davidmorton Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 So I've recently got back from 2.5 weeks in Japan (which was great)... I'll pull together the story bit by bit (unlike my previous TRs, which tend to be a bit stream-of-conciousness in their composition!), and I'll try to add in a bit of "logistics" detail and a few cultural (or not) sights along the way....so bear with me, this might take a while... To save repeating myself, all my flights and hotels were booked though Expedia, who have a pretty good web-interface and the cheapest prices I could see for the various places - recommended! EDIT - (And click though the pictures for bigger sizes (if you care!)) ============================ The back-story... Back in 2002, I quit work for a while (turned out to be ~2 years!) and generally bummed around a lot. Part of that slobbing around involved sloping off "around the world for a bit" (like you do), and part of that involved about a month in Japan for the 2002 World Cup. Now whilst on this trip I had started to spend days here and there at random theme parks (having loved Alton Towers as a kid, but lost the habit as I "grew up"). I can thank a rather splendid day I spent at Dreamworld in Australia for reigniting my enthusiasm and thereafter hit a few parks along my way. BUT since this was at the time a largely unplanned deviation from my "just trek around the world and see whats up" plan, I didn't have much of a clue where to go or what to see (park-wise), so I was restricted to the "obvious" - like SFMM when I was in LA, SeaWorld in San Diego and when I was in Japan, just the Disney parks in Tokyo. Combined with the fact that I was really in Japan for the football meant I was not too bothered, I was rather enjoying stuff like this at the time; Sapporo 2002, Final Whistle against Argentina ...but looking back, I felt that I had missed an opportunity to get to some wacky places...so I resolved "I must get back there some day, see a bit more of the place, and go play on some of their nice coasters"...... Well that day had come...and so a couple of weeks ago I found myself flying from Manchester to Kansai (Osaka) Airport with Yen in my pocket and a plan! (I'll try do it day-by-day with the logistics in there, just to help anyone out who is thinking of the same sort of thing...planning is everything!!!) Tuesday 27/5 Get a flight (KLM) from MAN to AMS then AMS to KIX (~£500) returning from NRT in a couple of weeks time. Long flight and time zones mean I get to Kansai airport at 930AM the next day... Wednesday 28/5 Get off the plane, get through immigration (a bit slow, but not too painful), wander out to the train terminal, validate the rail pass (£220 for 2 weeks go-anywhere-on-JR train travel - invaluable if you are moving around the place anywhere) and hop on a train to Shin-Osaka (cultural aside - its worth getting familiar with a few of the oft-used place name terms...."Shin" = New, "Kita" = North, "Minami" = South, "Higashi" = East and "Nishi" = West and indeed the kanji for these and the place names you are going to, you feel a lot more confident when you can spot the symbols for Shin-Osaka for example. (these just being the kanji for "Shin" then the 2 symbols for Osaka). Having said that, ALL the trains have information in English signs, ALL the train stations have information in English and most of the maps at stations have English on them also.) Anyway I'm not heading for Osaka yet, so at Shin-Osaka I change trains and get on a Shinkansen headed south. (The Shinkansen tracks are always in a separate bit of the station form the "regular" trains, so its a bit more involved than just changing trains, you have to go through at least 1 ticket barrier to swap to/from the Shinkansen, but none of that is a problem.) The Shinkansen zips along south from Osaka and 90 minutes later I'm at Hiroshima station and check into the first hotel I have booked (right by the station, Hotel Granvia, for about £45/night). View from Hotel, Hiroshima By this time I'm pretty zoned out, not slept on the plane so I had been awake for ~30 hours and it was midday... I kept awake the rest of the day by wandering out into Hiroshima city (15 mins walk from the hotel) to have a look around... Hiroshima, the A-bomb dome I'd wanted to come to Hiroshima to see all the A-bomb museums etc, but I was leaving that until I was more awake (!), so I was just strolling for a while, nice city actually. Beside the A-bomb dome Thursday 29/5 Get myself booked (with the rail pass, you get free reservations on trains, worth it to get in the less-busy carriages I guess, the "unreserved carriages" tend to get a bit busy, whilst the "reserved carriages" tended to be more empty) on the 730 Shinkansen down to Kokura (takes just over an hour - fantastic!), hop on a local train 15mins south and here we are at Space World. http://www.spaceworld.co.jp The weather today was (it turns out to be fairly typical for my holiday!), pretty warm, but pretty cloudy/overcast (so my photos don't tend to be wonderful). It rained a bit, but not for more than a couple of minutes and not enough to shut the rides down. The place was empty, a couple of school groups there, but they had all gone my the afternoon, so by then everything was literally walk-on, the ops waiting for riders in fact! I liked the place, it has a fairly uninspired setting, plonked in the middle of some urban-sprawl, but was nice and tidy with a pretty good selection of rides. Coaster wise, TitanV was shut (which was a bit of a shame but I tries not to dwell on that), TitanV, Closed I really liked the looping VenusGP, loops and fast overbanked turns - excellent! VenusGP, looping away like it does VenusGP from the Space Eye and the mini-accelerator was fun (amusingly I've not been on the one in the UK, I have been on a fair few of the other ones tho'), but why don't they build Xcelerator clones rather than these, to me thats a much better use of the space? Zaturn, not Stealth The other coasters were OK, the indoor Black Hole Scramble, Boogie Woogie Space Coaster was novel in that you can sit forwards or backwards (can't recall going backwards on a steel coaster before (apart from XLR-8) - that made me feel ill as well though!) and even the kiddie Clipper was a bit bigger than the usual kiddie rides. Overall a pretty good place and a nice (if overcast) day! Easy trip back to Hiroshima in the late afternoon (gotta love them trains) - job done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted June 22, 2008 Author Share Posted June 22, 2008 Friday 30/5 So back in Hiroshima, today was my day for doing the history stuff. I wanted to go to the Peace Museum http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html, so headed there first thing. I