Last time I posted we were talking about my birthday. I took myself to Universal Studios Japan (USJ). I went alone, which was simultaneously really awesome and really weird. I mean, I've done theme parks on my own before (obviously, since I used to spend all my days off in the parks back when I worked at EPCOT), but I've never done a theme park for the first time by myself. I usually like to have someone with me to exclaim over all the cool stuff I see. But, as you'll see, it was kind of useful to be alone at some points. Anyway. I'll start back at the beginning.
I headed to Osaka on the Friday night, because I had zero desire to get up and ride a train before dawn on Saturday. I get excited about theme parks, yes, but not that excited. I'm still mostly not a morning person. Not the point. So I checked in the night before at the J-Hoppers hostel one stop away from USJ, which was really nice, and had a decent night's rest. The park hours were from 9-9, with ticket sales beginning at 8AM (you can't buy tickets in advance unless you're getting them through certain travel agencies outside the country), so my goal was to be in line by 7:30. I met that goal easily, actually arriving somewhere around 7:15, and had about 20 people in front of me in the queue I chose. Ticket sales began promptly at 8, I got my day pass, and then moved into the massive throngs of people waiting to get into the park (there were a huge number of Chinese tourists with advance tickets plus the forty bazillion people actually from Osaka who have annual passes). That's when things got weird. At about 8:20, they start letting people through the gate. But not, like, only certain people who get perks with something they bought (they had a separate line for that); I mean everyone. So I figured, okay, it's like Wonderland in Toronto. They start filing people through the turnstiles around 8:30, but then there are ropes stopping them from actually reaching areas of interest that don't get dropped until park opening. Alright. I head off to the right, determined to get as close to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as I can, because I know that's going to be stupidly busy. And I just keep going, and going... I get into the area, and I still haven't been stopped. I walk through Hogsmeade, and I'm still not stopped (none of the shops or food carts are open yet, though). I get to Hogwarts, and they're welcoming people into the ride queue. O...kay....
I proceeded to ride the other ride in the Harry Potter area, Flight of the Hippogriff (or something like that. Whatever. It has a nesting hippogriff, and it's adorable). I browsed the shops a bit, but didn't really feel like carrying anything so early in the day, plus I was sure that my planned chocolate frogs would melt, so I figured I'd come back later. When I exited that area, I found out that park attendance was high enough that I would need a timed entry ticket to get back into the area. This was necessary for me, as I'd also planned to have a meal at The Three Broomsticks when I did my shopping, so I had to head to the area distributing those tickets and got one of the few left available (already!). I could re-enter the area just before 1PM. Cool.
On the "list of things I wanted to do" was the Hollywood Dream: The Ride coaster, and it was the closest thing to Harry Potter, so it made sense to stop there next. There are two separate queues for this ride (not including the single rider one) because they've added a new experience; Hollywood Dream: Backdrop. Using the same track, they reversed a couple of the coaster trains so that you do the whole ride backwards. This was intriguing to me, and I usually like backwards coasters, but the line strictly for that experience was more than two hours, and the estimated wait for single riders was less than an hour. In the single rider line, you have to be willing to ride either direction, because they're just going to shove you wherever they can. Except the dude who was doing the loading queues really sucked at his job because he wasn't filling the rows like he should have been, so there were a lot of empty seats that should have gone to single riders and that was contributing to the long wait time. But I got on a Backdrop train, so that was cool! ...At first. Okay, so it's not like it was a bad ride, but it wasn't stellar. Because they literally just painted the train car a different color and threw it on the tracks backwards, the ride is, for lack of a better term, awkward. You'd think a coaster is just a coaster, but there are definite differences between this and a coaster that's actually been designed for backwards movement. It just doesn't feel right to ride this one backwards. But like I said, not a bad ride, and I still managed to get exactly what I had wanted at the time, so that was all good.
Moving on to Spider-Man. I love this ride. I loved it at Islands of Adventure, and I love it in Japan where I can only understand 15% of what they're saying but I don't even care because it's just that awesome. Single rider was only 20 minutes, so that was great, too! When I got off the ride, I saw a line of people across the street, and I was like, "Hm, might as well check what that's about," so I did and there was a photo spot where you could get a photo with a hanging-upside-down Spider-Man statue. Obviously I did this, because how can you not?!
In Florida (at least when I was there), Jurassic Park consisted mostly of food and the one Jurassic Park water ride. Here they have a new suspended roller coaster added that looks amazing. The problem being that everyone thinks it looks amazing, so the single rider line was close to three hours, and the regular standby was even longer. Uh, no. Not happening. I don't have that kind of attention span, even with my phone, iPad, and DS on me. So I continued on and basically walked onto the water ride (I maybe waited 5 minutes?). Oh man. I forgot, because it's been 6 years and I only rode it that one time in Florida, but you get SOAKED on that ride. And I was wearing jeans. It was so incredibly uncomfortable, and yet 100% worth it at the same time. And yeah, I closed my eyes as soon as we entered the warehouse in the carnivore area of the ride. Dinosaurs are still scary.
After that I mostly just wandered around, in and out of shops and areas I wasn't particularly interested in. Like, I've never seen Jaws, and I'm ambivalent about sharks, so I wasn't really raring to wait in a line for that, but walking through that area was nice. I'm also not a fan of Back to the Future (sorry, Dad) so I wasn't going to ride that (even though it's closing up for good and I think it's the last one out there?), but I did take a picture with the DeLorean because it's iconic and how can you not?
Lunch time! That's right. I did all this already and we're only halfway through the day! Amazing, right?! I headed back to Hogsmeade for my first time into The Three Broomsticks, where I had a lovely lunch of fish and chips, along with a necessary cup of butterbeer. Because butterbeer.
I think the rest of the day was just repeats of what I did in the morning??? I rode Spider-Man at least twice more, back to Jurassic Park (to walk on again) when I got too hot later in the afternoon, and satisfied my shopping needs (aka I got a Slytherin phone case and tie). This was the point where it sucked to be alone, because I didn't have anyone to chatter to while I wandered, and I didn't have anything that I was really focused on as a goal to occupy my mind. I treated myself to funnel cake after dinner, because I love funnel cake and I can't remember the last time I had one, and then picked an awesome spot for the night parade! ...Which was really, really not an awesome parade and I regret that I didn't just go stand in line for the dinosaur coaster instead. I thought it would be full of Snoopy and Harry Potter and other such things that they have at the park. There was one Snoopy float that was literally just a giant Snoopy, one Hello Kitty, and an Elmo.
