Tokyo April 2009

[MichaelD]

Hi All,

 

Firstly, here's a little bit of background about us. This hopefully will help you to understand what's important to us and what we need to plan for. I'm trying to write this in near real time, so our understanding will evolve as we experience Tokyo, and possibly mirror your experience, too.

 

We are a family of 3: me, a rollercoaster nut; my wife, a theme park hater (sigh); and my 8 year old daughter, a rollercoaster nut.

 

We love travelling. We are from Australia, so pretty much everything is a long way away from us (eg USA is 12 hours away).

 

My daughter is 132cm tall - 52 inches - which is a big factor in trip planning for us, particularly if my wife refuses to go to a given park (which she often does) and the park has rides with 140cm / 54" height restrictions.

 

So far I have ridden over 100 coasters and my daughter 80.

 

Now, enough ramble. On to our Tokyo trip.

 

PLANNING

 

About a month or so ago, I found some incredibly cheap fares to Tokyo - $400 Australian return per person. This is about 1/4 of the usual price, and the fares were available during our school holidays. This is about $300 US return for a 9 1/2 hour flight. It didn't take much convincing to take the plunge and buy the tickets for our 2 week holiday.

 

I like to plan out almost every aspect of our trips, enabling maximum enjoyment and flexibility during the actual trip. For Japan, being a non-English speaking nation with a non-Roman alphabet, this was made a little bit harder than usual.

 

Which Parks To Visit?

 

Tokyo Disneyland was a given. We noticed that there was a DisneySea here, but didn't quite understand what DisneySea was. Was it some Disney version of SeaWorld? No, it's part of the Disney resort, and more-or-less similar to California Adventure in Anaheim. For practical purposes, Tokyo Disney = Tokyo DisneyLand + DisneySea. We'll go to both.

 

What about other Tokyo parks?

 

Starting point: www.rcdb.com. You can search for parks in a given location or near a given location.

 

This returned a list of about 14 parks, but Disneyland/DisneySea was missing from the narrower Within search and 5 pages of parks were returned from the Near search.

 

Thread search on www.themeparkreview.com searching for the key word "Tokyo": this turned up several relevant threads, including this one which virtually perfectly suited our itinerary -

 

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48284.

 

TPR DVD review: We watched all the Japan 2004 trip video segments. We have the more recent TPR Japan DVDs, but ran out of time to watch them.

 

TPR Japan Planning Guide: http://www.themeparkreview.com/japan2004/japanguide1.htm. I cannot overemphasize how valuable and useful this guide is in planning a coaster trip to Japan. It will save you 100s of hours of planning time. Of all the resources we found, this was by far the most valuable.

 

Based on all of the above, we settled on the following park list;

 

Tokyo Disneyland

Tokyo Disneysea

La Qua (Tokyo Dome City)

Toshimaen

Tobu Zoo

Aqua Stadium

Yomiuriland

Sea Paradise

Yokohama Cosmoworld

Sega Joypolis

Tokyo Summerland (probably not this trip).

 

Fuji-Q was omitted based on reports of lengthy waits and coasters which close at the drop of a hat.

 

Some of these parks are evening or 1/2 day destinations, but more on this later.

[MichaelD]

Individual Parks

 

I like to know what roller coasters are at each park we visit and (just as important) any applicable height restrictions as my daughter is 132cm (52") in height.

 

I located the individual park URLs using both www.rcdb.com and the Theme Park Review Park Index. What I normally do is make a list of all the rollercoasters in the park on a spreadsheet and then check the park's website for ride height restrictions, opening hours on the proposed visit day or days, and entry costs.

 

I initially figured that I would simply check the English versions of the parks' websites, however it quickly became apparent that most of the parks only have Japanese web sites. Some have English web sites, but it was clear that the English sites had less information on them than the Japanese sites.

 

Google Translate was the tool I used to get around this problem. You can put the appropriate URL into Google Translate and you can get a usable Japanese -> English translation which is more-or-less browsable the same as the original site. Graphics aren't translated, but the ALT text (the text that appears when you hover on a graphic) is translated, which often makes a mysterious picture's intent more obvious. The other trick is to look at the URL which a link points to - a mysterious graphic which links to "/prices.html" is not so mysterious then. One final Google Translate tip: I found that sometimes I needed to browse the untranslated and translated sites in parallel in order to copy some deep URLs across where the navigation did not work on the translated page.

 

Key park points:

1. All rides apart from Raging Spirits at Tokyo DisneySea (140cm/54") and the occasional Kart ride have height restrictions < 130cm (52"). Fantastic - for once my daughter gets to ride essentially all the rides, including the best ones.

2. Park ticketing is usually both pay-per-ride and unlimited ride. Frequently, there is an inexpensive spectator entry free for non-riders. My wife was pleased with this, as it allowed her to cheaply accompany us to some parks and not feel she was wasting money pointlessly.

3. Know in advance the park ticket pricing structure so you can point to the correct prices at the park ticket booths. Don't expect English translations as they are not often there and the only things recognisable at the booth are numbers. Even better would be to have a print out of the Japanese pricing with you and point to the correct items, which is what we will do next time. "Ichi" is Japanese for 1. "Ni" is Japanese for 2.

 

Where To Stay

 

Most trips we do see us moving from hotel to hotel in order to be as close to a given park as possible. This seemed a daunting task in Tokyo, and based on our reading (TPR Japan Guide and other sources) it seemed optimal to stay on resort for Tokyo Disneyland/Disneysea and in a single hotel near a major train station for the rest of the trip. My wife was tasked with booking the rooms. We settled on the Hotel Metropolitan in Ikebukuro for the Tokyo leg of the trip and the Sheraton Tokyo Bay for the Disney leg of the trip. Room pricing determined the order and duration of our stays in each location.

