0 to 172km/h in 1.8 seconds

Today it was off to FujiQ, an amusement park near Mt. Fuji. The train trip was going to be about 2 hours so we had to get up real early to make it to the park before it opened at 9am. This was recommended to us because of how bad the lines are known to get this time of year.

The train we needed to catch left from Shinjuku station at 6:22am. Shinjuku is one of the major downtown cores. When we got down to track level, and folks this is all true, I counted at least 6 different people out cold lying on the ground on either our platform or a neighbouring one. And some of them were in suits. Apparently after work many people get drunk and some end up missing their last train home or just passing out. I was told that this was how the station looked every Saturday morning. Weird.




Anywho, the train ride was fantastic. It went through the nearby mountains and out into some rural areas. It was nice to experience a bit of rural Japan. It was actually very very beautiful.

The park itself was fairly small and the lines were ridiculous. From 9am to about 4:30pm we managed to get in 4 attractions and lunch. The best line we had was the first one just after the park opened. After that the waits for every ride in the park were always at least one and a half hours, many times over two hours. Bummer. But we stuck it out, and this is what we did.

First ride was amazing. A rollercoaster where you sit in a harness with your feet dangling (like Top Gun at Canada's Wonderland). The orientation of the seats is fully controlled by the ride, so you can be facing backwards, be tilted to face up, tilted to face down, or facing forward (but upside down). This ride started with us going up the first hill facing backwards and just as the ride started the almost vertical drop, we were flipped so that we were facing straight down. It was something along those lines through the loops and turns that came next as well. If you know Top Gun, I'd say this was at least twice as good, if not more. Amazing.




Next was a classic-style rollercoaster with a Guinness World Record holding peak at 79m. That first drop was great. Actually, again I was thoroughly impressed with this one. This is a picture of the exit you could take if you decided at the last minute to quit on the ride.



Third was a very basic looking thing. We started out in a tunnel, stopped. Then there was a countdown...3...2...1...then all of a sudden we shot up to 172km/h in 1.8 seconds! I have never felt anything like that in my entire life. The one hill in the course went straight up and then straight down. The catch? The cart got up the vertical slope without any aid. It had enough momentum from the initial acceleration. Nutty.

Lastly we decided to hit up a very famous haunted house. It's done up like an abandoned hospital.



Check out what the rules say about "Giving Up."



Anyway, when you first get in, they show you an introductory video. It was pretty standard Japanese horror, for those of you who know the style. It had people standing in corners with their heads down, creepy looking children with all-black eyes and other creepy Japanese kids freaking the hell out. You know the deal. Anyway, at the very end of this, a dummy of a kid fell in front of the screen from the ceiling, hanging by a rope with a noose around its neck. After that it was off to wander the hospital! They really went all out with this, many different rooms full of all sorts of crazy props, dark, scary rooms, real actors playing zombies who would actually chase you down the halls (one guy was scaring the crap out of some girls in front of us and I could swear he was laughing...), etc. One of the basement rooms (there were 3 full floors) had body bags hanging from the ceiling, and one of them moved when you walked by. That creeped me out. Another point I saw someone behind a plastic cover with his head down. When we got close, he looked up, screamed at us, and shown a light on us. That took a couple of years off my life. Also, there was a room full of those things they keep newborns in at hospitals, and just sounds of babies crying. That was freaky. The whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes and was just fantastic. Super creative and well done and genuinely creepy. I think the best part though was the near-constant sound of Japanese girls screaming their heads off.