Warning : This is going to be a ginormous post. And very image heavy.
I might split it into 2 parts.
And man! The Harry Potter attraction is not open yet when we visited!
Day 8 Agenda : Universal Studios Japan
So, theme park day!
USJ is one of the major reasons for me to spend so many days in Kansai and is also the first thing to come out of my mouth. I stubbornly wanted to go to USJ no matter the odds.
Oddly, as much as I love Mickey, I’m always gravitating more towards Universal Studios. Maybe it’s because we have one in our red dot island. Or maybe it’s because I went there close to 7 times. Anyway the force is strong within me.
And so, we woke up around 7pm and ride all the way over to USJ. Apparently everyone had the same thoughts for the train was crowded!
… Or maybe 7am isn’t really all that early.
So, like always, the park itself is a little way from the MRT station. Unlike in our sunny shores, the ‘little way’ is a lot longer.
Look at all the people!
But no worries, there’s a million thing to look at as you cross : Universal CityWalk.
There’s a Takoyaki Museum.
Moomin.
And here we are!!
As mention on Day 1, we brought our fast-pass from the awesome Loopi machine in Lawson, we can’t seem to find any ticketing counters that sells the actual tickets themselves. And no, the ones in Loopi is all sold out.
So the only thing to do : Queue up like noobs to get the tickets.
I think we queued for around 20~30mins.
And in we go!!
Of course, you can’t simply use the fast passes as it is, you’ll have to redeem it inside USJ for the fast-pass booklet.
I forgot where it is exactly but if it helps, here’s a picture of the interior :
I just remembered the huge Elmo cup.
So after getting that out of the way, let’s start!
We’re rearing to go!
But of course, breakfast is always the No.1 priority. And so, we started walking along, looking for food carts.
We walk pass Snoopy…
And yes, we did not enter that land for the rest of the day.
Cause none of us is really interested in it and the rides that we wanted to get on took up the rest of our time.
Sesame Street!
Food cart!! Churros and coke!
I love Churros. We quickly queued up and not long after, we got our breakfast for the day.
Mine’s the choco and BP’s strawberry.
Just a close up to make you drool.
We got matcha latte as well.
After that tasty meal, we head on to the first attraction.
This was just besides us when we were queueing for the churros.
No questions, we are going to Amity Village!
Lady, even if that shark is ‘dead’, it’s still not a good idea to feed your baby to it.
This was the first thing that greeted us. OOH! Is that the all-famous Jaw-kun??
See? I’m right.
Welcome to the 1st ride of the day.
Using our fast pass, it’s a relativity short wait.
If you’ve been to DisneyLand Jungle ride, you’ll what to expect from this. This is a boat ride with a very compressed and heavily edited Jaws story.
Well, you’ll still get startled when you realized Jaws moves in closer then you think (and from the pictures) if you’re seated at the correct side.
It’s a cute ride and a nice way to start USJ. Sorry about the lack of pictures but I don’t want to get my cameras wet and I simply can’t remember if you’re allowed to take them or not.
The shop you’ll see once you alight from the boat.
The Amity Village.
There’s also the limited One Piece theme going on in USJ.
You’ll see this bird everywhere. The amount of detail!
Waterworld. No, we did not go for the show as we kept on missing the timings.
There’s road stalls selling One Piece merchandises and this is one of them.
There’s a huge Ace thing going on. I seriously think that he’s a lot more popular then when he’s alive as compared to post-mortem. It does help that his death comes rather unexpectedly… Just when he’s saved by Luffy.
A fat load of help this is. You might find him if you’re dead yourself though.
Oh look where we are!
Just when we entered, we heard a roar and man, this come walking our way!
WOAH. Watch that tail!
We almost got hit by that tail! Looks very tamed though. Well…as tamed as a predator can be.
We did not go for the ride as it’s the same river ride as USS. We are not looking forward to being soak in this chilly weather so we decided to skip this.
Jurassic Outfitters!!
This greeted us at the very entrance!
Decorations inside the shop.
They bite!
After that bit of posing fun with the merchandise, we continued along the road.
Japan have these.
These are special boxes to slide postcards in (only delivered in japan) where they’ll stamp special postmark on the postcards as it’s delivered to your house. If you stay in Japan. As the theme is One Piece, the design of the stamps is related to that.
