We ate at the Olympia. Items on the Japanese menu included a delicious shabu-shabu ham and lettuce option, with sesame dressing, something I developed a taste for during the trip. Stuff like takoyaki (octopus balls), saba (grilled mackerel) and soba (buckwheat noodles) featured too. The western options included potato salad, standard salad bar, boiled eggs, sausages, ham, french fries.. the works.
Engrish sign
Our small, but comfortable hotel room
Various alumni members
Osaka city
Ditto
Marine bus
It's commute time
Highways
Bertrand and Samuel
All Nippon Airways
Osaka Eye? Osaka Flyer? Eye on Osaka?
Our first look at Universal Studios Japan
Approaching the park
The entrance
The gate
Hollywood Dream
This is a charger for people to charge their electric cars
This also
Paul and Shuotian
More of Hollywood Dream
Paul standing next to a mockery of Back to the Future - Toyota sponsored the ride, hence a giant Alphard time machine, complete with the "OUTATIME" plate
USJ's entrance
Figure this out for yourself
It's a small world
Global Variations
More of Hollywood Dream
Hollywood Dream
Hollywood Dream
After the park opened, the J1 batch promptly disappeared, while the J2s merged into the saxophone section for Hollywood Dream, the Bolliger & Mabillard “junior hypercoaster”, a term which seems highly oxymoronic. The roller coaster was interesting in that firstly, it was floorless, although not inverted. Secondly, the ride offered the riders the choice of 5 tracks of music to be played, none of which I liked. However, I inadvertently chose a rock piece. Fortunately, I was not highly irritated by the music due to the sheer intensity of the ride itself. I probably would not be back on there in a hurry, but I would not be reluctant to go on it again if others went, I suppose.
3 J2s, with Shuotian ejecting a party-crasher
This pic was actually posed
As evidenced by my miraculous recovery a few seconds later
Paul..
Samuel...
and Shuotian ran into some "Imperial entanglements"
An overview of the park
Mel's Diner, something I remember all the way from 1999, revisited in 2007 and now 2008, transplanted all the way from Orlando, FL.
Snoopyworld!
Our next ride, to calm a quivering Joseph’s nerves, was Snoopy’s Great Adventure, an indoor family coaster, which was a rather relaxing, if slightly boring, contrast to Hollywood Dream. We considered buying a nice music shirt for Mr Oura, but feared that we would buy the wrong size. We then proceeded to Amity to attempt to ride Jaws, but were deterred by the queues.
Is being in RI and RJ really that stressful?
Snoopy's Great Adventure
The Effects of Beethoven on Lab Mice
The man himself
School science fair
Step 1: Draw as above
Step 2: Draw more
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: PROFIT!
Snoopy
I can't remember who this is
The two latest blockbusters, Snoopicus...
and Count Chuckula
We didn't take this ride
JAWS
Shark, possibly Bruce
Welcome to Amity Island
Hollywood Dream's helix
A fire extinguisher
Our next stop was the ride I was looking forward to the most, after riding it in November last year. Having enjoyed the experience halfway across the world in Florida, I found Jurassic Park: The Ride in Osaka to be no worse. The on-ride photo was quite good, and we bought a few.
Welcome to Jurassic Park
The 3 of us with the JP sign
The tour vehicle used in the movie
The famed drop
Another drop
A view of the boats and the loading platform
An InGen jeep
A vending machine that vends ponchos
Thankfully the whole queue was not being used
Bryan
Samuel and Joseph
Samuel
3 J2s
Zuohao and Joseph
Zuohao again
More queues
Shuotian and Bryan after getting soaked
Bryan and Samuel likewise
The gift shop
A photo spot with a Tyrannosaurus Rex
Samuel with the park's lake in the background
We decided to dry ourselves off by watching Backdraft. It was a little disappointing, because the pre-show was entirely in Japanese, but the flame show proved to be quite impressive.
USJ scenery
More USJ
The fake Fisherman's Wharf
Backdraft
Movie posters
Paul
Paul's leg
We proceeded to Back to the Future, a ride which I dearly wanted to ride, in part to bring back memories and also because I feared the ride would go the same way as its American counterparts and be replaced. However we were put off again by the queues.
The gift shop
The Institute of Future Technology
Remind me again which country we're all in?
We also wanted to ride Spiderman, but the ride was closed temporarily. So, our next ride was E.T, a ride which I had also enjoyed in Florida. This was a fun flight through space in what Shuotian calls the “most high-tech NTUC trolleys ever”. We were lucky we rode this when we did, as soon after we left, the show Fantasy World ended, and the queue went from 10 minutes to 45.
The sign for Terminator 3D
Cyberdyne Studios
We moved back to Spiderman, which had just opened. Again one of the better rides, I did it three times in America. I think we all would have liked to re-ride this if we had the time. It was thrilling without being overly intense, and the simulation was well done.
Spiderman
A poster in the ride queue
We moved for lunch in Amity, then attempted Jaws again. This proved futile, so we moved to Back to the Future and rode it. The ride was a little jarring, but still fun.
Hollywood Dream again
More of USJ
More of the Institute of Future Technology
The DeLorean DMC-12
After some arguing over what this shape was called, it has been resolved that it is an octahedron
Paul and Shuotian
This hides the restrooms
In Japan, as well as in America
After a delay caused by someone leaving something behind in the ride, we then exited Universal Studios and moved to Dotonburi, a shopping district, with the J1s never failing to put me in a state of joyful cardiac arrest. Our little gang of three moved around, but failed to find anything interesting other than “Disney on Brass”, a CD by a band which Mr Oura said is “better than Kosei”, and conducted by someone whom he is highly impressed with. Although, I find Toshio Mashima's creativity a little lacking.
I'm not joking, this sign reads "Kani nabe"
The giant crab for which the area is famous
Dotonburi
Cheap yakitori
A Disney shop, right here in Osaka
Our dinner was quite nice. The curry rice set I ordered also came with a bowl of udon, which made it an extremely good deal at Y500. Complications arose when it started raining, and the saxophone section and the bus were nowhere to be found. Fortunately the situation was resolved without much incident.
We had dinner here, it was really good. For 900 or so yen, that's $11, I had a bowl of bukkake udon (udon with radish), a large plate of curry rice and some side orders, as well as a free flow of water and tea
Dotonburi at night is very evocative of the fair city of Hong Kong
Indy Jones, as he is known here
The crab by night
Paul and Dotonburi
After dinner, we came back to the hotel. The three of us wanted to find our teachers to ask if we could go to Yodobashi Camera, the electronics store, but we could see no sign of them. I decided to retire and start typing this.
The view from our hotel room
Paul
Kyoto tomorrow!!!!!!
DISCLAIMER: I have absolutely no idea what the J1s are doing now, and as far as I know, they are all happily in bed.
Quote of the day: “I like to buy food because it is cheap and also not expensive” - Paul