am not usually a sensitive sort, but have to say that the place almost brought me to tears. The pictures showing the immediate aftermath of the A-bomb are just incredible, the entire city flattened etc. All something I'll never forget. Hiroshima peace park, from the museum After a few hours in the peace museum I needed lightening up, so wandered up to the local castle, which was flattened by the bomb, and rebuilt in 1958. Looks a bit older than 50 years? After a wander around that, there is a "typical" old-style Japanese garden just up the road, which was rather wonderful.. Shukkeien Gardens Rather splendid indeed Right then, enough culture for now, hop on the Shinkansen again and move base up to Osaka, get a hotel (Hotel Monterey, which was fine) up by the station with a nice view of the Umeda Sky building from the window in the hallway... Umeda Sky Building (will be coming back here in a bit) I'd been to Osaka before so I wander around the Kita area looking up some old sights. To my consternation, the one old railway station/department store building I remember vividly from my earlier visit (and indeed which features significantly in the Black Rain movie) was undergoing refit and they had managed to introduce a false ceiling in this one area with a stunning roof. Bizarre. Anyway I finally find the Ferris Wheel I'm looking for (not too hard but I had totally missed it on my previous time in Osaka and take a spin). HEP Ferris Wheel Rather good really, you can't tell from that pic but its on the roof of a 10 story building so by the time you get to the top of the Ferris wheel you are pretty high up indeed! Saturday 31/5 I had half-planned to go to either Himeji Central Park or Hirakata Park today, but the draw of a single Batman clone was not enough for me, so I did a bit of Osaka exploring instead. Off to the Aquarium (I like aquariums) at the dockside I went in the morning... Jelly Which had the added feature of being next door to a rather big wheel... Can you see a Ferris wheel theme developing yet? But it was raining, so there wasn't too much to see from the top... Universal Studios in the rain, from the big wheel Trekked over to Tennoji to see what was going on at Festival Gate...as expected the place was deserted, a single coffee shop was open in the place although you could wander around the ground floor all ok. There were signs up that I assume were saying "Coaster is shut, nothing to see here" so I wandered off again. SBNO I knew where I was off to, and that was the Minami area of Osaka, famous for its neon, nightlife and general craziness. Some of the specific crazyness was the drop-ride on this H!PS building; Yabofa is its name... and the not-quite-a-ferris-wheel just around the corner; Wonder Wheel is this one's Both of which were fun, the wheel being better value that the drop ride as that is over a bit quickly naturally! And you can tell they are close to each other After bit more wandering around, seeing the sights We'll come back to this picture later... it gets dark and I head back up to Kita to go up that big building we saw earlier.. Quite a view from up here And you can now see that Ferris wheel on top of the building I was on about earlier... All lit up at night... And the building itself looks cool at night; Looking up Wish I'd remembered to take my mini-tripod out with me! Sunday 1/6 Today was going to be another "culture day", I'd toyed with going to Kyoto but I'd been there before, so fancied something different, so despite Dreamland being defunct, it was off to Nara I went (about 50mins on the train from Osaka). Well what a lovely place Nara was. The town was a bit unexciting, but none the worse for it, but once you got into Nara Park (Nara Koen) it was great. First up there are loads of tame deer just wandering around all the tourists, getting fed and their photos taken; Deer being fed by tame tourists But apart from the deer, the park is full of temples, shrines and the like, Pagodas and temples And some more culture overall a very pleasant place to wander around on a hot sunny day. By far the most impressive was this place, apparently the largest wooden building in the world. And it was HUGE. All to contain a big statue of Buddha. Very cool. Daibutsuden at Todai-ji Temple From the one temple near the top of a hill, you could even see the extinct coasters Another coaster in the SBNO theme...thats 3 so far in this trip So after a rather pleasant day in Nara, I went back to Minami in the evening for some quality neon-time... See, I said we'd come back to that picture from earlier... Wonder Wheel again Oh yeah, Osaka; bicycles everywhere (in the way usually) Dotombori Monday 2/6 You might suggest that its been a while since we rode any coasters? OK then off to Universal Studios Japan then. Nice good coaster Unluckily it rained most of today, not heavily, but consistently which made it all a bit miserable. Got a few rides in on the B&M though and really liked it, not a BIG RIDE, but a consistent one and a good one for the more "middle of the road" Universal Studios audience. You can select your background music for the ride from a system built into the lap-restraint. I felt that the J-Pop just didn't work for me, but a bit of "Lose Yourself" worked just fine. Even the Beatles worked better than the J-Pop Wheeeee Single Rider Q helped on this too, when it wasn't raining there was upto 45m wait, but pretty much straight on with the SRQ. Later in the day it was raining all the time and the ride was walk on (nice that they were still running it in the rain though!). No-one fancies the front in the rain! The park itself was pretty good, similar layout to Orlando, but felt bigger somehow (even though it probably wasn't). Nicer feel to the place than Orlando as well I thought, but maybe I can just put that down to the lack of British tourists The rides are pretty much the same (apart from the dialogue being in Japanese of course), but fun all the same. Waterworld didn't make much sense to me, but having seen it in LA I knew when the big finish was coming Splash! And a bit of time-travel.... Back to the Future indeed Good day, but the weather didn't help for any super-photos! Compare that with the stunning day the day before in Nara - Japan's weather is rather changeable at this time of year!