 

We were prepared for the small size of our room at the Hotel Metropolitan. It has 2 single beds and a sofa which converted to a single bed for our daughter (although she declared this bed too hard for her and requisitioned my bed instead). There is barely room to walk at the foot of the beds. This is truly a room for sleeping in only, and it is entirely satisfactory for this purpose. The all-singing, all-dancing toilet seat in the ensuite is a nice bonus as is the included wired broadband Internet access.

 

The Hotel Metropolitan is a trivial 3 minute walk from Ikebukuro station and is ideally located for getting around Tokyo, but more on this later. The key take home points in regards to where to stay in Tokyo are;

 

1. The rooms are small. Expect it and you won't be disappointed.

2. You need to be close to a railway station as this will be your primary mode of transport.

3. You need to be close to a major railway station located on the Yamanote line; Shinjuku and Ikebukuro seem to be the best locations. Ueno, Shibuya, Shimbashi and Tokyo also seem reasonably located. Again, more on this later.

[MichaelD]

Day 0 - Tokyo Arrival

 

We arrived in Tokyo after a 9 1/2 hour flight suitably worn out and a little apprehensive about navigating a strange city at night. We had not had time to learn even the most basic of Japanese phrases before we left.

 

Getting through immigration and customs was a breeze. There were plenty of signs and all of them were multi-lingual. We were out of the airport within 30 minutes of arrival.

 

Our chosen mode of transport to our first hotel (the Metropolitan Hotel in Ikebukuro) was the Airport Limousine Bus service (http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/). This takes you from the airport to the entrance of your hotel, just what you need when you arrive in an unfamiliar city. You cannot book this service in advance - you need to buy a ticket when you arrive. Buses leave either every 30 or 60 minutes, and you can get the timetable from their web site to get an idea of how long you might need to wait.

 

I was apprehensive about this before arriving, but it really was very straightforward. The booking desk for this was directly in front of us after we got out of customs and very clearly marked and it was hassle free to buy the appropriate tickets and get to the correct bus.

 

You really get your first inkling of how organised and helpful the Japanese are by using this service - efficient, polite and meticulous are the adjectives that spring to mind.

 

Check-in at the hotel was also uneventful and after getting settled in to our tiny room, we all quickly fell asleep.

[MichaelD]

The Tokyo Train System - Part 1

 

Before I launch into our trip report proper, I think a few words about the Tokyo train system will save you a lot of grief.

 

The train system will be your primary mode of transport. It's how the locals travel, and for good reason. The system is amazing. It runs on time. It is clean. It is fast. It can get you anywhere quickly.

 

But...it's big and a bit hard to understand. I thought I understood it before I arrived, but found out that I did not. We got to places more by luck than skill for the first 2 days, and this is despite masses of planning and reading before we left.

 

I have a much better understanding now after 3 days, and I am sure this will continue to evolve.

 

Route Planning

 

Before you arrive in Tokyo, work out the train routes you need to take to get to where you want to go. Find the closest station to each theme park (you can get these from the TPR trip guide or you can do the harder but more rewarding search of Google Maps).

 

Use http://www.jorudan.co.jp/english/norikae/ to get the route from your home station to the theme park. The date/time isn't all that important for planning purposes, but for the sake of it, you might want to plan to arrive 15 minutes before a park opens for the day. Just leave the Seat field as is - it's irrelevant for getting around Tokyo.

 

Print these routes out and take the relevant ones with you when travelling. Below is our route to Sea Paradise.

 

This tells you we start at IkebukuRo, change trains at Yokohama, change trains at Kanazawahakkei and finally get to HakkeiJima. More details later on this.

 

Don't worry about keeping to the exact times on these plans, even though the trains will. You'll be slow at navigating the connections to begin with, but the trains are so frequent that you'll only be waiting a few minutes for the next one if you miss one. These short connection times were a major stressor for me before arriving in Tokyo, but once I figured out that it didn't really matter that much, I was much more relaxed about using the system.

 

A map will also help you immensely as you can see which stations you will pass through on your route, important for figuring out which way to go when you have a choice of directions. Print this out and take it with you: http://www.tokyometro.jp/rosen/rosenzu/pdf/rosen_eng.pdf. Don't worry about the fact that it looks utterly bewildering at first - more on this later.

 

Paying for Tickets

 

This was another stressor with a seemingly bewildering array of passes to choose from. Forget about these choices. We want simplicity and one less thing to worry about. If you are only travelling in Tokyo, the answer is what is known as a Suica or Pasmo card. For our purposes, either are the same so don't stress about choosing between them - it doesn't matter. They can be purchased at any station. You load them with a certain amount of money, and use it at automatic ticket gates which are everywhere in the system. Just touch the card on the reader and walk through the gate. The correct fare is automatically deducted.

 

Now what...?

 

You now have;

1. Route plans for where you are going in Tokyo

2. A subway route map

3. A ticket that works

 

Next, we need to cover how to actually comprehend and navigate the gigantic underground rabbit warrens that are the Tokyo subway stations.

Train route from our hotel to Sea Paradise

[MichaelD]

Tokyo Trains - Part 2

 

Having gotten tickets, a map and route information, the next step is understanding the basic structure of Tokyo's train system.

 

Understanding the Stations

 

In Australia, you walk onto a train station, work out which platform to take a train from and get on. In Japan, it's different. First, you have to work out which rail company you are travelling on. There are multiple companies running the train system in Japan. Each of them have their own entrance gates. The basic concept is that (eg) Ikebukuro station is multiple stations all under the one umbrella name of Ikebukuro. Japan Rail have a station there. Tokyo Metro have a station there. Other companies have stations there.

