Fuji-Q Highland Theme Park!
Hey, y'all! Well, since the midterm was on Wednesday, we had a nice four-day weekend Thursday through Sunday. A few people (Kheng, Lucia, Kacey, and Krysta) went to Yokohama for a few days, but the rest of us planned some trips. Thursday turned out to be "Fuji-Q Highland Day." It's kind of like Six Flags or Marine World, I guess. Now, I usually don't like those kinds of theme parks, but I thought, "What the heck, I'm in Japan, so I might as well live a little." I've been saying that to myself a lot lately. On the one hand, it keeps me from staying home in front of my computer all the time, but it can sometimes keep me out until 10:30 at night when I have school the next day. But that's another story.
Anyways, I finally caved and decided to go with them. We left by train at around 11:30, so it wasn't like I had to get up early or anything. The altogether-cost of the day was about 4100 yen ($41), which was pretty expensive, but we stayed until closing at 5:00, so I think we got our money's worth.
The interior of the train with Preston, Andy, and (turned away) Ui.
This is Asana, Natalie's tutor. She's pretty cool and easy to talk to. Her English is excellent.
The view out the window of the train.
We got there by noon or so, but we had to hang out for a while and wait for Lisa. I guess she slept in or something. But we managed to fill the time with talking and picture-taking. Here's a group shot of us posing by the entrance.
That's (left to right) Asana, Natalie, Andy, Nozomi (my tutor), Ui, and Preston.
...and Nozomi and I switched for the last one.
Here's a better shot of Ui, Preston's tutor. He's incredibly helpful and down-to-earth.
The very first ride you see is a giant red roller coaster called "Eejanaika" Apparently, it's a "four-dimensional," 249 foot tall roller coaster with a record number of fourteen inverts. Yeah, kind of freaky. That would be scary enough, but the seats also face backwards, so you won't be able to see when you're going to flip until you're suspended in a free fall with only a harness across your chest keeping you in. I took one look at it and went, "Uh-uh. No WAY." Of course, everyone else looked at it and said, "YAY! I want to go on THAT ONE first!" The majority had spoken. The line was really long, and I didn't want to be the only loser waiting for them at the entrance for an hour, so I allowed myself to be dragged on. As a rule, I generally don't go on any rides that have a tendency to flip, but I picked one heck of an exception, right?
I should have been freaking out a lot more, but I got caught up in a political discussion with Lisa, so I didn't notice the tense waiting as much. As I said, it was a LONG wait, but we all got to ride at the same time, despite being cut off into two halves at the beginning. I felt really bad for Andy. I think he was even more reluctant to go on than I was. He has a thing with heights. The photo taken during the ride consisted of him gripping the handle with white knuckles and his eyes squeezed shut. Poor guy. The heights don't really bother me (though we were REALLY high up)--it's more of the falling straight down with very little supporting you thing that bugs me.
We got to the front of the line, and I sat next to Lisa. I think I heard Andy praying in the next car over. Preston, of course, was ECSTATIC. The people running the ride got us all worked up with synchronized clapping and chanting before the floor dropped out from under us and we took off. I've always hated the slow crawl to the top of the ride. Just when you think you can't possibly go any higher, you realize that you're only half-way up. I can't really describe the ride itself because it was incredibly intense, and it all blends together in my mind. I'll let the video speak for me. I apologize to those of you with slow connections or reading these off of print-outs. I know you won't be able to view them, but remind me to show you later.
Pretty scary, huh? That one on the ride wasn't done by me. Someone on YouTube was braver than I was and took a camera on the ride. There was no way that I was doing that, because if that thing falls, I'm dead.
Click to view
So after that one, we explored around a bit and looked at some other rides. We eventually made it to a vista that has a great snapshot view of Mount Fuji. Oh, did I mention that? The theme park is RIGHT at the base of the mountain. When you go on a lot of the rides, it feels like you're literally climbing it.
It was absolutely gorgeous weather. It got really cold towards the end of the day, but the afternoon was perfect. I also forgot to mention this earlier, but we all had to carry special all-day passes with us for the rides. That wouldn't be unusual, expect for the way that you get them. You get your generic ticket, go into a giant photo booth area, insert the ticket, and your photo will be imprinted on the ticket. Japan is so much more technologically advanced than us. I love my photo. I was literally staring at the camera, unbelievably amused by the whole concept of the booth, and it took my picture. Preston gets the award for "looking most like a criminal."
After looking at Mount Fuji, we separated into two groups. If I had known what we were doing at the time, I would've gone with Nozomi and Asana, but I followed the pack blindly. Turned out that our group was the one that wanted to go to the haunted house. I drew the line on this one. Fear-inducing, insanely high roller coasters that go at speeds humans should never attempt = Okay. Creepy places with ghosts, a freaky atmosphere and the chance of psychological trauma = Not gonna happen. I'll just wait at the bench, shall I? I'm a wimp, I admit it, but I know what REALLY messes with my head, and heights isn't one of those things. That was probably the low-point of the day. Everyone else went and were gone for an hour and a half. I wandered around a little bit, but it was pretty much me sitting there, staring at the building. On a plus note, I took lots of pictures.
I forgot to mention this, but it's supposedly the largest haunted house in the world, and it was fashioned to look like an abandoned hospital that had been taken over by ghosts. No thanks. Hospitals creep me out enough without being haunted. That's why that guy in the front is dressed like a doctor...with blood stains and stuff on his coat. I guess it wasn't too scary, from what everyone else said, but I tend to get scared of things that most people would consider "tame," like Sixth Sense. Better safe than sorry.
This was me walking around the park a bit while I waited. Towards the end, there's a reason why the spray looks so close. For the record, those screams did not belong to me.
After they finally got out, we tried one more roller coaster. This one was called "Fujiyama" and was even taller than "Eejanaika." It was at this point that it got really cold. We wanted to get on the ride just to warm up. This one wasn't quite as death-defying as the first one because it didn't go upside down, but it was definitely fast, and it had a freaky feature taking hairpin turns sideways without slowing down. It was pretty fun. By the time we got off that, it was approaching 5:00, and the park was closing...probably because it's winter and everyone's freezing. It seems like we didn't really do much in that time, but there was a lot of interaction in between the rides.
Before I sign off, I'll point out a few signs that I found amusing for different reasons. Pretty much all of them were next to the water ride. It resembled your generic "log ride" or "Splash Mountain" type of ride with a giant splash at the end, but the seats were completely enclosed by a glass cover (probably because of the season), so you couldn't get wet. Nevertheless, here's what I saw:
I love the fact that it's in English, too...like FOREIGNERS are the ones with this problem.
These two were near a "splash zone" to warn people nearby that they could get wet. I did not see these signs...
Finally, this was an ad for "Titanic on Ice"...only spelled differently.
That was pretty much the day. We were all tired by the end of it, but I think it was worth it. I realize that a lot of these entries are increasingly photo-heavy. Could someone educate me on how to do an lj-cut and save loading time? Much appreciated.