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COOOOLkid Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 Ahh nice trip report!!! It's very interesting to see not just theme parks but those cultural things too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIP Psyclone Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 Wow, looks like Nara Dreamland is completely intact, but slowly rotting away. It's a shame to see Aska SBNO, if only it could be brought to SFMM and renamed Psyclone. Kidding! (But that wouldn't be so bad.) Great stuff, BTW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Thanks for the updates. I am looking forward to more. I will most likely be in Japan in about a month and am looking for ideas of places and parks to see. This thread will be invaluable. Keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeemerBoy Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 AWESOME report! Yay for documenting "culture credits" in trip reports. Thanks for posting this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnguy Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Awesome! This is a really good Japan TR. It really shows how cool the country is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted June 28, 2008 Author Share Posted June 28, 2008 so here we go again.... Tuesday 3/6 Bit of a travel day today, just get the train up from Osaka to Nagoya and then have a wander around the city. They have a (seemingly new?) "Ferris wheel on a building" thing going on, but not quite as impressive as the HEP one in Osaka; The Nagoya Big Wheel! OK, just kidding I mean this one on the other side of the road really Sunshine Sakae Quite a nice city really, much less frantic than Osaka (but the underground shopping areas near the station were still confusing me after being there 3 days). Some wacky buildings in downtown Nagoya So after my ferris-wheel credit, I got the subway up to the castle area just North of the city centre and their castle was pretty good indeed (despite it again being just a modern-day rebuild). Nagoya-Jo Wandered around there for quite a while, taking a few pics (apparently the golden dolphins on the roof of the place are quite significant to the locals) and that was about the day done for me. Here fishy-fishy... Wednesday 4/6 OK, now why I was really in Nagoya, was to get up, get the train (30mins) out to Kuwana station, get on a local bus (Stand #2, Bus#53 500yen) and get to Nagashima Spaland. Enough of them castles, back to big toys now Thats more like it! The place was pretty quiet, made a bit of a queue at one point for Steel Dragon, but otherwise pretty much walk on everything. As for the Dragon, it is absolutely massive and kinda looks bigger than any other conventional coaster I've been on before (I mean that mainly about Millennium Force (even though its only a bit taller) because MF has a steeper hill and turns around after its first drop, whereas Steel Dragon runs straight over its second hill before it turns around, Steel Dragon just looks bigger?) Its really, really BIG More BIGness And a few airtime hills for good measure Anyway, I really liked it, I mean its SECOND hill would still make the top 10 list of big coasters in the world - gotta admire that! The second hill, still MASSIVE The rest of the park was pretty good, even if it pales into insignificance in the shadow of that big Dragon! I worked my way around the coasters, particularly enjoying the Shuttle Loop and the Looping Star. Its hard to avoid that Steel Dragon Unfortunately for me, the Jet Coaster seemed to be undergoing maintenance (it was all roped off and they looked like they were painting it) and the Corkscrew didn't run all day. Even more unfortunately, White Canyon was not running by the time I got around to it (I swear I saw people on it earlier but I cant be sure) - anyway it did run all afternoon, but EMPTY; they kept cycling an empty train for all the afternoon that I stood watching it, but never opened the ride. My Japanese not being good enough (!) to question the state of affairs I never got to ride it It looked pretty pretty though. See, its running, just not with any punters! Obligatory Ferris-Wheel Credit One ride that surprised me as I'd never seen one like it before was the "Bobkart" sitting out underneath Steel Dragon. It appeared basically like a self-driven powered coaster, but was great fun. You controlled its speed yourself and it raced out along this huge steel track. Excellent! Bobkart Station The huge Bobkart track More Bobkart goodness The place also has a couple of wild-mice and an Ultra-Twister (which was reasonably uncomfortable), I'd been on Astroworld's (RIP) and the vertical lift at Spaland was better (but MORE painful, if thats possible). Odd rides, more interesting to watch I think than ride! Ultra-weird-twister-thing and the broken Corkscrew And another thing, Pirate Ships, now I don't like them much but theres usually one in the park. I've seen places (Heide Park) that had two, which always stuck me as odd. But this place had THREE, all next to each other. Granted 2 of them were kinda the same ride and giant pirate ships and the other one was a "normal" sized one, but still... Just how many of these do you need? All in all a really good day! Bye bye Spaland, thanks for a good day out OK, this is the only CP comparison that I agree with! (to be continued!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted June 28, 2008 Share Posted June 28, 2008 Thanks for the update. I am going to get out there in a month when I am in Japan. I just can't pass up a ride on the Steel Dragon. BTW what is the height requirement for Steel Dragon. Is it 1.2 meters (48") like MF or 1.4m like most other thrilling coasters. I have a seven year old who is dying to know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted June 28, 2008 Author Share Posted June 28, 2008 ^ the park map I have in front of me says; "130cm or taller, from 10 to 54 years". Probably not what you wanted to hear. In fact you can see a PDF of the map/restrictions online at http://www.nagashima-onsen.co.jp/spaland/guidemap.html/ (Map 1) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted June 28, 2008 Share Posted June 28, 2008 Ah he is used to it by now. It seems height requirements in other countries are more strict than in the U.S. He went on a lot of pretty big coasters at 48" in the U.S., where in Southeast Asia and China where we are now he can usually only go on Wild Mouse and kiddie coasters. I get tired of hearing him whine when we go on a ride that he can't enjoy. We just make it up to him by letting him go on other rides without us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted June 29, 2008 Author Share Posted June 29, 2008 Thursday 5/6 A real early start today as I need (well "need" is a bit strong , but...) a train at ~7am to get me out down in the general vicinity of Parque Espana for 9am. Anyway I muck up my instructions and get the train to Shima-Isobe thinking that I can get a bus to the park from there. Well you can't. After discovering this via a very odd "pointing and shaking of the head" conversation with the nice people in the bus station office, I