On a side note, the theme right now is Attack of the Titan. MUHAHAHAHA, drool your heart out.
We started getting peckish again as Churros won’t carry anyone the entire day, we spotted a One Piece food cart. They’re selling water bottles shaped as a wooden mug with either Luffy or Chopper on top. Needless to say, we got 1 each. BP passed on that and got herself an anime-like drumstick.
Look at the drumstick! It’s turkey.
And our characters mugs. Mine’s Luffy and KK’s Chopper.
The drink inside is melon soda. It’s in a sickening neon green color and looked like it’s some chemical experiment done wrong. The taste however, is just normal sweet not-sure-if-it’s-melon-flavoured soda. And like any normal sweet soda, it’s damn sweet.
Hmm…
It can’t be Ace’s fire that grilled that. I mean since he’s dead and all. Unless Sabo is the one grilling it. But that would just mean it’s the Mero Mero no Mi fire and not Ace… ARGH. I’m getting a headache.
And the Jurassic car!
The ride which we passed on.
Another reminder that coke is chockfull of chemicals.
I mean, it survived… drinkable since prehistoric times!
Attack! Attack!
And with that we moved out of the Jurassic Zone and onto San Francisco!
How it looks like.
Here’s a Chinese restaurant.
Do tell me if it’s good if you tried it.
Heading for our 2nd ride! BackDraft!
Not using our fast-pass for this but it’s a short queue so we’re in luck.
Now this is a studio ride. Meaning you get to experience how a built-up set does it cinematic magic.
How the special effects people produce a set where a fire starts and gets bigger, how the backdraft happens. It’s as awesome as it sounds. The ride promises to give an experience as a scene in the movie and it did.
Right outside Backdraft. De de de de de~
One Piece Stage Show!
Sorry about the random One Piece stuff here and there but that’s just how it’s place all over the park. This is placed right outside the toilet.
Too bad we can’t get the tickets to this as it’s all sold out… Ah man.
Back to the Future!
You see the waiting time for this?
Yes, we queued up as we used our fast pass on the Jaws ride. The queuing estimation timing is on the dot. We queued closed to 2hrs for this. 60% of it is spend queuing in the scorching sun.
Is it worth it?
Kinda. This is like our USS Transformers ride, only 1 generation down. The seats don’t move, only shake so you’ll have to rely on the graphics to bring you into the ride. It’s still quite exciting though as we travelled far and wide through space.
Yes, I know, we’re eating way too much.
But you know, I kinda forget the sequence of when this happened as I simply took the order of the uploaded photos so this might happened later but eh, I don’t care.
This is a pizza place so KK ordered pizza, me and BP order pasta.
This is outside the new area we entered, NEW YORK.
This is a stage but no shows were on when we walked pass though.
On another note. NEW YORK. EQUALS SPIDER-MAN. ME. SPIDER-MAN. CAN I SCREAM AND JUMP NOW?
KYAAAAAAAAAAAA.
The main reason for me wanting to go USJ is actually for this ride. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF SPIDER-MAN THE RIDE. Sure, he’ll be speaking in Japanese but EH. I DON”T CARE. IT’S SPIDER-MAN.
We used our fast-pass here as the queue is freaking long and we got in soon enough. By then both KK and BP ears must be half-deaf by my fan-girling. WHAT?
This is a ride the same as Transformers in USS. Which means the car will move you from 1 place to another and moving and shaking at the same time with added heat or water splashing onto you. A 4D ride.
It ain’t bad but I am too spoiled by our own Transformers ride (IT’S TOTALLY AWESOME BY THE WAY) and Spider-Man The Ride just don’t measure up to the standard. So I’m slightly disappointed but hey, I got up close and personal to the MAN himself so it’s all good ~
We the moved on and onto the next.
I”LL BE BACK.
If you did not notice, it’s actually a waiting time of 100mins.
HAHAHAHA. Fast Pass. Now, this is the same as Shrek 4D, which is a 4D show. So each interval is about 15 ~30mins. We went into the special queue for fast-pass holders and sat on the floor as we waited to enter the next show.
This show is hilarious. The opening I mean. Wé were ushered into a big hall where a woman will appeared on a balcony looking down to us. The way she addressed us was very amusing. Ah. 1 problem though. It’s in Japanese.
