going to reopen it.

After a while when it have started to dry up they sent out an mechanic to walk up the lift to see if it was alright to open the ride again. It took the guy 20 minutes to walk the whole pre-lift section and up the lift-hill and then another 10 minutes before they decided to open the ride again. So I and some Japanese guys that where waiting around got on the ride again and by the time we left the station it started to drizzle again, so when we returned they closed it again.

 

The ride in the front was slightly better but Jupiter should still burn in hell.

 

Pictures:

 

Train on where the Chuck incident happen

 

The bus had some nice Gling Gling in the roof

 

It had a good AC as well

 

Themed trashcans

 

Oooo, its Samaakaanibaru

 

Hello Kitty themed death trap

 

Angel Coaster

 

This thing is fast

 

Half credit, half train

 

Hello Kitty boat ride

 

Entrance area

 

They were like KAWAII!!, and I was like KAWAIII!!

 

Entrance to Wonder Rakutenchi

 

The ride up to the park

 

Map of the place

 

Slow motion

 

Jet coaster through the trees

 

Cool suspended bridge

 

OMG!! Jet Coaster from the bridge through the trees

 

This must be the worst thing I have ever seen!!

 

Car ride station

 

Car ride of death

 

Some Torii

 

if you go up the Torii gates you find this

 

Entrance to Kijima is that way

 

Entrance

 

You are going to wet yourself because Jupiter is so good (we later found out that this wasn't the case)

 

Jupiter

 

You looks so good

 

By the time we got to the helix (left if the skycoaster) we were all screaming, GET US OFF THIS THING!!

 

Super LS coaster doing it's thing

 

Dragon

 

You actually get some nice air of the lift in back row from this thing

 

The horror

 

Even if this track is a part of the theming the, the ride experience wouldn't change much if it was included in the circuit

 

Zorbs are cool

 

100% splash, 0% wetness

 

The mechanic on the lift-hill

[zippo123]

AWESOME photo TR!

 

Looks like you guys had lots of fun.

 

I wish I could go to Japan...

[thrillerman1]

Peter! OMG...cool tr! I totally forgot all about the "gling gling" lol. It was really fun meeting you, and we will always be the original discoverers of the Togo flat ride of death (Expoland)! Can't wait to see more.

[pagemaster_b]

 

There is a coaster in here somewhere

 

 

 

OMG!! That's a horrible picture of me!! I look like I pissed my pants or something.

 

All because of that crazy flume ride. (I was soaked even before we got to the first drop!)

[Zen Coaster]

Great TR and nice photos. Will be great to see some highlights on Coaster Expedition Volume 9 and looking forward to going on this year's trip more and more.

[Loefet]

^^ Muahaha don't walk in front of me when I take pictures.

 

Peter! OMG...cool tr! I totally forgot all about the "gling gling" lol. It was really fun meeting you, and we will always be the original discoverers of the Togo flat ride of death (Expoland)! Can't wait to see more.

Thanks and same to you, I'll probably be seeing you somewhere in Europe next year.

Too bad that I don't really have any good pictures of it.

[Loefet]

September 5:th

Day 6, Gao, Gao Stegosaurus

Coaster today = 11

Coasters in total = 36

 

This were to be our last day on Kyūshū, and this day we headed for one of the biggest parks in Japan, Mitsui Greenland. From the trainstation in the area we had to take Taxis, which was a pleasant experience. Well at the park we had to wait a little untill it opened. This is a place filled with Togos, Vekomas and other strange contraptions.

Another interesting thing was the park was completely deserted, the only time we saw other people were when we went to the McDonald's inside the park, and probably every visitor in the park were there.

Your wristband have a barcode on it which the ride/game operators scanned each time you went on their ride/game, each of them had some kind of lure to get you to ride/play their attraction/game many times, wonder if the park had some kind of bonus system going.

 

Rides:

LadyBird, a small powered coaster which we managed to stall. 8)

Grampus Jet, my first Vekoma swinging turns ride, pretty fun, but there are a lot better rides then this.

Gao, maybe the signature ride of the park, since it has a giant Stegosaurus for support on one of the hills. It's a long ride with pretty violent bashing in the turns and those standard tire-brakes found on other Meisho coasters.

Atomic, a strange shuttle loop that starts with going backwards through the loop. A lot of forces and a smooth good ride overall.

Spin Mouse, standard Reverchon job.

Sphinx, is a small strange coaster along a hillside of the park, not much more thrilling then a small kiddy coaster, but a good way to cool down on a hot day.