get a bus to the NEXT stop down on the train line (i.e. where I should have got off the train!), namely Ugata and from there I can get a bus to Parque Espana. Never mind, had a bit of an adventure travelling around the back-end of nowhere on local buses for a while! (Yes, you can get a taxi from Shima-Isobe, but thats cheating isn't it!) Anyway, you get the point, Parque Espana (or Shima Spain Village depending on your mood at the time) is out in the middle of a big "national park" type area, about 2 hours out of Nagoya by train - well off the Shinkansen route at any rate. It all looked like a really nice area, lots of big hills, trees, water and the like, but the weather was pretty miserable that day, so its natural splendour was a bit lost on me! Not so nice weather, but you get the idea The park itself was quite nice, if a little odd. The top half of the park is on the flat, where there are some recreated Spanish streets/plazas and then a big area with some rides. Then the back half of the park slopes off down the mountain- side to a lake at the bottom. Makes for quite a pleasant circuit of the park, picking off the attractions as you meander around. (The highlight attraction of course being the world famous "Escalator The Ride"; basically a bunch of escalators to help you up/down the slope, but with a very upbeat music system and lots of flashing lights.) Escalator:The Ride If you've made you way down E:TR, you find yourself at the bottom of the park, where there is a rather good (huge) boat ride thing and flying dark ride affair, both pretty well done. The big building in the background is all the boat ride But pleasant boat rides and strolling around the empty park in the rain is not why I've got up early this morning. This is why I've got up early this morning... Old-school B&M at your service Of course its all about coming out here to see the rather excellent B&M invert Pyrenees. Thats more like it! Its got all the elements you'd like, and one that is unique (?), in a loop with added helix; Now you don't see that often And its good. Very good. Shame about the weather though Its kinda like a stretched out bigger Batman, with a cobra roll and helix and airtime pop thrown in. See, I said there was a Cobra Roll The weather works both for and against me. "For" in that the place is pretty empty so I can just walk on the rides when they are running (it rained on and off). "Against" in that when it rained and you rode Pyrenees it hurt. But they were running it in the rain, oddly they ran one train with only the front and back rows loaded, then they swapped the trains over and ran the whole carriage? Riding in the Rain As an aside - everyone else's pics I'd ever seen of Pyrenees were taken from a Flying Island next door to it, which certainly made for good photo-ops. But they have ripped it out, just a big hole remains in the ground, so all my photos are strictly ground-based Next door to Pyrenees is Gran Montserrat, a mine train. This is also pretty good indeed, although they wouldn't run that in the rain at all. Strangely I appear to have taken no pictures of that ride at all - must have been raining too much when I was stood by it! They also have a wacky indoor coaster, all themed as if you are a bull in a bullfight, how tasteful. Its not too bad, but its very odd as you stop in the middle of the bullfight arena awaiting your demise. I wander though the ice-house, the operator tries to tell me something important in Japanese and I indicate that I don't understand him at all. So he repeats what he just said, only this time slower and louder. It doesn't help, but it makes me smile. Chilly! And bless them all, despite the park being empty and it raining away, they all come out to do their parade (but in rain coats). Professionals to the last! Parade in the rain, with that odd Bullfight thing in the building in the background All in all, a pleasant enough place, one excellent coaster (if a little out of place) and nicely run. I get a bus back to the right train station this time and trek back to Nagoya happy with my day out! Friday 6/6 Done with Nagoya now, have a lie-in and get the Shinkansen up to Tokyo. I spent about 3 weeks in Tokyo the first time I was in Japan, so I'd done all the museum stuff and exploring the city that I needed to and I was pretty comfortable about the whole place. So get off the Shinkansen in Shinagawa (right next to Aqua Stadium, but we'll come back to that!), get on the Yamanote to Shinjuku and find the hotel - 2 mins walk from the station exit, sorted! I can't check in just yet, so dump the bags and head on off (up) the Metro Govt Building for some cityscapes; And my hotel is the little pink one right in the middle! Shinjuku is just bonkers. Real busy, real crowded, real bright, excellent! Lost in Translation And you can spot a ride from here (but again, back to that in a bit). Maybe closer would help? Thunder Dolphin in the distance So after the hotel lets me check in (nice room by the way, HDTV as well!) I head on back to Shinagawa and find Aqua Stadium (just outside train station, so thats pretty easy!). Aqua Stadium is some dolphin-show affair attached to a hotel, but being the clever sorts, they spotted that they had a bit of space around the big water tank, so they cleverly slipped in a rather surprisingly not-mini coaster; Galaxy Express 999. I knew this was an Intamin tyre-launched looper, but what did surprise me (after the exceedingly long pre-show!) was that it actually launched around the first bend - I'd expected it to roll round the bend and then launch - what do I know! So it launches you off, does a loop, and rattles around in a couple of circuits - not wonderful but pretty good use of space I thought! Of course you can't see any of the ride from outside, so a station shot is the best you are going to get! You can tell a lot about a ride from a picture of the station Theres also an indoor Pirate ship, but since I don't do them, off we go! I wander around a few of my old haunts in Tokyo, only because they are on the way up to what was known as the "Big Egg" or "Korakoen", but is now "Tokyo Dome City" or "La Qua" (why do they always have so many names for the same place!). So this is a reasonable amusement area attached to the local indoor baseball stadium (the "Big Egg") - and houses the Intamin mega Thunder Dolphin. This was being built the last time I was in Tokyo so I was quite excited about it. Loading the Dolphin First drop Now Thunder Dolphin often gets labelled a "bit disappointing" or "a letdown", but I really liked it. Quite surprised by the negative press it gets infact. Big steep lift hill, great first drop, overbank turns, airtime hops on top of buildings and after the next drop, nipping through Ferris