What do the Beatles, Snoopy and lots of fire have in common?

We got the first Tuesday in November off for Culture Day. What better way to experience Japan’s culture than to see how the Japanese have fun at a theme park?
We left early to beat the crowd, but so did the crowd, so the trains were just as crowded as usual. We didn’t mind though because we were so excited about riding a roller coaster. However, we were also excited at the discovery that you can make the seats on the train face the other way. It doesn’t take much…
As soon as we got off the train at Universal City station (yes, the park is the only thing at this train stop) we could already tell we’d stepped out of the usual drab city and into a place of magical wonderfulness. I mean, where else will you find a rainbow sherbet colored hotel?

We decided to grab a quick coffee and let the people who had ridden the train with us go ahead and buy tickets so we wouldn’t have to wait so long. Standing in line at McDonald’s, we got a coupon for a free breakfast! (Side note: McDonald’s in Japan serves hot dogs for breakfast, and also Salad McMuffins. I’m not kidding.)
We sat down next to a family who started talking with us, and we found out the daughter had studied abroad in Ohio, where Brittany is from, the summer before last. Since I’ve come to Japan, I’ve realized the world gets smaller and smaller everyday. My Japanese teacher used to teach at UA a few years ago. Go figure.
Anyway, after eating we decided to stroll around the shopping area. We still hadn’t gone in the park yet. It was turning into another Kaiyukan type of day, it seemed. But! I found…

Super takoyaki man!! And…

Totoro!! After buying a few souvenirs from the Totoro store, we actually headed for the park.

Christmas again?? It was just Halloween…

The park opened up into a replica of Beverly Hills shops under a glass dome. We saved the shopping for later and headed toward

Best. Roller Coaster. Ever. Where else can you listen to the Beatles while spiraling through the air? (Other choices were Thriller, some Eminem song and some J pop songs).
We heard that the Spiderman ride was supposed to be best, so we ran over to that area before the line got too long. Beverly Hills opened up into San Francisco (which is how it happens in real life, right? Right?).


Embryo Books? I don’t know about that…

Yay!! …we had to wait for a bit over an hour to ride Spiderman… Good thing I brought my DS!
So, Hollywood Dream (aside from a kiddy coaster) is the only roller coaster in the park. All the other rides are based on special effects. Spiderman was epic though. I really did feel like I was falling down the side of a building at one point, and being launched around on Spiderman’s web. Of course, he was talking in Japanese, a theme we would run into for the rest of the day.
After Spiderman, we decided to catch one more ride before getting some lunch. We found Backdraft, which had a cool description in our guide. It turns out Backdraft is a Ron Howard movie that we hadn’t heard of about firemen and had a lot of cool special effects. The Backdraft “ride” was set up like three stages.

At the first stage, we watched a video introducing the movie to people who didn’t know about it. Hey, Ron Howard directed this, so it will just be Japanese subtitles right? Oh hey… Ron Howard is… speaking Japanese? Huh?
The second stage had another video with some of the actors from the movie. The third room had no video screen, but lots of barrels labeled “Highly Explosive Chemicals” and so on. Then they set the whole room on fire. It was pretty scary, I have to admit.
After lunch, we headed to the Back to the Future ride, which was full of special effects like Spiderman. And I almost got eaten by a T-Rex. Then, we headed over to Jurassic Park.
Did I mention how cold it was? It’s still the coldest day I’ve experienced in Japan, and it’s halfway through November now…
Anyway, Jurassic Park is a water ride. We decided to tough it and bought ponchos because we’re cool like that.


I almost got eaten by a T-Rex AGAIN and my hair and bag got soaked. But it was awesome.
We already had the ponchos… how about another water ride?


JAWS was great, but only because our Amity Island “tour guide” was so animated. We felt bad for the guy having to conduct these “tours” every ten minutes all day everyday and still be so friendly. I wouldn’t be.
Then… the most magical place in the world.





Enough said.
It was starting to get dark as we headed into the Emerald City.

We caught the last showing of the musical “Wicked” for the day, and then decided to do our shopping and head home. Please don’t tell me I have to go to school tomorrow….