 

Once you've worked out which company you are travelling on, you enter through their gate. Sometimes the gates are labelled by company and sometimes by company and line, just to add to first-timer confusion.

 

As an example, our route planner to Yomiuriland is below. The first leg of this journey is;

 

IkebukuRo -> ShinJuku on JR Yamanote line.

 

This means that we need to locate the JR entrance and go through it. This is illustrated below.

 

Once through the JR entrance, we need to locate the appropriate platform for the actual line you are travelling on, in this case the Yamanote line. You also need to work out which direction to travel in to make sure you get on the right train. In the case of a major station, this is usually easy, as this is normally listed on the platform sign. For a smaller destination, you need to be aware of the route you will be taking - this is where the subway map comes in handy. There are also maps on the station platforms indicating where the trains on this platform run to.

 

Once you have determined that you are on the right platform you need to catch a train which goes to your destination. The platforms have signs which tell you where the next two or three trains are going. Make sure that the train is going to or beyond your destination.

 

Finally, there is one more nuance to be aware of; there are varying degrees of express train. Local trains stop all stations. The higher up the express hierachy the train goes, the fewer stations it stops at. The platform map will have multiple coloured lines on it indicating the varying degrees of express and where they stop. A dot at your station name indicates the train stops there. The bigger stations are displayed as large ovals covering all coloured lines - all trains stop at these.

 

The Layout of the Tokyo Train System

 

Tokyo has a "hub-and-spoke" model. There is a central loop - the Yamanote line - and from various points in this loop spokes come out to the various areas of Tokyo. You take the loop to get to the appropriate spoke for where you are going. This is why it is important to be located near a major station on the Yamanote line - from here, getting anywhere else in Tokyo is relatively easy.

Close-up of the card reading panel.

The entry gate. You place your Suica/Pasmo card on the panel on the right side. It's a contactless system and can be read through a wallet.

Getting closer to the gate.

As an aside, this is a machine where you can buy Suica cards (Suica and Pasmo are interchangeable). One of these will make your travelling much simpler as you won't need to worry about ticketing for each individual journey.

The next sign points us towards the JR entrance. Note that this is the South entrance - it does not matter which entrance you take, they all get to the right place.

This is the first sign we see when entering Ikebukuro station. We want to go to JR line, so we follow the arrows.

[MichaelD]

More pictures of the journey from IkebukuRo to ShinJuku.

The train arrives. Note the locals lined up in orderly fashion - no pushing and shoving in Tokyo.

Platform display (multilingual). Shows where the next train is going and when it is arriving. (We slept in this morning).

Map on the platform. Simpler than most as the Yamanote line only stops all stations and goes round and round the loop.

Stairs to the platforms.

Close up of the sign - since we're going to ShinJuku and it's a major station, it's listed on the sign. Both platforms 5 and 6 have trains going in our direction.

Once through the gate, you have to work out which platform(s) your line departs from - here the Yamanote line departs from platforms 5, 6, 7 and 8.

[MichaelD]

Pictures of the actual train journey.

A more complex route map from later in the journey - note the 5 different coloured lines from grey (Local) to pink indicating the various degrees of express train. The stations at which each type of train stops are indicated by whether the line is covered by the station dot or not. For example, the bottom pink line only stops at 5 stations on the way to the end of the line.

Next stop - ShinJuku!

The JR Yamanote trains have excellent informational displays - here we see the route map with station names, times to the stations and the direction around the loop the train is going. No room for error here!

All the trains have some sort of informational display - at a minimum you can work out what the next station is.

[Nrthwnd]

Mmmm.

 

Your showing all the stuff about taking the Tokyo transit just makes me all wistful and "runny" inside, lol.

 

I was there on TPR's Japan Tour back in Sept.2007 and your photos brought back all the stuff I remember watching and looking at when it came to riding the trains, etc. In the station, trackside waiting for the train(s) to arrive, those lineup markings on the platforms...

 

I miss it.

And thanks for showing everything as you're seeing it.

Great stuff.

[MichaelD]

^You're welcome. I now feel like a train veteran compared to a week ago. The first trip seems so long ago and so simple, and yet so difficult at the time.

[MichaelD]

Day 1 - La Qua (Tokyo Dome City)

 

We chose La Qua for our first destination today because;

 

1. There was an attached shopping centre for my wife to explore.

2. There was no entry fee for the attractions area.

3. The trip from Ikebukuro was a seemingly simple one with just the one train to take.

4. I didn't think this was an all day park.

 

If I knew then what I knew now about the Tokyo train system, this journey would have been simplicity itself, however, confusion was definitely the order of the day today.

 

We slept in late after our long plane journey (no problem there), and decided to head out into the local area for breakfast. (As a side point - we try to make a point when travelling of eating the local cuisine where the locals eat. It's cheaper than hotel food and often far more rewarding culturally.)

 

After randomly walking around for a while, we picked a spot which seemed reasonable as all their wares were displayed obviously along with prices. Pictures and plastic models of food abound in Japan, a godsend for non-Japanese speakers who can thus order food by pointing.

 

The girl serving us did not speak English, so my wife's attempt at ordering coffee with skim milk was not as successful as we hoped it would be. Some gesticulating moments later, we had paid for our food and more-or-less got what we wanted (minus the skim milk). Note to self: we need some basic Japanese vocabulary.

 

Our attempts at using a credit card to pay for breakfast were also fruitless - Japan, as we had read and prepared for in advance, is a remarkably cash-based society.