wheels and holes in buildings. Great stuff. OK not quite on the scale of MF or as airtime loaded as Superman (NE) or Ge:Force but still in that league. And you gotta be impressed with it slap bang in the middle of one of the busiest cities on the planet! Nice steep lift... I like The other rides at the park were not really on that scale though. The Big Wheel was good enough (got to get that Ferris-Wheel credit), but Linear Gale (the first LIM impulse thing) was a bit rubbish, and it sounded very creaky, like it was on its last legs! There was a run of the mill spinning mouse, nothing too exciting there, and the other coaster, Geopanic, is currently closed for refurb (reopening 2009 they say). Dolphins and Wheels (Next up Toshimaen, which was not so good) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted June 29, 2008 Share Posted June 29, 2008 Thanks again for the great TR. I am really enjoying your pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ccron10 Posted June 29, 2008 Share Posted June 29, 2008 Thunder Dolphin kind of impresses me because of how it's built and it's height. It truely is a great piece of architecture. I really want to ride it someday. Great TR and pics so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted June 29, 2008 Author Share Posted June 29, 2008 Saturday 7/6 Wanting to avoid "big" parks on the weekend, this seemed like the right day to visit somewhere I meant to get to last time I was in Japan, but nasty Brazil knocked us out in the quarter-finals on a roasting day in Shizuoka and we never made it to the final... which was of course in Yokohama. So with no football to watch, I went off to Yokohama anyway. All big buildings and a very pleasant bayside area. Cosmoworld wasn't desperately exciting though; Cosmoworld Overview I thought that Vanish:Diving Coaster was fairly rubbish and the standard mouse didn't excite me too much either. I passed on the new kiddy credit too. Vanish, uhh...vanishing Clock21, the Ferris credit Got my Ferris-Wheel credit though and spent a while looking at the rather spectacular view from the top of Japan's tallest building. Landmark Tower, c/w a rather coaster-like sculpture! Bit more detail of Cosmoworld A lovely (and not at all really really tacky) touch in the cafe at the top of the Landmark tower was that they had special lovely romantic tables to enjoy the view from, complete with charming (!) electric candelabras. Fantastic! Quality (not) So after mooching around there for the morning, I hop on the train and then onto a driverless electric tram thing (think like the shuttles at airports) and off to Sea Paradise a bit further down the coast I go. This was also a nice place to spend a few hours, just the one coaster nowadays; Surf Coaster A bit more Surf Coaster Which was a Togo, but not as bad as that sounds - quite a good ride, if a little over-blessed with helixes. The cool bit was that it is built out over the sea, which is nice. Splish splash? The other ride of note out here is the rather tall drop ride Blue Fall; Blue Fall, uhh... falling. This one is 351ft high, which I think is the second biggest after Dreamworld's (377ft). I am always spoiled a bit on drop rides, since the first one I ever went on was Dreamworld's (scared me silly) so they all pale in comparison to that! Blue Fall was nice though. The rest of Sea Paradise is made up with various dolphin based activities and the like, but makes for a nice enough place to spend a few hours on a hot Saturday afternoon. I recall the TPR guys being impressed by the one ride, where guys jump off boats as they crashed down into the water (http://www.themeparkreview.com/japan2004/sp3.htm), well they'll be pleased to see that they have made it even more deadly by inserting some power-boat things to avaoid as well now; Now thats gotta be tricky? Or maybe they just don't run the boat/man jumping business anymore. Back to Shinjuku for the evening, it all looks very nice lit up you know; Neon City Lights everywhere Sunday 8/6 Figured I'd head up to Toshimaen this morning as its an easy trip up the subway from Shinjuku. Probably shouldn't have bothered as I thought the place was very poor. Bizarre log-like train! Of their 4 coasters (if you include a little powered one), only the odd-log ride Cyclone was running, in fairness I quite liked that. Their shuttle loop and Corkscrew were all just "abandoned", trains wrapped up in sheets and no signs of life. Shuttle Loop, broke Corkscrew, broke I had a wander around their various flat rides (generally located on top of the park buildings, which was kinda cool in itself), but they were a bit uninspiring also. Having laughed at Spaland's 3 (count 'em) Pirate ships a few days earlier I was gob-stuck by the fact that this place has 3 as well! basically the same set up, 1 giant double-pirate ship and a smaller one off to the side (you can't tell so well from the picture, but the giant ones are in the background). Honestly, do you REALLY need that many? Thoroughly unimpressed by the place, I amused myself for a while taking pics of their horticulture and then went off... Better than the rides Blue? Was I ever! Macro, macro, macro Anyway I went off in the Shibuya direction to get some "culture credits", wandered around a rather pleasant temple; Meiji-jingu, in a park; Big Torii at the way in Which I seem to have taken no great photos of! Its back there somewhere really You write your prayer on a thing, hang the thing in the temple for a while and it all gets sorted...apparently. Letters to (a) god or two Wandered around Shibuya for a while, this is as bonkers busy as Shinjuku but with more department stores! This was a weekend afternoon, hate to see it when its proper busy" Quiet afternoon in Shibuya Thats is for now, still to come; Fuji-Q, DisneySea and a bit more besides! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted July 6, 2008 Author Share Posted July 6, 2008 Monday 9/6 A weird day today...in parts; brilliant, in parts; really frustrating and annoying. Yep, today was the day for Fuji-Q Highland! Getting there; not too tricky from Shinjuku, theres a regular bus service running from the highway bus station about 5 mins from my hotel, but I still had days on my rail pass and I figured that the flexibility from the trains might suit me better, so I ended up going by train - pretty simple too. You just get the Chuo line (limited express so theres not so many stops) out to Otsuki (cunningly pronounced oat-skee) and swap to the rather rural Fuji line up to Fujikyu-hairando. So I'm at the park by 9, but (and its a big BUT), rather annoyingly it has been raining most of the latter part of the trip up through the mountains and I'm not feeling too optimistic. In fairness to the park, they tried to sell me a "entry only" ticket (and then pay-per-ride) rather than a 1-day freepass ticket (because of the rainy weather conditions you see), but I was having none of it and bought the daypass anyway (they don't take credit cards tho'). Now I'd read up on the place and knew how rain-sensitive they were (fair enough I guess) so I was resigned to wandering around the place in the rain for a while. The indoor coaster Zola7 (why its named after the diminutive Italian striker I don't know) opened up at 930 and quickly got a bit of a Q (since it was just about the only thinking in the place running) - say 20 minutes. Rather rubbish ride though, the first half is really shooter type thing, then the guns lock in place for a quick roller coaster bit. All quite odd and uninspiring, but hey it was indoors and I was dry! So I rode the Ferris wheel...they insisted in putting me in the "see through car", basically all perspex for a 360 degree view. Unfortunately the perspex was all scratched up with Japanese graffiti so you couldn't even take a clear photo from the thing. Dodonpa in the rain So I just loitered around for a while...briefly the rain paused and to the park's credit they got Fujiyama up running within about 5 minutes - consequently everyone in the park rushed to it (which was not really that many people!). Luckily I was pretty close to it when it opened up so ended up on the third train out...but boy do they have slow operations; you'd think that they'd come up with a more efficient way of loading the passengers, the train must have been sat in the station for the best part of 5 minutes whilst the passengers got off, get their stuff out the lockers, cleared the platform, hey let the new passengers onto the platform, they cross the train to put the stuff in the lockers, get back on the train then the ops check them and dispatch... I thought the Japanese were efficient; apparent not here! Quick, quick its open!!! Anyway as we are making our way of the lift-hill I finally see Mount Fuji, I knew it was around there somewhere but the rain-clouds were so bad I honestly didn't know where until it appeared through the clouds as I rode Fujiyama! Now that all might not sound that silly, but Mount Fuji absolutely dominates the park, it hovers over everything and I must have been there 2 hours and not even seen it! Made me laugh anyway! The ride itself was good but not great. The first half is very good, really big, big first drop, fast, but the last half is a bit painful and silly, some odd hills and twists that are just painful after the pretty smooth first half. Quite a long ride as well, so overall I liked it, but it could have been a bit better with a smoother ending. Oh and it started to rain again as I was riding it, so they shut it down again. So now having located Mount Fuji, I went off and watched it for a while as it hid amongst the clouds. Its there somewhere...big mountain, can't miss it? Still raining I had a go on Gundam Crisis, only because it was indoors! I had no idea exactly what a "Gundam" was, not why he might be in crisis, but when in Rome... It seems that there is a big robot thing (aha thats a Gundam) and he'd needs an upgrade to beat some bad-buys. So all the Gundam-helpers (ie us punters) have to run around with some PDA things, swiping them on some panels dotted around this building. When we've done that for a while (I swear mine was broken as it never seemed to work) we get let through to the next room, where we meet the big robot guy, only he's a bit rubbish as he's all lying down and broken-like (actually he's quite impressive, its huge and well- detailed). We do the running around swiping thing for a while longer and thats about it. I'm sure I'm missing some subtleties of the thing, but hey its all Japanese to me! Actually was well done if you knew what was going on. The capacity must suck though as its easily a 15 minute cycle. Having rescued/helped/killed/broken/repaired Gundam and had some food while watching Fujisan hide behind the weather.... Fujisan with Clouds ...I notice something that brigs joy to my heart...blue sky.... Yippee! ...and yes the rain has stopped! Now Fujiyama gets running quite quickly, but they are a bit more circumspect with the other rides. So I stand in the middle of the park, trying to spot which ride will open first. They start testing the mouse so that wins! They test the mouse for a very long time indeed (OK probably 20 minutes) and then let the queue in, so after another 5 minutes I get to ride the second coaster of the day! Not your normal mouse, so that was different, not as smooth as a Mack but OK I guess. Mouse from a bit later on that day, Zola7 in the background As I'm queuing for the mouse, they had started to test Dodonpa, and then a couple of minutes later Eejanaika starts up. The day has suddenly got better, much better indeed. So I race over to Dodonpa and they have only just opened the queue, there are 19 people ahead of me in the queue. Result. Dodonpa suffers the same rather inefficient boarding as Fujiyama, but with only 3 trains ahead of me (they were only loading 3 rows out of 4?) I end up on the front row pretty quickly. The launch is very very impressive, well at least the first second or so of it as you launch out of the tunnel. Somehow I found the launch on TTD and KK more impressive overall, but that first instant is wonderful. You race around and up over the hill, which is just brutal, you'd expect it float over nicely but it just yanks you over the top. Ouch. Dodonpa, and look at all that blue sky! Right then, now we're talking. Off to Eejanaika which has built up a bit of a queue whilst I was playing on Dodonpa, but nothing too bad. 15 minutes enjoying the lovely music in the station (and I did enjoy it really) and we are on! Now let me pause for a second here, I was REALLY looking forward to this one. I'd been to SFMM twice since X opened and it was broken both times so this was going to be totally new for me. And I loved it. The operations were a bit better thought out here, they could cope with loading and unloading at the same time, but it was still fairly sluggish and they were only running one train, but I get assigned the back row and off we go. Eejanaika! Opinions seemed to be divided on these coasters, yep it was a bit rough in places, but thats the point isn't it? Totally disorientating and just wonderful. Can you tell I'm a fan? Eejanaika!! If I come off a ride laughing to myself then thats a good sign, and I was giggling away on this one! Eejanaika!!! Straight back on and I'm on the front row this time. I will go as far as to say that the instant when you are sat on the front row and spin off the lift hill into that first drop is the single most impressive "coaster-moment" I can remember. It only lasts a moment and then you are away off into fast,spinny chaos. But it is beautiful. Me like much So having "done the big 3" I wander off round the rest of the park, this time in the sunshine. The Hamster-coaster thing is a bit dull but offers a nice view of the building site for next season's water-raft ride (located between the Hamster ride and the haunted hospital (which I didn't go through)). Hamster:The Ride Take a few photos for posterity... Fujisan and Dodonpa (quite pleased with that one!) Turned out nice again. Rode the kiddie coaster for the credit (not proud about that and they only give you one lap, rubbish). Get to reride all of the big 3 again with no wait (in fact Eejanaika they are waiting to fill trains up before they dispatch), happy mood! Come 5pm, the rain clouds are on their way back so I call it a day. A good day, well a good half day after a poor morning. I can totally see why the place gets slated for slow ops, poor themeing (vast expanses of concrete, the odd nice area like Thomas-Town then more concrete!), and low capacity. But since I was there on a very quiet day I had done everything I wanted to in the space of about 2 hours! Now I mention the rain - well it did come back, and how. Get the train back to the thriving metropolis of Otsuki; Downtown Otsuki and then the train back to Shinjuku.... BUT about 20 mins out of Shinjuku we stop. And wait at a station. Odd. Japanese trains are always on time? And wait. And then get hit my a ALMIGHTLY storm, throwing it down, lighting bolts, the lot. So we wait on the train stationary for an hour before the weather relents and I get back to Shinjuku in 3 hours not 2. Didn't really spoil my mood, had a good day and figure tomorrow I'll go to DisneySea to keep them good vibes rolling.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 Thanks again for another great update. Mt. Fuji looks so dominating in the background. I look forward to seeing your DisneySea update. I will be in Japan from August 24th to September 5th. I can't wait. (Even if I am going to go broke!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gav- Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 That dodonpa pic with mount Fuji is beautiful man, good stuff! Very nice TR so far, I liked reading it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 This is a great report. I miss Japan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angryemobeaver Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Great PTR! I have always wanted to go to Japan, especially to go to Fujiyama Highlands, and Nagashima Spa Land! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PKI Jizzman Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Excellent, excellent, excellent! Wow dude, some really great photos in there! Some...I mean, all! This TR is a treat! Keep it up! -JZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted July 12, 2008 Author Share Posted July 12, 2008 Tuesday 10/6 FINALLY I get to DisneySea... I was deliberately leaving this until last to leave the country on a high - but as it turned out I went somewhere else the next day, mainly because the weather looked good today and I figured I'd be at the park all day! First things first though, DisneySea is easy to get to from Shinjuku, just change lines at Tokyo station (bit of a trek between the lines here though) and you are away! BUT since I was pausing at Tokyo station I popped over to the Imperial Palace (10 mins walk away) for a culture credit or two. Palace and bridge Odd, this is just about as close as you can get to it, apart from 2 days a year when the hoi-polloi are allowed inside! Classic "tourist shots" these! Right, done the culture for the day, off to Mickey-ville. I didn't do DisneyLand for a number of reasons... 1) I'd been there before 2) I'd been to LA's and Orlando's within recent memory 3) and I don't really like them - they leave me a bit cold and "so what?". I guess I'm just not the target audience! But I'd been to DisneySea before and loved it...so off I went again. Its.......DISNEYSEA Now I'm not going to ramble on about my excellent day in the park too much that'd take me AGES, so I'll just make a few observations and dump a load of pictures on you! Since I'd been before, they had added two new rides, Raging Spirits and of course Tower of Terror. I was rather underwhelmed by Raging Spirits to be honest, its pretty compact and a bit soulless (for a Disney ride). Fire effects were good on it - I actually rather thought it let down the rest of the park, being (IMHO) a bit low-quality for the place! Raging Spirits, it loops you know Tower of Terror - this however was excellent! Obviously the same sort of thing as the Orlando/LA ones (not been to Paris though to see that one), but a different back-story involving some olde-worlde explorer and a evil haunted idol. Some groovy effects in the pre-show rooms (which even in Japanese were probably better that the Twilight Zone story). The ride was on a par with the DCA one, the drops not as varied as the Orlando one, but still excellent. And the building rather dominates that end of the park! Quite a big building then! Indoor zone themeing bit This was "down" - something to do with a crashed ride vehicle? (Ok not really, just more great themeing Ships and Volcanoes They don't do "Parades" but big "water-shows" Boats run all around the park (Raging Spirits skulking there in the background) More boats and themeing in one of the kiddie areas Turns out I'm in Venice really Towers, Boats Not a real ship, posh restaurants! More boats and Volcanoes Towers, Ships AND Boats Some rather good rides in amongst the themeing! Aquatopia; Stacking on Raging Spirits! (just a temporary glitch) Coaster credit #2 (since I didn't ride it last time I was here) The volcano was running occasionally, even if "Journey" wasn't Just ugly this place isn't it? No attention to detail or anything! Boats and Indiana Jones in the background They made a film of this ride (ok not really). The ride is better. Some nifty fire effects on raging Spirits (best bit of the ride) Theres a whole Arabian section too More Arabian goodness Look, I've found Nemo. The Tower is all rather well done And as it gets dark.... Dusk approaches over the lake Its getting darker... Lights off, Volcano on When the light goes down the place looks even better! More night shots! This is all the on-site hotel I guess its a bit pricey? The night time spectacular was a bit impressive, all "Fire and Water" played out over the lake... This would be the "Fire" bit, a big dragon, flames on the lake that sort of thing This would be the "Water" bit, a big fountain thing wandering around Apparently they are in love and this is all very amicable It was a bit windy, so they cancelled the fireworks - about the only downer of the day. Bye bye DisneySea, thanks for having me! Best park in the world? You know, I don't think its even a close race! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted July 12, 2008 Share Posted July 12, 2008 Thanks again. I can't wait for DisneySea when we visit in August. We were going to visit Disney on our last few days in Tokyo, but is seems a lot goes down for refurb on September 1, so we will start our Japan trip at Disney. Once again, thanks for documenting your trip for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandaNemesis Posted July 12, 2008 Share Posted July 12, 2008 ^^ Possibly the best-looking park i've ever seen in pictures! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmorton Posted July 13, 2008 Author Share Posted July 13, 2008 (on the home stretch now!) Wednesday 11/6 After my rather good day at DisneySea, I was a bit worried that I'd trek off somewhere today and be all "meh!" with the place. As it happened that was not really the case at all... Easy train ride up from Shinjuku to the KeioYomiuriland station, walk up the hill a bit to the left, get in a cable-car up over the big hill and bingo, there I am at Yomiuriland. Whats that coming over the hill? Quite a cool location, perched up at the top of a hill, floating past what looked like the training ground for the major league baseball team on the way up on the cable car. The place was EMPTY though. Its not an exaggeration to say there were probably 20 people there to ride the rides (there were a couple of OAPs just wandering around for something to do I guess!). Despite this, the ride ops were fairly chirpy and friendly - I guess they just wanted something to do to relive their boredom! So I ended up riding big rides like Bandit, all on my own - how odd! Bandit, loitering above the rather rubbish SL Coaster Bandit I liked - it always pleases me to see a coaster that takes into account its location - what I mean is that if you have a nice big hill nearby, the coaster should make use of this, and Bandit certainly does. The first half is all big drop and twisty helix business, then it seems to remember where it is and dives off at great speed down a valley across the park before it returns to the station. A good ride then! Weather wasn't quite as bad as it looks! The other "big" coaster they have is White Canyon, basically a wooden cyclone. It wasn't great, but not as rough as I anticipated despite the completely bonkers restraints! (Because of the non-running ride at Spaland, this turned out to be the only wooden coaster on the trip!) White Canyon in the distance Canyon's bonkers restraints (and amazingly other punters) Theres a horrible standing/sitting coaster Momonga, which was as painful in either position, a mine-train type called SL Coaster (which is in the running for the worst coaster on the trip) and a kiddie ride which I am again ashamed to say I did ride! So along with a couple of smallish S&S shot/drop towers, the world's smallest bungee jump upcharge ride, a smattering of flats and a rather long (non-upcharge) go-kart circuit thats about that. More risky jumping off my sofa! Gotta get the Ferris-credit of course Apart from the one real surprise ride they had; it looked like it was really part of the associated (closed) water-park rather than the amusement park, but it was actually open (even if I never saw anyone else ride it that morning!) - there is a big white inflatable spinning water rapid thingy (like they have at SFA, SFNE etc) - but BIGGER and BETTER and FASTER than them. A really long course, and you get up to some speed in the thing - probably the best ride at the park! Shame I don't have any great pictures of it though. Main midway with the big excellent water-ride at the far end All in all a rather pleasant place, certainly enough to occupy a few happy hours, and with a rather fantastic mascot too; Woof! ---- Since Yomiuriland had only occupied half a day, I went up to Asakusa for the afternoon, half intending to ride the coaster up there, but in the end gave it a miss (I have this potentially OCD thing that the last coaster I ride has to be a good one, just in case you get killed on the way home (you have to go out with a good ride!) so I wasn't going to spoil Bandit by replacing it with the rather dull-looking "Roller Coaster" at Hanayashiki!). Anyway Asakusa has lots of culture credits to keep me happy for a few hours too; Big lanterns Nice pagodas Temples and stuff Lucky smoke apparently Similar setup to Nara (a few pages ago!) And back to Shinjuku at night Thursday 12/6 I had half-planned to go up to Tobu Zoo today, but the weather was a bit rubbish and I did fancy just wandering around Shinjuku for a few hours and then going up the big building in Roppongi....so I did that instead! View from Takashima Time Square (my hotel is just behind the Olympus building) From Roppongi Hills you can see the SBNO coaster on the rooftop Weather a bit grim so couldn't see that far from the Hills But its a pretty good observation floor; "City View" Roppongi Hills from the outside Streetlevel views of Tokyo Tower Just my luck, the weather all cleared up by the time I was back in Shinjuku Some more neon then Friday 13/6 Thats it then... get up this morning, get a bus to the airport, get on a plane, get off the plane in Paris, get on another plane, get off that plane in Manchester, give an audible "yelp" of relief when my baggage turned up (I didn't trust CDG airport to get my bags from one plane to another in 50 minutes), get taxi, get home, sleep. ------------------- Some promised "logistics"; I flew MCR-AMS-KIX with KLM and NRT-CDG-MAN with Air France - ticket ~£500 Stayed at Granvia hiroshima for 2 nights ~£50/night at Hotel Monterey in Osaka for 4 nights ~£50/night at Royal Park Inn in Nagoya for 3 nights ~£40/night and Sunroute Plaza in Shinjuku for 7 nights ~£75/night All booked thru Expedia (since they had the cheapest prices and the best web-site). No complaints with any of the hotels, would recommend them all. Getting around - had a 14 day JR Rail pass (£228 from "thetrainline" of all places) and then just used local transport when it had expired. Note that the pass was not good for all of the trips - eg out to ParqueEspana you are on a different company's track so you have to pay for that. I burned about £750 on parks and food and stuff (note credit cards ar not that widely taken so you do need a fair amount of currency to get by - ATMs generally take UK cards tho). ------------------- Coaters += 38 Ferris wheels += 10 Happy days! Sayonara! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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