Nrthwnd Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 ^wouldn't that be the BISEXUAL coaster? Hmmm. Could be. Could be there. "Where everything is possible, and nothing makes sense." (a musical quote) Hey - Name This Coaster Contest! (other than FrightFlight, it's actual name) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 21, 2005 Author Share Posted December 21, 2005 September 11th Today was the 7th full day of the tour and we went to Disneyland on a budget or as they call it, Nara Dreamland. Somebody who went to Disneyland in California, took pictures and tried to recreate it in Japan designed this park. If you’re a Disney fan you need to go here just to see it in person. You better hurry though because I understand that the park will be closing in a year or two. There is a nice train station with train and you enter the park passing under the tracks. In the town square there is a town hall and fire station on the left. Looking down Main Street you see the castle. To the right of the castle is a mountain with the bobsleigh ride and complete with sky buckets that go thru the mountain just like Disneyland used to have. Further to the right is the monorail station with a car ride right behind it. If you go left at the castle you would end up on the jungle cruise. There are even tracks on main street for a trolley. Of course most of this stuff was not working when we were there and by the looks of it had not been working in some time. Our group out numbered the other guests by at least 10 to one. There are 5 credits in the park. The Kids Coaster by Pinfari was a credit. Screw Coaster by Arrow was a normal corkscrew, painful. The Japanese must love these coasters because it seems like everyone has a corkscrew. Fantasy Coaster by Meisho was a mine train type coaster and wasn’t to bad. I rode it a couple of times. Mostly to get a view of their water park which already closed for the year. Bobsleigh by Sensei was there knock off of the Matterhorn Bobsleds. The lift hill is inside the mountain which is all open and you can see the structure. When you get to the top you just circle the mountain a couple of times and back into the station. I think there was supposed to be a part where you hit the water a little at the end like the Matterhorn but there was no water. The side of the mountain comes real close to the car and I’m sure you would hit it if you stuck your arms out. By far the best wooden coaster on the trip and one of the best over all was Aska by Intamin Lots of airtime. I lost count the number of times I rode it. It was the first ride I rode in the park. I then rode all the other coasters and came back to Aska and rode it until we had to leave. It will be sad to see this park close and not have someone buy and relocate it. This coaster is so out of place with the rest of the park. I would recommend this park because of Aska and you have to see how they tried to copy Disneyland. We moved on to Hirakata Park later in the day. This is another park I would have liked to spend more time in. In was one of the nicest parks on the trip. Well themed and they had 5 credits! Their Crazy Mouse looked like a spinning mouse but the cars didn’t spin. To bad because that would have made the ride more fun. Peekaboo Town was the kiddie coaster. When we got in line I saw the same 2 guys in front of us that caused a problem at Expoland. We went and rode the mouse first and came back. I didn’t want to be embarrassed again. Fantastic Rowdy Coaster was more of a family coaster and Red Falcon was a large ho hum nonlooping coaster. Elf was a junior wooden Intamin coaster. I would rank it 3rd best wooden on the trip behind Regina at Tobu Zoo. Fun but it was short and very little airtime. Fun none the less. They had an icehouse, dark rides and this cool ride kind of like bumper cars. The cars were enclosed and you fired balls at the other cars for points. Fantastic Coaster Rowdy Crazy Mouse, what was crazy is why they didn't spin Red Falcon Elf Elf in the background Hirakata This ride is so good you will loose your underware! More Aska Aska Screw Coaster, I don't know if this is a statement or the name! bobsleigh car Matterhorn, sky buckets and monorail track Town Hall and fire station. Funny choice of colors. Looking down main street to the castle Looks familiar nice so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Great overhead shots, just as everything changes with the light, lol. Were you in the big ferris skywheel there, taking the shots? Looked like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 21, 2005 Author Share Posted December 21, 2005 Yeah, we were in the wheel. We rode just about every wheel in all the parks we visited. Did it for the view and the photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Did you do any of the dark rides at Hirakata?? Some of them were really messed up!!!! Headphones, decapitations, clowns, great place! ...and they had a McDonalds IN THE PARK!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hattuchili Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Wow, the last 3 pictures are awesome! Nara Dreamland looks really a bit like Disneyland, but in a bad way! However, thanks for another good update! --Sören Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterCrazy Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Thanks for posting the awesome pictures! This picture is my favorite: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