Black Hole, a brand new Zamperla power coaster, with a cheesy space theme.

Nio, a standard SLC with the normal head bashing included. The theming and color of this thing is pretty cool, but the ride isn't.

 

The park have 2 chairlifts operating without any safety devices, these ones feels a bit scary at first but they are a nice way to get around in the park. The rapids ride was weak, you barely get damp on it. The splashdown were a lot better, the ride-ops thought that we were stupid not to wear a poncho on the ride, but we explained to them that we were hot, and they let us go, I don't think that I was dry until I got back to the hotel really.

There was multiple scary walkthroughs, a moving simulation ride, an alpine slide, go carts, a bunch of other random rides and of course an Icehouse.

 

Two things that gets a special mentioning are the 2 Togo rides in the park.

Megaton which is one of the last Ultra twister to be built, and it was super smooth and a really fun ride, great airtime and cool inline twists.

Milky Way were known as Fujin-Raijin before the accident with the ride at Expoland crashed. It's a racing coaster with one sit down and one stand up side. Both sides are super smooth with tight helices and god airtime filled hills. But front row on the stand up side is something special, it has the best airtime I have ever experienced. The stand up side is enough for me to sometime return to this place, it's pure awesomeness.

 

Pictures:

 

Taxi to the park

 

And the first thing we saw was an SLC

 

Entrance

 

Mega Man stood guard inside

 

Crappy Power Coaster that isn't powerful enough to take a full train load of Gaijins

 

Look a flying whale

 

Twisty

 

[insert killer whale sound here]

 

Stegosauri says: "GAO!!"

 

Look someone managed to fit in the train

 

Lift-hill shot

 

GAO!!

 

Lets take the chairlift of death to Atomic

 

There is something lurking behind the trees

 

Much better

 

The train is going

 

Spin Mouse

 

Black Hole

 

Nio looks really cool

 

Golden guy says: "Ride Nio and your life will never be the same again.", we ignored him and rode anyway

 

We went up the mountain to ride the alpine slide, and some guy said that we had to go up in that tower to get of the chairlift

 

Before the guy let us ride the alpine slide he said: "You must ride that thing over there first"

 

Some random theming

 

WTF!!

 

Top of the hill from inside McDonald's

 

Best name ever

 

Did I say that this park was empty?

 

Ice house

 

Artsy shot of another Death trap

 

And there we have Megaton

 

OMG!! ALMOST 90 DEGREES

 

Twisty

 

If you ride Megaton 10 times in one day you get to write on one of these sticks and put it inside the station (it was full of them), if you ride 15 or more times they take your pictures, and if you ride it insanely many times you get on the wall of fame, some guy had way over 200 rides in one day.

 

5 of us who rode it 10+ times

 

And now for "Best Ride Ever!!"

<3 <3

(I have to go back and take more pictures of it)

[Loefet]

September 6:th

Day 7, Typhoon day

Coaster today = 10

Missed coasters = 3

Coasters in total = 43

 

This was an early day, we had to be down in the lobby packed and ready to go by 5 am since that's the time the company would come to pick up our bars and transport them to our next hotel in Nagoya. On our way there we were going to make some stops at 3 parks along the way.

 

First stop was Himeji Central Park where R&E had arranged some more "filming" for us.

First up was their newly installed Togo looper, Hurricane, which was like the other Togos on the trip really good, except for a 3.5g lateral jolt in the corkscrews. After a few rides on that, we headed up to the other coaster that we were going to do some "filming" on, Diavlo.

Diavlo is a bog standard BMTR clone, which meant a lot of high forces and tight fast elements. It was really strange to see one standing around in a small park in the middle of nowhere.

The park also had 3 other coasters, one Wacky Worm, a big coaster that didn't really do anything with the imaginative name Jet Coaster and a small Wild Mouse kind of thing that was actually pretty cool.

 

Except for the coasters they also had some walkthroughs, one where a live version of Counterstrike where you ran around with shotguns shooting terrorists and aliens, one mirror/maze kind of thing and the last one was the "Telling Witchhouse" which was some kind of thing to compare if you and your "date" was a match where you ran around with a glowing skull.

And they had a Intamin 1:gen Freefall which was something I had looked forward to for a long time, and it was really cool, and I would really want one.

 

We were supposed to go to Tegarayama Yuen to ride the 3 coasters in this small park, but since it was raining (not) they had closed down all coaster, they didn't say anything about it when we entered the park though, so this was just a big waste of time. Maybe they have closed the rides because there was an Typhoon heading to the area and it would rain later... we don't know.