 

Breakfast was delicious, although we were surprised that the place we ate at was nominally split into smoking and non-smoking sections.

 

Next up - time to tackle the train system for the first time. Our route map indicated that we needed to take the Tokyo Metro Maranouchi Line from Ikebukuro to Korakuen. We'd noticed a station entrance pointing to the Tokyo Metro Maranouchi Line in our random meanderings, so found our way back to this and went downstairs.

 

A bewildering, massive underground metropolis awaited us. Clearly, there was a lot more to this sytem than just finding the right platform. Shops of a dizzying variety awaited. Vending machines dispensing a breathtaking number of beverages awaited. Thousands and thousands of people were purposefully moving from place to place. Not us. We had no idea. Somehow, we followed the signs towards the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line and came across a Pasmo vending machine. Some time later, and with a bit of help from a station employee with some limited English skills, we were in possession of three charged-up Pasmo cards. I hoped that Pasmo cards were truly the same as Suica cards (they were for our purposes).

 

Next, we continued our tentative journey towards the Marunouchi Line. We encountered station gates for the first time and, hesitantly, made our way through, hoping we were doing the right thing.

 

Two platforms awaited, with a large route map on display. We seemed to be on station M25 and needed to get to station M22. Which platform to take? Would the trains stop all stations? After watching a couple of trains seem to head in the correct direction and asking the station guards whether the train went to Korakuen, we hesitantly boarded and were on our way.

 

How many stops away was our station? Were we going in the right direction? I wasn't sure, but a station list (aka route map) would definitely have helped right about now, so I resolved to get one as soon as possible.

 

Three stops later, we were at Korakuen.

 

Exiting Korakuen station was simple, and pleasingly we could see the theme park right across the road from the station, so we just wandered in the general direction of the park.

 

La Qua is a shopping centre with attractions built in. We located the ticket office and purchased unlimited ride tickets using a credit card. Copious finger pointing at the correct prices helped. We ended up with wristbands which the ticket attendant indicated we should put on ourselves.

 

First stop - Thunder Dolphin. The line seemed short, but moved ever so slowly, courtesy of single train operations and slow load-unload procedures, something we have now found is commonplace in the theme parks we have visited so far.

 

We had lowish expectations of this ride based on the TPR videos but by golly this was an absolutely fantastic ride as far as we were concerned, and so far Thunder Dolphin has been hands-down the best coaster of our trip.

 

Other tremendous attractions at La Qua included their drop tower (Tower Hacker), the great fun Spinning Coaster Maihime and their Golden Compass walk through (with actors). Golden Compass in particular is worth a mention as even though it is entirely in Japanese, the enthusiastic actor taking you through the walk through is fantastic, and my daughter enjoyed herself immensely.

 

We had a LOT of fun at this park, lots more than expected.

 

It is worth noting that this park is split into various sections, including a large segment across the road, so study the map and make sure you explore all areas of the park.

 

On the way home, we located a sushi vendor in the subway station with extraordinarily cheap prices and fantastic quality sushi. Clearly popular with the locals, these small subway vendors are an obvious and convenient place to buy food and would become places we frequented during our stay. Another note to self: Explore Ikebukuro station more thoroughly as soon as possible.

 

Getting back to Ikebukuro was less traumatic than the journey to Korakuen, except...we were now faced with a bewildering number of exits from the station. Which one to take? We took one which was approximately correct and somehow stumbled back to our hotel. The way back was NOT obvious.

 

Third note to self: Tokyo is a jumble of streets and buildings in seemingly random order. It is NOT an easy city to navigate around. We need to get our bearings soon, or we'll get very, very lost sooner rather than later.

Amazing view of Thunder Dolphin passing through the ferris wheel taken from the drop ride queue.

Our favourite coaster of the trip so far - Thunder Dolphin. Just be prepared for slow load times.

[MichaelD]

Day 1a - The Quest for Vocabulary

 

I have a Palm Treo 750 smartphone (Windows Mobile 6) and I made a point of finding an English to Japanese translator for it tonight after getting home from La Qua. After some searching, I found and installed a program called Kabuto which fits the bill exactly.

 

Kabuto has a 14 day trial period, and I can assure you that this program has been an absolute godsend for this trip - not sure if the meat on the stick in front of you is chicken - no problem - "chikin"?

 

Skim milk - no worries any more - "dasshinyu".

 

Delicious - "oyshikatta".

 

Chocolate - "chocoreito" - whilst pointing to ice-cream. More adventurous? Try "reika chocoreito" for chocolate ice-cream.

 

The locals are truly delighted with any efforts you make at speaking Japanese, and I can assure you that your efforts are rewarded 100-fold.

[MichaelD]

Day 2 - Toshimaen

 

Once again we braved the Ikebukuro labyrinth for another "easy" single train journey, this time to Toshimaen station. We'd noticed what we thought was a closer exit to our hotel, so wandered down the street to that, and fortuitously for us, this happened to lead more-or-less directly onto the platform for Toshimaen. This exit was the "East" exit. After an uneventful journey (with station list in hand to provide reassurance), we arrived at Toshimaen.

 

Toshimaen offers unlimited adult and child passes as well as inexpensive entry passes, so we all went. It's a very pretty park, but fairly obviously a park aimed at the younger set. They take credit cards at the gate.

 

Toshimaen has 4 coasters and a flume ride as its highlights.

 

Blaur Enzian was the first coaster. Different would be the best description of this ride, built on top of the gift shop.

 

Corkscrew was a standard Arrow looper. My daughter hates these with a passion now as they bang her head around and she refuses to ride them. I ride them solely for the credit.