socalMAN123 Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Nice TR and photos! I really want to go to Japan now! ---Brent 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 21, 2005 Author Share Posted December 21, 2005 Did you do any of the dark rides at Hirakata?? Some of them were really messed up!!!! Headphones, decapitations, clowns, great place! ...and they had a McDonalds IN THE PARK!!!! Yes, the dark rides over there are differant. I forgot all about the one with headphones and there were a few with decapitations and the head goes flying off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 24, 2005 Author Share Posted December 24, 2005 September 12th. We traveled to Parque Espana and I think it was one of the nicest parks on the tour. It is themed extremely well and is very clean. The park had what I thought were 2 very good coasters in Pyrenees and Gran Monserrat. It also had one of the only 2 coasters we missed on the entire trip. Although the park could use a few more coasters and rides in general, I really liked the park and would visit it again. The first stop of the day was at Pyrenees, a big B & M inverted coaster. This was my favorite coaster of the trip. We ended up riding it many times through out the day. There was never more then a 1 or 2 train wait. The only thing that slowed the dispatch down was that they wiped down the seats after every ride, even the seats that were not used. Gran Monserrat was up next. It is a mine train with 2 lifts. I also liked this ride a lot. The ride ops wouldn’t let you wait for the front or back seats. Since there weren’t many people riding later in the day, we would wait around the corner until they dispatched the train. We would then walk up and get our choice of seats. The only other coaster at this park was Bullfight Roller Coaster Matador. It’s an indoor coaster with a bullfight theme. It was closed for maintenance. The park had some other good rides. One was a pirate themed ride. Not Disney but pretty good. It’s partially outdoors. They have an icehouse which people said good. I didn’t go in because it was an up-charge. Another of the dark rides was like Peter Pan in Disneyland. They had a log flume where the ride ops wiped the water off the seats before the next riders got in and there was the not to be missed Escalator ride. See R & E Japan trip video if you don’t know what this is. We stayed at the hotel that is next to the park. It made it convenient when the park closed; we didn’t have far to go. We got kicked out of the hotel pool. Supposedly it was undergoing maintenance. Looked fine to us. We had a banquet that night in the hotel. The food was great; it would have brought a tear to any Acers eye. All in all it was a really fun day even if we only got 2 out of 3 credits. Hi-tech toilet. That is not a urnal on the left, it is a sink. oops! pool we got kicked out of Flying Island, good views from up there Enterance to Escalator ride Pirate ride Closed Bullfight coaster Gran Monerrat Pyrenees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 29, 2005 Author Share Posted December 29, 2005 September 13th Nagashima Spaland Today we got to look in awe at “Wheel Chucker 2000” also known as Steel Dragon 2000. What a waste just sitting there. Pretty impressive to look at sitting all alone at the edge of the parking lot. Hopefully they will get it running again before 2007. Just so everybody knows, no one was killed when it chucked a wheel into the waterpark. There are 8 running coasters at the park, 9 credits if you count both sides of the Double Mouse. I don’t have to worry if it’s 2 credits because only one side was running. Ultra Twister is kind of interesting looking. It is just like the one that used to be at SFAW except this one has a vertical lift. Both coasters have another thing in common, they hurt! The OSR just dig into my shoulders, my head gets banged around. I’m too worried about getting hurt to enjoy the ride. TOGO stands for Try Once, Get Off. I can’t believe they put in a few more of these around Japan. The other TOGO in the park, Jet Coaster was not smooth either but I think it was a better ride then Ultra Twister. They have the standard Cork Screw by Arrow. I think all parks have these. White Cyclone is there woodie. I rode in the front on my first ride and thought it was great. The people right behind me thought the ride was one of the roughest ones they have been on. I tried it later on towards the back. It was a little rougher then the front but still not bad in my opinion. I kind of ranked this around3rd or 4th for woodies on this trip. I rode a giant Frisbee for the first time. I have seen smaller ones but none this big. That to me was the best ride of the day. I loved that ride. My number 2 ride of the day was the Bobkarts. They are cars that run in a metal trough and you can control the speed. Nothing special about these but I have never ridden anything like it before. Funny how in a park with so many coasters, my 2 favorite rides were not coasters. As far as coasters go, the Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop was my favorite for this park. That night we stayed in a business hotel. Only one to a room and the rooms were small. From my bed I could look out and watch the hookers try to pick guys up. September 14th Today we started off by going to Higashiyama Zoo. There were only 2 coasters, 3 if you count powered. The coaster had no legroom. I had to turn my legs a little sideways to fit in