 

To get to the next park we had to take the train back towards Hakata for a few stations, and the park that awaited us was Kurashiki Tivoli Park. It's really beautiful themed and landscaped place which is modeled after Tivoli In Copenhagen so I felt right at home here. This was also the park where Kidtums got her first credit!!

The park had 2 coasters in total, Odin Express is a long twisty coaster that is surrounded by a fake mountain, it's kinda cool but many lifts and MCBR's slows down the ride to much to be anything thrilling, and the other one is the Tivoli railroad, which almost makes the Train at Harmonyland to feel like a thrill ride.

We did some other random rides including, a non wet Flume with pitch black tunnels, Wave Swinger, Himalaya ride, some Dessert themed ride, and a cool Viking themed walkthrough.

 

After leaving Kurashiki we almost got stuck at Osaka due to that the Typhoon had grown to full force over the area, and trains were starting to get canceled, but since R&E have experienced this last time they were there, they know what to do. They jammed us all into the first train that looked like it was going to go to Nagoya, and in the end we made it. That was the last train to make it to Nagoya before they shut the line. And since Tegarayama Yuen was closed we got to Osaka earlier then planned, so we were really lucky that day.

 

Pictures:

 

Waiting for the bus to Himeji Central Park

 

Could this be the one?

 

I guess the driver drives better then he writes

 

Jet coaster in front of the entrance

 

Iriguchi

 

These things seems to follow me everywhere. It's a conspiracy I tell you!!

 

Hurricane

 

Mmm, loopy

 

Hopefully they will fix that jolt in the screws

 

Imorinth (Wacky Worm)

 

Screwed up Mousy kind of coaster

 

The main reason why we are here

 

Nice...

 

Tom does what he does best. How many places do you know where you can have a B&M to yourself

 

Cool shooting dark ride

 

Yay, Freefall

 

Tegarayama Yuen

 

A bunch of closed rides:

 

The water park was open though

 

Kurashiki

 

We were greeted by this Danish Royal Life Guard

 

Entrance

 

Themed Flume ride (why is there always people in the way on my pictures)

 

Dessert ride

 

Just like in Copenhagen:

Beautiful

 

Kidtums first credit

 

Cool a SEGA arcade

 

Once we arrived in Nagoya, we arrived at this really cool hotel with a giant room

[TheRapidsNerd]

Some great pics! Love The Flying Whale trains. Coolest Arrow suspended I've seen. Also liked the dessert flat ride thing. Very cool!

[Loefet]

^ Actually it's a Vekoma, and thanks.

[Loefet]

September 7:th

Day 8, J-pop and Ice cream

Coaster today = 2

Extra Coasters = 6

Coasters in total = 51

 

After a crazy trip the night before we headed back to Osaka to go to Universal Studios Japan, This was my first ever visit to an "American" theme park. R&E had set us up with some extra Fast Track tickets that were actually allowed so that we could get everything without any hassle.

The first thing we did was to head over to Hollywood Dream for a spin. We went on the train after a short wait, selected our music (J-pop of course (track 4)) and off we went. It ran great even if this was early in the day and the music was awesome and fitted the ride perfectly. I also fell in love with these seats, wonder If B&M could sell me one so I can have it as a chair, would be nice wit built in speakers.

Then we went around the park stopping at every ride that anyone of us wanted to ride. We started with the other coaster in the park, Snoopy's Great Race, this coaster "broke down" while we were waiting because a candy wrapper got stuck in the netting below the ride, but some guy with a ladder came tunning and removed it so they could restart it. Next we did Jaws, Jurassic Park, Spiderman (twice) and ET before we headed back towards the entrance, with a quick stop by Hollywood dream of course, this time we asked for front row, and they just took us to the side and loaded us in the front on the next train.

This time I went for even more J-pop (track 5) and this wasn't as good as the other one, but the ride in the front was awesome.

 

We were done with the park around 2pm thanks to the Fast Track tickets we had, but this was perfect since a few of us were going to go to Expoland as a bonus trip, since it had 6 credits to draw us there, and we couldn't resist. In the beginning 2/3:rds of the total group were going to go on this bonus trip, but we ended up with a group of 5 instead.

 

This meant that we on our own would have too tackle the transit system of Osaka on our own, but it was dead easy with the guiding we got from Elissa before we left.