 

Cyclone is an odd, velour seated, log-themed coaster. We liked it because it was odd, but didn't like the 45 minute wait and the excruciatingly slow load/unload procedures, so this only got a single ride.

 

Mini Cyclone is a new steel kiddie coaster (sorry, I didn't take any pictures of it), also with a long wait.

 

The flume ride was a long wait for an uninteresting ride. My daughter liked it, though.

 

Sadly, the Shuttle Loop coaster is gone.

 

From all of the above, you might think that we didn't enjoy our time at Toshimaen, but you'd be wrong. There were lots of interesting areas and oddities to explore. My daughter loved the adventure playground area, which seemed remarkably similar to the adventure playground area at Busch Gardens Tampa to me. We enjoyed our point-and-gesticulate meal. We enjoyed the odd coin-operated ride-on panda. The one thing we didn't enjoy was the long waits for tame rides.

 

My daughter also braved her first Japanese haunted house walk-through. These are a staple of the parks in Japan and really quite unusual. I was delighted that she enjoyed the experience, so much so that she went through at least 10 times, much to the bemusement of the attendant.

 

The journey home was uneventful...until we went out the East exit of Ikebukuro station. Wait a minute...this wasn't where we got onto the station this morning! I don't recognize this at all. Where's our hotel? After some fruitless meandering, including some back street trekking through some slightly questionable areas, we came across a map. I realized that we should have come out of the West exit, not the East exit and back-tracked back to the station. Tired and hungry, we finally made it back to our hotel.

 

Note to self: Come back tonight and explore Ikebukuro station to understand the geography.

 

Note to everyone: Learn the route from your hotel to the station. Learn the exit you go into/out of. This is very important, as when you're lost in Tokyo, you're REALLY lost.

 

After feeding ourselves with the rich bounty we had picked up in the basement of a department store (another fantastic place to shop for food with all the small, independent vendors vying for your business with a dizzying array of delicious foodstuffs), I headed back to the station for an hour or so to meander around and get my bearings. This time, I was careful to note the exit I entered the station through.

 

After sufficient wandering, I had the "a-ha" moment I desired - realizing that each rail company had an independent entry and that knowing the rail company you were about to travel on was just as important as knowing the line you were travelling on. Suitably enlightened, I uneventfully found the appropriate exit and went back to the hotel for the night.

The haunted house entrance.

[MichaelD]

Day 3 - Tobu Zoo

 

My newly-gained confidence in using the train system was nearly shaken today, our first multi-train journey. Up earlier than usual in order to get to Tobu Zoo sometime close to opening time, the first step of our journey was taken confidently on the Yamanote line.

 

The transfers between lines were taken hesitantly as some of the labelling wasn't as clear as I had hoped it would be, but eventually we worked out the correct companies, lines and trains to take to Tobu Zoo.

 

All that travelling made us hungry, so we stopped at a bakery at Tobu-Dobutsukoen station for breakfast. Here we picked up a tray, a pair of tongs and made our selections from the delicious looking offerings on display.

 

We also sampled drinks from one of the ubiquitous drinks machines on the station. That's something else we are doing this trip - trying a new mysterious concoction from the drinks machines every day. Some are hits. Some are misses. All are interesting. So far, grape jelly in a bottle has been the most interesting selection.

 

The correct station exit for Tobu Zoo is clearly marked, so with a spring in our step we headed out of the station. Once out of the station, the direction to take was unclear, but we could see the drop ride in the distance, so had a fair idea of which way to walk, which is more-or-less to cross the road and keep going out of the exit at right angles to the station.

 

The park is a ten minute walk away. I gather a bus is available just outside the station, but we chose to walk. Glimpses of the drop ride from time-to-time as well as others seeming to head in the same direction gave us reassurance that we were on the right track, and soon enough we were at the entrance to Tobu Zoo.

 

Some judicious finger pointing and a credit card swipe resulted in the appropriate park entry fees being paid and we were in (I forget exactly, but from memory we ended up with wrist bands).

 

Our first stop was meant to be Kawasemi, but the drop ride was running with no queue and so we took a quick ride on this for an overview of the park.

 

Next, we amused ourselves at the eatery (pictures below), and then proceeded to Kawasemi. This came with high expectations, and with a short-looking (but slow moving!) queue, we took our place mid-train.

 

As an aside, it seems difficult to get your seat choice in Japan unless you carefully allow people past you in the queue. We managed this once, later in the day, to score a front seat ride on Kawasemi.

 

Kawasemi was good. Very good. Not as good as Thunder Dolphin in our opinion, but still a very enjoyable ride.

 

We quickly worked our way around the other coasters at Tobu Zoo:

 

Crazy Mouse, our first looping mad mouse ride (and the rustiest ride so far on the trip), was rough and got the thumbs down from my daughter.

 

Regina, a big, fast, long Intamin woodie got the thumbs up from both of us. Fast, long AND smooth AND wood - impossible you say? Not impossible. Sadly for us, the photo booth wasn't operating, so we only have our imperfect memories of this one to share. The line was not particularly long for this ride, allowing us several re-rides in fairly quick succession.

 

Finally, Tentomushi was the kiddie coaster for the credit whore in me.

 

There's also a ton of other interesting rides and walk-throughs here. My daughter enjoyed the swan pedal boats much more than my legs, which seemed to be doing all the pedalling, did. The haunted house got several visits and the adventure playground was excellent as well. My daughter was pleased that she was allowed to drive the karts.

 

One word of caution: After trying coffee in a can from a vending machine, I needed to find a toilet. NOW. The far end of the park where we were did not offer the luxury of Western-style toilets, necessitating a long back trek to the toilets around Regina.

 

Our trip back to the hotel was uneventful, and we quickly fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.