the car. The kiddie powered coaster had plenty of legroom. Go figure. The real interesting and unique coaster was called Slope Shooter. The manufacturer is unknown. The cars are like log flume vehicles with wheels. There is no track but you run down a cement trough. When you first get in the car, a ride op pulls you out of the station and pushes you over to the lift hill chain. At the top of the hill, you zig zag back down. There are no brakes so when you come into the station a ride op grabs the car to slow you down. Very different, just look at the pics. Not a lot of privacy in these Japanese parks Another pic of the brakeman. Anyone know who the guy in the yellow shirt is? Justin, founder of the ECC. He doesn't like his picture to be taken guy sliding across platform, stopping the car. This guy must go thru the shoes doing this weeeeeee!!!! guy pushing car to lift hill Most unique coaster on the trip. slope Shooter kiddie coaster, no credit, it's powered Higashiyama Zoo Tiny roomI spent one night in. This is where I watched the hookers out the window White Canyon queue filled with Japanese and their cloaking devices White canyon Enterance looks like it could open anytime. Maybe there is hope for next year Wheel Chucker from the other side favorite coaster at this park 2nd favorite ride, Bobkarts! Favorite ride at this park view from the wheel verticle lift Ultra Twister It's a corkscrew, enough said Ka-ching! credit on the kiddie coaster This is where I was told the wheel came off. Steel Dragon 2000 SBNO, what a pity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted January 6, 2006 Author Share Posted January 6, 2006 September 15th. The last official day of the tour. Because we stayed in the hotel at Fugi-Q highlands and we got into the park a ½ hour early. What we found out later was that nothing opened until the general public was let into the park. The extra ½ hour allowed us to be first in line at one of the coasters. Fuji-Q has to big coasters, Dodonpa and Fujiyama, and 4 smaller ones. We chose to ride Fujiyama first and were on the first train out. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. Was it because it was a great ride? Nope, the coaster got stuck on the lift hill. We had almost made it to the top when a motor blew a fuse. We had to be evacuated from the cars. I was just passed the 60m sign which is about 208 feet up when it stopped. They tried to restart the motor several times but it just kept throwing the breaker. I think the train was to heavy with all the Acers. We were up there for about 40 minutes. BY the time we got down, the line for Dodonpa was 1-1/2 hours. Fortunately they gave us a front of line pass to Dodonpa and a front of line pass to Fujiyama should it start running again later that day. Since Fujiyama didn’t run that day, we were able to use it for a second ride on Dodonpa. Dodonpa I thought was cool. It’s a launched coaster that has some pretty good acceleration you do a few turns then go over a top hat that really throws you out of your seat. The lamest coaster there is Zola 7. It is part shooting dark ride, part coaster. Neither which are any good. I found the restraints painful. Because of the lack of time in the park, we were only able to ride the coasters once. I understand there is a walk thru that is really good but it takes 45min so we had to pass. The 2nd park of the day was Sea Paradise in Yokohama. The Surf Coaster was a non-looping Togo and it wasn’t too bad. It had the helix of death, went around 2-1/2 times. Blue Fall is a drop tower over 300 ft tall. I hate heights and this one really bothered me. You are way up there. One side of the tower is a straight drop and the other side has a false drop. You fall about 10 feet, stop, and then fall the rest of the way. It is different but since I knew it was coming was no big deal. The last park of the day and to end the official tour was Cosmo World. Home to one hell of a big wheel. When we were up in it, I was wondering how they would evacuate you if it broke down. It is something like 368 feet tall. We had enough time to ride the 2 coasters there, a mouse and a coaster that looks like it dives into the water. Maybe that is why it is called Diving Coaster Vanish. After taking some pics from the wheel it was back to the hotel we started in 2 weeks earlier to end this long day and the tour. September 16th. While most everyone else was leaving, a group of us stayed a few extra days to catch a few more coasters. First stop today was Toshimaen. This was the park we got rained out of the first day. After navigating the subway we arrived early and had some coffee at star bucks. When the park did open there was hardly anyone there. That seems to be common at most of the parks this time of year. We rode Cyclone first. It is an Ok coaster that meanders around the park. The best part was probably the view. We then rode Corkscrew, ouch, we didn’t ride it again. The last coaster to get was the Shuttle Loop but it didn’t open with the park. It open like 12:30 and we had been in the park since 9:00. Since we had done most of the stuff the first time we were in the park there wasn’t much left to do. We rode a few flat rides and the powered coaster was good. It went around its little course 3 times at a pretty fast clip. We still had a lot of time to kill so we ended up reriding cyclone for a total of 10 times. When the Shuttle Loop finally opened, we rode it a few times. That is the first looping coaster