The first thing we did was going on Orochi, the Japanese version of Raptor. There is a big difference between these, Orochi doesn't have any breaks at all on its MCBR which means that the train just flew through the second half of the track.

Next we went on a simple Arrow LoopScrew called Space Salamander and it wasn't to bad but then again, there is a lot coaster I think that are better then these.

Then we headed over to Daidarasaurus, which in the end is a cheap trick to create the longest coaster in the world. And yeah the ride was long, almost 7 minutes. The coaster made some cool metal sounding noise as it went around the circuit, this noise were heard all over the park.

Next we went up in the Ferris wheel (yeah I know, it would happen sooner or later) to try and locate the 2 of the last 3 coasters and also take some pictures.

Got some Ice cream on the way to the last coasters, this must have been the best tasting ice cream of the trip.

After riding those coasters we headed towards the entrance to see if the mouse had opened, which it had so we went for a ride on it. These 3 are either small or standard ones found at lots of places, so nothing special.

Some of us decided to get some more Ice cream before we left but on the way there we saw something that caught our interest. It looked like a Enterprise with side by side seating, and it had OSTR's. What was this thing? We just had to get on it, so we rode it and it was one of the best flats ever created. It's a mix of a Paratrooper and an Enterprise with lockable swinging of the seats. (Sorry I don't have any pictures of it from Expoland.) We have later figured out that it's and Togo ride called Wild Storm.

After e few spins on that one we went for the ice cream, and the guy running the place asked if we wanted it "Big", we said sure and we ended up with an ice cream that was more then double the size they normally sell.

 

This was the last thing we did before headed back to Nagoya, and later in the evening I headed out to the other side of the station to take a look in the electronics store they had there.

 

Pictures:

 

On our way to the station

 

Guess where we are

 

Here is a clue

 

This place look really yummy with a sweet looking B&M looming over the entrance

 

Test run

 

Inside the park

 

Buy stuff here

 

Snoopy coaster

 

Looks great from this angle too

 

Close up

 

Almost looks like we are in America

 

Airtime

 

Just had to do it

 

Osaka Monorail to Expoland

 

When you see the angry statue, it's time to get off

 

Why is everything white

 

Of course they have to have a Ferris Wheel

 

At least one coaster is running, and I liked the way they have increased the height of the lift

 

Once the longest coaster in the world

 

There is another one

 

Zero g's

 

Strange ride that was parked in that place when we were there

 

I guess all are at USJ

 

Some random shot over Expoland

 

Same shot but on an angle, only picture from Expoland where you can see the Togo Flat Ride of death (lower right)

 

Screeech

 

Looks like it could have some airtime, NOT!!

 

Space Salamander

 

Badly stitched photo where Fujin-Raijin II is visible in the background

 

They have a water park as well, but it was empty

 

Cobra goodness

 

Lock no MCBR breaks

 

Wiii

 

Train back to Nagoya

 

Biiku-kamera

 

Rush hour

 

Cool thing outside the station

 

Some random building

 

And we finish at the same place we started today.

[Loefet]

September 8:th

Day 9, Spain trip

Coaster today = 3

Coasters in total = 54

 

We were picked up by bus today since today was the day we were going to Parque Espana-Shima Spain Village. After a few hours on the road we finally arrived at the park. This was another of the parks we was going to do some filming in.

So we got escorted over to Pyrenees for a couple of rides. And what a ride it was, pure awesomeness from the top of the lift to the break run, fast and powerful.

Next on the menu was the Mack mine train, Gran Montserrat, and this was a really wonderful surprise, fast, smooth and packed a punch with all it's tight helices.

Bullfight Roller Coaster Matador was another WTF ride, when you got off, it almost felt that you have gone match together with a bull.

Other rides at the park included a Flume ride underneath Gran Montserrat which was kind of nice, the park had an Ice house for you to cool down in, some Peter Pan kind of ride, some pirate themed water ride and some totally screwed up dark rides. But I didn't bother much with them with the giant B&M standing right next to them.

 

We took a quick walk around in the art/history museum, mainly to cool off. And I shouldn't forget the escalator ride with its cheesy music and light show.

 

But this park is really only about Pyrenees.

 

After we got back I set out on a mission to go and take photos of Nagoya Castle.

 

Pictures:

 

Yep we are still in Nagoya

 

Stop trying to hide like that

 

In the queue area just before we get on the ride

 

Crazy mine train

 

Really nice forceful drop

 

There is some strange rides down there

 

Gran Montserrat

 

Must be a 500ft Intamin Rocket going there...