Wonder what the Japanese take on a margarita pizza is? (Answer: Lots of cheese, thin crust, very little tomato.)

Just too tempting to pass up for lunch.

Implacable bullfrog enjoying the park as well.

Rust, rust everywhere.

Why is this upside down?

[SharkTums]

^The Itarian restaurant was great when we ate there last year!

 

Really enjoying reading all of your reports and I think they'll REALLY help other people heading off to Japan with your great detailed descriptions!

[MichaelD]

^Thank you - I like to think it as giving back a little for your amazing guide without which our trip wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun as it has been so far (and we still have Disneyland to go).

[MichaelD]

Day 4 - Cultural Day + Aqua Stadium

 

Amidst my daughter's loud protestations, Day 4 was designated as a cultural day. Reluctant co-operation was gained by the promise of "the roller coaster in the hotel" in the evening.

 

Personally, I was happy enough to have a sleep in instead of pushing for another early start.

 

My wife had two very specific cultural things in mind for us this trip;

 

1. A visit to a temple, and

2. A Japanese Tea Ceremony

 

Senso-ji in Asakusa was the temple designated as the one we were to visit. It was favourably mentioned in a tourist book about Tokyo that my wife had obtained as being welcoming to tourists, so a quick route plan later, we were off. By now, I had got my head around the transport system sufficiently to make this 3 train journey reasonably non-stressful, although we did get lost once we exited the subway (by the correct exit). Once we'd worked out where the temple actually was, we got to the right place...and...AARRRRGHHHHH

 

T O U R I S T T R A P

 

The difference between this area and the others we had visited to date in Tokyo was simply night and day. Prices were noticeably higher and suddenly non-Japanese were everywhere to be seen.

 

Fortunately my wife inadvertently walked several blocks the wrong way and we again found ourselves in a more "normal" area of Asakusa. Poking around these shops whilst moving slowly towards the temple itself was a much more enjoyable experience than walking down the main pathway to the temple.

 

The temple itself was beautiful and a serene experience despite the throngs of tourists.

 

My daughter's prayers were clearly answered by this temple as...what's that we can see in the distance just beyond the temple?...it looks like a reverse drop ride. A short explore later and we found Hanayashiki Park. At this stage there was only 2 hours to go before the park closed, so I grabbed a map and resolved to add this park to our itinerary if it fit in. In hindsight, it's a shame this wasn't on our agenda to begin with as the combination of temple + theme park was just too good to be passed up by the three of us - we'd all be happy at the same time, which is rare for us on holidays.

 

We went back to Ikebukuro for dinner. My wife had located a conveyer belt sushi restaurant at my request which, like all Japanese eateries, was tiny and well-hidden. Ordering sushi by pointing at pictures was a marvellous adventure, and we had a ball. Unlike conveyer belt sushi restaurants back home, only a limited number of dishes were actually on the conveyer belt, and most needed to be ordered specifically and were made freshly.

 

"Sumimasen, ebi wasabi nashi" - excuse me, prawn sushi WITHOUT wasabi.

 

All the pre-made dishes in this restaurant were made with wasabi, which seems to be the norm in Japan rather than wasabi being an optional extra. Personally, I don't mind wasabi, but it's too hot for my daughter's palate.

 

Our hosts were tickled pink by our efforts and bent over backwards to help us order and enjoy our meal. We ate like kings for the amazing sum of $30 Australian dollars ($20 US dollars). Of all the meals we ate in Tokyo, this was definitely the one we had the most fun at.

 

The next stop was Aqua Stadium for Galaxy Express 999. I had carefully pre-researched ticketing options here before leaving Australian and knew that it was purely a pay-per-ride attraction. There are 4 rides here; a roller coaster (Galaxy Express 999), a merry-go-round, a pirate ship swing and another ride which I thought might have been a motion simulator of some sort (it was a 3D motion theatre).

 

I had decided that I would buy 2 lots of 4 tickets for 2,000 yen each. Given the rollercoaster itself cost 1,000 yen to ride, this seemed the best way to achieve up to 4 rides on the rollercoaster if required. This undertaking proved difficult to achieve as the staff did not speak any English and were trying to direct me to the automatic ticket machines (at a much higher cost), however judicious use of "zekkyoumashin" (rollercoaster), "yottsu" (four) and pointing at the number 2,000 which was on display eventually resulted in the correct 4 blue-coloured tickets being produced ("hai, hai" - yes, yes). A little more finger pointing got a second lot of these tickets and we were set.

 

As a side note, the automatic ticket machines took credit card, but they would only take cash for the discount tickets - not a problem as I always made sure I had sufficient cash for theme park entry before arriving just in case of this.

 

My daughter loved the look of the merry-go-round (go figure - she loves some kiddie rides and she also loves extreme coasters), so she went on that. I must admit it looked really good and was beautifully done.

 

Next up was Galaxy Express 999. The theming and pre-show for this ride is tremendous and reminded us greatly of Space Mountain. We were really looking forwards to the actual ride, however the ride itself was not that great. A tyre-propelled launch lead to a single loop and then a few bumpy turns left and right before the ride ended.

 

We rode 3 times in total, twice at the front and once at the back. The front was definitely the better ride.

 

I finished off my fourth ticket with the motion simulator, which was showing a 3D cartoon in Japanese about an evil camera robot (I think) being defeated by our hero and heroine. I was happy enough to have done it, but wouldn't do it again.

 

Neither of us particularly wanted to go on the pirate ship - it didn't appear particularly distinguished from any other pirate ride we have been on in the past.

 

And thus ended our short visit to Aqua Stadium. We were perfectly happy to have scored the credit, but wouldn't do it again without good reason.