where I lost change out of my pocket. We headed out of the park, grabbed lunch at McDonalds and got on a train to Seibuen Yuenchi. We had to make a transfer and when we were trying to figure out which way to go a Japanese guy came up and asked if we needed help and pointed us in the right direction. That is one of the really cool things about Japan. In the train and subway stations if you looked puzzled, someone will always come over to see if you need help. We got to the park and rode the Loop Screw Coaster. Ouch. There wasn’t a whole lot to do there except a few in the group counts powered coasters so we had to go find the Hello Kitty Coaster. The park was empty and I think we were the only ones in the kiddie section on a Friday afternoon. After the few got their powered credit it was back to the hotel. September 17th. The last full day in Japan we went to Chiba Zoo. Had to make a transfer from the train to a suspended monorail to get to the park. We were standing outside the gate trying to decide which ticket to purchase when a gal came out of the ticket booth and gave us a guide in English. Love those Japanese and how helpful they all are. The Zoo was the nicest one we saw in Japan and they had one little Vekoma roller skater. Didn’t take long to get the credit, see a few animals and we headed back into Tokyo. We stopped at La Qua and rode Thunder Dolphin a few more times then it was back to the hotel. September 18th My last day in Tokyo and I had a half day before I had to head to the airport. Today was a no coaster day. I did the touristy thing and headed to the Imperial Palace to take pictures. It was a Great trip and I had one of the best experiences in my life. Although the coasters were nothing spectacular I would go back in a minute. The culture, the people and the food are just fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about Japan. I look forward to going back one of our "crub" buses and watch out for the sea monster You can swim, just don't be synchronized funny signs empty train stuck taunting us the rest of the day Getting stuck on Fujiyama and evacuated from 200 feet up was probably better then the ride would have been Our turn to evacuate coming at last. Took a pic of our hotel and Mt Fuji while waiting for our turn to be evacuated Can you spot the president of ACE in this picture? They are coming to evacuate us If you look between the people you can see how close to the top we were We are a long ways up. Self portrait after getting stuck on the lift hill of Fujiyama Fujiyama The next big ride for Fuji-Q and this is what they would save you with if you got stuck Elissa friendly ride coming over the top hat Dodonpa Mt. Fuji Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted January 6, 2006 Author Share Posted January 6, 2006 part 2 of picture post Cemetary outside of hotel and end of update Culture pictures, The imperial Palace Cool monorail you ride to get to Chiba Zoo Taking picture of people taking picture of gorilla Last new coaster of the trip, it's a Vekoma! Chiba Zoo, Got to go on this Steel Dragon Anyone know what kind of animal this is? Came out of the bushes while waiting for the train Hello Kitty Coaster, It's powered, No credit! and its queue full of Japanese with cloaking devices Loop Screw Coaster at Seibuen Yuenchi isn't pirate spelled with an e on the end? Shuttle loop that I lost some change out of my pocket on A view of the nice water in the lazy river from cyclone return to Toshimaen and Cyclone The mouse from the wheel Cosmo world and their big wheel and the helix of death Surf Coaster Blue Fall at Sea Paradise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dws_57 Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 Great trip report! The crub bus is pretty funny. So 60 meters up and they put a hard hat on your head? Not like if you land on your head it will save you. What could fall on your head? The slope turning coaster thing looks fun and really different. Again Great trip report thanks for sharing. Nice Photos Dwskunks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 Thanks so much for posting your reports and photos! I've really enjoyed them! You are so right about Japan. Nothing that spectacular ridewise, but I look forward to going back again for everything else!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Johnson Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 The animal looks like a skinny Tanuki. Sometimes they are called a raccoon-dog. Play Animal Crossing DS sometime and see that the animal that owns the shop is a Tanuki. (Nook) Here is a link all about the Tanuki http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tanuki-jt.shtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterCrazy Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 Thanks for posting all of the awesome pictures of Japan! Reading the TR's and looking at the pictures is making me want to go to Japan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted January 24, 2006 Author Share Posted January 24, 2006 The animal looks like a skinny Tanuki. Sometimes they are called a raccoon-dog. Play Animal Crossing DS sometime and see that the animal that owns the shop is a Tanuki. (Nook) Here is a link all about the Tanuki http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tanuki-jt.shtml Thanks, that looks like the animal we saw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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