 

Now let the drooling commence:

 

What, we are leaving already

 

No please don't leave

 

NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo..........!!!!!!

 

It's dark but warm outside

 

Cool pictures in night mode

 

There it is, needs to get closer

 

Closest I could get

 

Kinda cool photo

[Team Thriller]

I bet you loved going to USJ after all Japan Parks, due to the fact that it is the only one that looks different then all the others.

 

Those night shots are amazing!!!

You are one of the best TR'ers ever!

 

--James

[Loefet]

^ I actually like the quirkiness of the Japanese parks, they are all so strange with lots of different and cheesy rides. Of all parks I visited in Japan, Mitsui Greenland and Lagunasia was the parks I really liked best.

 

 

Can we just skip all Japan updates and go straight to Korea???!

Please! Please... Please...I'll give you a cookie and a button

Well, it's just a few updates of Japan left. So I'll probably start with Korea tomorrow.

[nemesis-storm]

All of the pictures are awesome Peter, I really like the 'Night Mode' shots.

Looking forward also to the Korea pictures.

 

Paul 'Really need to finish my TR of the trip' Chapman

[Loefet]

^ Thanks.

Can't wait to see your PTR.

[Loefet]

September 9:th

Day 10, OMG, that sucker is HUGE!!

Coaster today = 10

Extra Coasters = 3

Missed Coasters = 1

Coasters in total = 66

 

Today was a big day for many of us, not only was Steel Dragon 2000 opened, but look at it it's GIGANTIC!!

So we made our way to Nagashima Spaland by train and (for our second time) Taxis! And we arrived a bit before the park opens, but instead of waiting until the park opened we got let in to do some "filming" on White Cyclone. This woodie turned out to be the second best of the one I rode during the trip. Just a bit shaky but no where near as bad as Jupiter or White Canyon. Not much air but still an enjoyable ride. This one must also be one of the most beautiful wooden coasters I have ever seen.

We were also going to get a head start of everyone else on Steel Dragon, but they were unable to open it before the park, so they let us all take a spin in the Ferris Wheel (they should all be banned from this planet). I tried to keep myself together and used it as an opportunity to take pictures of the park.

At 9:30 the park opened and they let us board SD. they treated us to 3 rides before they opened the ride to the public. I got my first ride in the back, second in the front and third in the back again.

A fun thing with this was that when we first ascended the lift, there were some people that was starting to form a queue in front of the entrance and they waved energetic to us, and we waved back to them. By the second go the queue had increased even more and the people in the front were a lot less energetic this time, while the people in the back didn't really know what was going on so they waved really energetic. By the 3:rd go we got a lot of irritating looks from the crowd below.

About the rides:

Children coaster - A standard Zierer medium sized kiddy coaster, but made a really bad screeching noise when going around the track.

Corkscrew - A standard Arrow Loop Screw, same ride, same pain.

Jet Coaster - Some odd Togo contraption, as thrilling as the Children coaster.

Looping Star - Hadn't been on one of these for ages, good ride but is left behind by it's larger cousins.

Shuttle Loop - My first "normal" Schwarzkopf shuttle loop, still prefer Bullet though.

Ultra Twister - Rougher then the one at Mitsui but fun non the less.

Wild Mouse - Only got the left one of these, wasn't crowded enough to run both sides.

Got on the Bob carts, these things are great fun, like an flat alpine slide with an engine on the back, even got some airtime on the hills it have. A cool thing was that the ride op at the entrance said that i should leave my bag in the lockers at the exit while I rode it, when I returned back i noticed that he had shut the queue so i could return to my place, that's service.

Got on some other random rides before we left.

 

After Nagshima Spaland we went to Nagoya Higashiyama Zoo, which is a small Zoo/Park, but also had a little area with amusement rides. This small park have 3 coasters.

Slope Shooter, a slope car kind of thing, not really a coaster, it was fun anyway.

Jet Coaster is a Meisho coaster with incredibly tight trains.

And the last one is a powered coaster called: Bear Coaster.

 

When we got back to the hotel me and Tom headed out to some cool looking mall and saw the Nagoya tower.

 

Pictures:

 

Even if we were 5 miles away it was pretty obvious where we were going

 

From the Taxi window, getting closer...

 

So long suckers

 

We're first

 

If you don't know the time just look at that big thing

 

Man this coaster is beautiful

 

Pretty

 

Don't stand up!!