Culture. The largest pagoda in Japan (not the actual temple).

Yep - that's Hanayashiki Park, right next to the temple. Bonus park!

What's this we spy from the temple? Could that be a ride? Could it possibly be the answer to my daughter's prayers?

[MichaelD]

Japanese Train and Station Etiquette

 

It'd be remiss of me to leave out the various bits of Japanese train etiquette we observed whilst over here, as it is definitely unique.

 

Let's see, now.

 

1. Japanese wait in line for trains at markings on the platforms. These are efficiently arranged to maximize the speed at which people get off and then onto the trains. Just wait in line behind someone else and you'll be OK. The markings line up with the doors when the trains stop(mostly - occasionally a train driver will have a "miss" and stop in the wrong spot).

 

2. On that note, Japanese wait for everyone to get off before starting to get on.

 

3. When the trains start to get full, they have a unique way of squeezing more people on - they back into the train instead of barging and pushing their way in forwards. Initially, I thought this was rude, but thinking about it it's actually efficient - this way, the easiest to fit body surface (the back) gets positioned first, leaving the objects held in the hands to find their own way into the train.

 

4. People will shuffle to help you get on and off trains, creating space where none was apparent before.

 

5. Japanese love to sleep on trains. The number of people in Noddy Land on any given journey is remarkable. I guess it's one way of catching up on the rest you need after experiencing a hyperactive, hypercaffeinated society like Tokyo.

 

6. No one talks on their mobile phone on the train. Phones are set to silent mode. They may browse the internet, text or watch TV on their phones, but they will have earpieces for the sound. This is great - train journeys are an oasis of peace instead of a cacophony of noise.

 

7. In train stations, walk purposefully and at a steady pace towards your goal, keeping an eye out for potential collisions with other people. So long as you keep a fairly steady pace and constant direction, you will get to your destination unscathed, no matter how busy the station is.

[MichaelD]

Day 5 - Sea Paradise (plus possible Yokohama Cosmoworld on the way back home).

 

Fully confident in my train journey abilities, today we headed off to Sea Paradise. All went well until the final leg of our journey, a transfer to the Kanazawa Seaside Line. The appropriate exit from the preceding train station was located and followed...and then - where do we go next? I could not see any further entrances or signs to follow, just the final one we saw inside the station.

 

After a bit of fruitless wandering around, I worked out where to go; exit the train station as per the signs, walk straight down the alley directly in front of you, cross the road, and proceed up the stairs you can see ahead and to the left of you to the elevated platform for the Kanazawa Seaside Line.

 

The Kanazawa Seaside line is an automated rail line to various destinations, including one reasonably close to Sea Paradise, which is clearly and quite spectacularly visible from the train.

 

Exiting at HakkeiJima station, you walk to the left to get to Sea Paradise. This isn't immediately obvious, but a short walk later you spot the park.

 

The ticket booths are WAY up the other end of the park from the entry (why?). Head towards the left. Sea Paradise is a relatively expensive park, and I'm sure my daughter was overcharged for entry despite my best efforts, but by that stage it was just too hard to argue. Credit card was accepted and we received wrist bands. We chose only to visit the rides section of the park, not the oceanarium displays.

 

Sea Paradise was not the best value park on our trip, which perhaps explains why it was more-or-less empty. It has a single roller coaster credit - Surf Coaster - which is set spectacularly but does not ride well, and Blue Fall, a rather tall drop ride with great views from above. They seem to have two soundtracks for Blue Fall - a Japanese one and an English one. The Japanese soundtrack is genuinely scary the first time you hear it and FAR superior to the dismal English one.

 

Blue Fall has 6 4-seat cars, two of which have a brake and near-pause just after the initial drop, which is something I've never experienced before on a drop ride.

 

We were highly anticipating our ride on Blue Fall. My daughter loved it so much she wanted to ride again and again and again (and again). The rules stipulated that I needed to accompany her, so I also rode it again and again and again (and again).

 

The brakes at the top didn't do much for me - I much preferred the straight drop. As a point of interest, I have a morbid fear of heights so drop rides used to terrify me. Since my daughter has now declared her love for them, I have had to force myself to figure out how to ride them with minimal angst. Much to my surprise, the easiest and most enjoyable way to ride these rides is NOT to hang on to the grips for dear life, but just to sit there with hands resting on your lap or up in the air. This seems counterintuitive, but the physics of these rides seems to support this; falling this way you are falling at exactly the same speed as the ride itself and you are minimizing contact with the ride, thus maximizing the smoothness of the ride. That's my take on it, anyway, and after something like 40 goes on Blue Fall in 1 day I'm sticking to my story.

 

(Oh and by the way, if you think Blue Fall is good, the Giant Drop at Dreamworld in Australia is an even better ride - pretty much the only ride in Australia where this holds true.)

 

There were a couple of other rides at Sea Paradise which we did, but the famous boat jumpers are no more, the splashdown pool for this having been converted into a tame motorized rubber tyre boat ride. The boat jumper boats are still tantalizingly and sadly visible at the top of their ramp.

 

My daughter enjoyed the very tame river rapids ride and the upcharge walkthroughs but we didn't bother with most of the flat rides.

 

We arrived at Sea Paradise late and left early, having exhausted our stock of things to do, with the aim of visiting Yokohama Cosmoworld on the way home, but my daughter ended up being too tired by the time we got back to Yokohama and we piked out on Cosmoworld, deferring this for another day.

View of Surf Coaster from the observation tower ride. Surf Coaster looks better than it rides.

Blue Fall in the distance. Note the essentially deserted walkway - the park was near empty on the day we visited.