Anyway we laughed a lot in that opening skit which afterwards will be opened up to another theatre where you’ll be seated and the rest is to simply enjoy the 3D show!
So after that enjoyable bit of fun, we started on to the next ride. It’s evening by now so we decided to end things up with a roller coaster. Now KK is deadly afraid of these so we left her to the Monster Hunter exhibition that’s happening in USJ as well and BP and I strolled into the Hollywood Dream ride.
THE ride.
We used our fast pass to override the 200mins waiting time. Man! Here it comes!
Hollywood Dream is a coaster that blasts music of your choice that fires you up even further as you loop around in break-neck speed!
I heard ‘Battery’ by SMAP (Japan Boyband) so I’m very excited for it to be blasting into my ears as we go up and round! Each seat is equipped with speakers build-in at ear level so no one will be bothered others’ music choices.
MAN! WAS THE RIDE GOOD. The music work wonders in pumping you up! The height of the music is exactly when you’re at the top and all that’s left is to fall.
So after that exhilarating ride, BP and I started making our way over to the Monster Hunter exhibition.
Once we’re in the area, a loud roar made us jumped!
DRAGON!!
It moved and blow steam out of it’s nostrils! Woah, I did not expect this! They built a 1/2 scale of the dragon in Monster Hunter!
… At least I think it’s 1/2 scale… I mean, if it’s full scaled, then this dragon is mightily small for it’s size isn’t it?
Monhunt Food cart.
This caught both of our attention.
The Menu.
こんがり肉G – Kongari Meat G
特製肉まん – Special Meat Bun
モンスターハンタードリンクG – Monster Hunter Drink G
I’m thinking these are the food items in the Monster Hunter game. I don’t play that game so I’m clueless here. However the meat bun looks so cute with the shape as a paw!
Unable to resist, BP and I brought 1 to share. The taste is rather meh. Just a simple meat bun.
So after finishing that bun, BP and I walked into the exhibition. Since I don’t play the game, I can’t name any of the items inside but I can tell you that they made real versions of all the weapon from the game as well as the characters.
One more outside.
A close up of the 3rd Dragon.
It was after that we spotted KK. It seems like she brought the drink from the food cart. As she played the game, she told me the drink is packaged exactly as the drink in the game. However, it tastes horrible.
By now it’s already 7.30 ~ 8pm plus so we decided to head back.
NEON BRIGHT.
Now you know why I didn’t post much pictures of CityWalk in the beginning of this post?
Because it looks much better at night!
Here’s how the Takoyaki Museum looked at night.
…
Here’s when the incident happened.
When we were at the station platform, waiting for the train, we noticed it’s taking a really long time. Everyone was squatting down and looking at their watch.
It was then we started sensing something was wrong. So we kept an eye on the notice board. That’s when the notice came in.
” The train will be delayed as a personal incident had happened. ”
That, in simpler terms, is that someone committed suicide on the train tracks 1 station ahead of us. Everyone groaned when they saw the notice.
I know. Sympathy. But you can’t help feeling frustrated as well. It has been a long day and we’re tired and we have no means of knowing when the train will arrive due to this incident. Suicide is a sin. Don’t bother anyone else please.
I know I know. Shouldn’t be feeling this way. But… Sigh, I don’t know. Nothing is right about this.
Anyway, we waited for close to 1.5hr before deciding to call it quits. People are piling up on the platform as more and more people are going home but no train is coming.
We decided to take a cab despite the hefty fare, thinking that if we split it 3 ways the cab fare should be bearable. We went up and saw that the exit is crammed full of people as well, half is asking about the situation, half is trying to get out.
Just when it’s our turn to get out, an announcement came on, stating that the train will be arriving soon. We took 1 look at each other and ran down the stairs and onto the crowded platform, queuing up at what-looks-like-the-shortest-queue.
True enough, the train came after a 2mins wait and everyone squeeze into it. Miraculously, everyone managed to get into the train! It’s packed like sardines but hey! It’s an achievement!
We then made our way back to our hotel safely.
All in all, a weird ending to a fun and exciting day.
Hey! Whatdoyounknow! I managed to did it in 1 post though it took me 3 day!
A Crazy Pumkin 