 

Cloned Mouse

 

Random Rides

 

The worlds most Giant coaster

 

Shuttle Loop

 

Looping Star

 

Corcscrew and Ultra Twister

 

Jet Coaster

 

Giant Swinging Ships, we found out that the smaller the ship is the better

 

Water park

 

Yay, here we go

 

It goes on forever

 

Mmm, the yellow train

 

Loop-di-loooop

 

Wonder what would happen if you run this at super speed...

 

The Wild mouses hiding behind a tree

 

Entrance to the Bob carts

 

Did I say that this thing is HUGE!!

 

Look at that small train

 

Wiiiiiii

 

The Freefall

 

2 girls that were waving at me both while waiting for the ride and while I took this photo

 

Children Coaster that sounds hideous

 

Didn't I telly you, this thing is really beautiful

 

Train to the Zoo

 

Credit or not, you decide

 

On our way to the mall

 

Damn you Ferris Wheel, leave me alone

 

How cool is that..

 

Underground mall, cool

 

There was a tower next door

 

And blue glowing dinosaurs in the mall

 

The roof over the mall was covered with water which made cool reflections

 

Overview photo of the area

 

Hmm, did I forget something....

 

Yeah, how was Steal Dragon?

 

Well, by the size of it you would say forceful, fast and extreme. But you would be very wrong.

The ride is very gentle, you couldn't really feel the speed, the airtime was soft, there wasn't all that much force in the bottoms of the hills and the ride was super smooth. The ride was fun, relaxing and almost serene.

 

An awesome coaster by my book, I would love to go back.

[Loefet]

September 10:th

Day 11, Quest for the Indiana Jones rip-off and Togo flat ride of death take 2.

Coaster today = 7

Coasters in total = 73

 

Today was another transfer day which meant, meet early checked out and with bags ready to load onto the truck.

We had 2 stops that day on our way to the hotel at Shinagawa in Tokyo. The first one was Lagunasia.

 

Lagunasia is a small park with both dry and wet rides. It's a pretty new park and is a new breed of Japanese parks. it's nicely themed and the quality of the stuff is really high. But they still had some crackpot kind of rides like the older parks have.

 

We were told that they have an Indiana Jones style ride in there somewhere so we set out to find it.

Our first ride we went on was Aqua Wind, which is one of those cool Gerstlauer rides, it's pure bliss, really great fun all the way. Next up was the Flume ride which was the wettest we encountered in Japan and it featured a lot cool special effects and turntables etc.

After that we found Pirates' Blast, a themed coaster/dark ride with cool effects and a short outdoor coaster section, it was a bit rough but fun anyway.

Then we found a coaster with lot of helices and had Killer Whale themed cars, cool, smooth ride as well.

We headed back for the entrance area and found some shooting dark rides, and a 4d theater. But still no Indy ride. So we headed back for some re-rides and in the end stumbled upon the most screwed up ride ever, Magic Powder. It begins with a crazy walk through section, and then you enter a small round car, that travels around and show you scenes about this magic powder, too bad that they didn't have any to sell at the shop.

 

On the way to the next park we learned that the Indy ride had been removed and become Pirates'

Blast.

 

Next up on the schedule was Hamanako Pal Pal, and this place are all about the Togo Death machines. First you have Mega Coaster which both have the Twist and Dive from Manhattan Express and the Inline twist from Viper, the whole thing was really smooth and great fun. The other thing was the Togo flat ride of Death which we found at Expoland. Then there was some other small coasters, another 4d cinema with some wacky video about death, a shooting dark ride and some large flume.

But in the end we had some extra time so we rode as much random stuff as possible.

 

Pictures:

 

You guessed it, these guys have one too

 

Map of Lagunasia

 

Overview

 

Entrance to Aqua Wind

 

The coaster

 

Cool flume ride

 

Pirates' Blast

 

Stellar Coaster

 

Wave pool action

 

Hamanako Pal Pal

 

Bat Flyer

 

Giant Flume ride thingy

 

Strange Wild Mouse

 

Mini Coaster

 

OMG 4g's!!!! It was more like 3.5

 

The actual coaster

 

Drop

 

Drop ends here

 

Turn

 

Twist

 

Oh noes here comes the dive

 

Hyper Speed

 

Wiiiiiii

 

Weak Helix

 

POWER

 

Now to the other ride:

Doesn't look to bad

 

Just a tad faster

 

Still rotating at the same speed as above

 

Wonder if someone got a 360

 

'

Train from Tokyo on it's way to Osaka at Shinkansen speed

 

I think that the park knew that we were coming somehow