[Loefet]

I really love this trip report, it's just so nice to follow peoples thoughts when going to Japan.

 

I really miss that place, I hope that I can return there soon.

[SharkTums]

I worry a bit about Sea Paradise. I believe they may be focusing more on the Sea aspect and less on the rides aspect. There used to be ticket booths on the 'train side' entrance of the park but they moved them over to the aquarium side sometime between 2007 and 2008.

 

Also, they used to have more rides including another credit which were taken out between 2005 and 2007.

 

Oh, and totally agree with ^. Japan is so awesome!

[gisco]

I love your trip report. Having been to these places you bring back a lot of great memories.

[vkc]

Agree with the last 3 comments. I am really enjoying reading this thread - it brings back all the great memories from the TPR Tokyo Trip last year!

[MichaelD]

^^ aw shucks - thank you all for your kind comments. I really appreciate the positive feedback.

[MichaelD]

Day 6 - Yomiuriland

 

6 parks in 6 days. We were keeping up a cracking pace, although the nature of the parks in Japan and the fact that we were staying in the one place centrally and commuting to the parks each day meant that this was not as tiring as it seemed. Indeed, it is not that hard to combine two parks in one day for many of these parks, even the ones only open 10am-5pm, and you would still have plenty of time to see all that the two parks had to offer.

 

Yomiuriland was not all that hard to get to, the only minor wrinkle being a train change at Chofu station from the Keio Line to the Keio-Sagamihara Line. This was labelled as "Direct" on our route planner. I wasn't sure what this meant, so exited the platform in the usual manner only to eventually discover that "Direct" seems to mean change trains on the same platform, so after a bit of a roundabout journey, we ended up on the next train for Keio-YomiuRi-Land station.

 

Getting to Yomiuriland involves taking a gondola (the fun way) or a bus (the cheaper, less fun way). Both are to the left of the station exit and up some stairs. The gondola costs 200 yen each way, with a cash only/Japanese only ticket dispensing machine to negotiate before you get on. Fortunately, the machine only sells one way and two way gondola tickets, so it isn't that hard to figure out.

 

Once at the end of the gondola ride, veer around the corner to the right and you get to the cash-only ticket booths, so make sure you bring enough cash for entry.

 

Once you have your ticket, you proceed to the entry gate where the back of your hand is painted with an ultraviolet fluorescent paint, which all the ride operators check before they let you through, even if you've just been on the ride a dozen times in a row with no wait. That just seems to be the Japanese way - to follow the rules. Efficient but sometimes just a little bit pointless.

 

Of all the parks, Yomiuriland offers the least amount of help for non-Japanese speakers, so a basic vocabulary is useful here. Also, they make it very clear that you cannot choose your own seat on rides, even if the train or ride is empty. Just remember to follow the rules and you'll be OK.

 

On offer at Yomiuriland are quite a large selection of rides, but quantity definitely did not equate with quality here.

 

Bandit - a nice looking very bumpy ride with an over-the-shoulder restraint that is too small. Be prepared to have the upper part of your chest (your sternum/breastbone) and the soft part of the sides of your neck pummelled by this ride. My daughter loved this ride as the restraint suited her perfectly. Not so for me. I was glad she tired of this after 3 rides.

 

SL Coaster - in a word: weird. Straight into the first drop and then a mid course brake run which kills the rest of the ride by pretty much completely stopping the train. To finish off, up an interminably slow lift hill back to the start of the ride.

 

Momonga Standing and Loop Coaster - same track, two different trains, one standing and one sitting. Short and tolerable. For anyone not accustomed to standing rides, this is probably a good first one as it is very short and only has a single loop. Stuff will fly out of your pockets through the loop on this one, especially standing, so make sure all loose items really are secured for this ride.

 

White Canyon - we were dreading this one based on previously viewed on-ride video footage, however no one getting off the ride seemed permanently scarred, so we proceeded. We rode in the front seat, and sure it wasn't a smooth woodie like Regina, but to me this was not all that bad. I would have happily ridden again, but my daughter felt once was enough. For me, this was not the worst woodie I have ever ridden - so far that dubious honour remains with GhostRider at Knott's Berry Farm.

 

Finishing off the official coaster count was the kiddie coaster - Wan Wan Coaster Wandit. It has bubbles! This immediately meant that my daughter declared this the best kiddie coaster ever.

 

A drop and reverse drop ride finish off the big rides at Yomiuriland, but there are many, many more things to do here.

 

Highlights for us were the kiddie haunted house, which was just scary enough for my daughter (so we went through at least a dozen times) and the elevated pedal ride WITH A LIFT HILL AND A DROP. Personally, I reckon this is a credit, but others may disagree.

 

My daughter was extremely happy with the karts as 1/ the tracks are long - really long, and 2/ she could ride alone.

 

There's also a semi-hidden area in the area above the carousel which is WELL worth investigating - in my opinion there is ANOTHER credit here as the dragon ride does go around on a track. There is also a magnificently themed kiddie railway which you would be remiss in not riding.

 

We managed to stay at Yomiuriland all day, and with the minimal crowds had walk-on or near walk-on conditions for all rides, all day.

Did you just say you want the back row? Are you feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day.

This ad and variants thereof was posted all over Yomiuriland. Like many things you see in Japan, the explanation defies you. Are they a boy band? Is it a talent competition? Karaoke? Dare I say it...don't have a CowCow, man.

At the top of the gondola ride is a magnificent temple area. Just after this, Yomiuriland comes into view. Yet another example of the contrasts to be found in Tokyo.

[MichaelD]

Kanji

This means exit.

This means entrance. I'm guessing the first character means in and the second one means door.