Robot Claw

Today we visited Universal Studios Japan. I’d been before (by myself) four years ago but the park has had some very notable changes and additions since then.

Chief amongst them is the Mario World, which opened last year. It’s a remarkably well designed and crafted representation of Super Mario’s graphics in real-world form. The picture gives you the idea of how wonderful and magical it looks, but in-person, seeing everything animate around you with all the correct sound effects really makes you feel like you’re in a Mario level!

Universal made excellent use of space too: the area is quite small for a theme park and has only two rides (one for kids), but the vertical design and the inclusion of loads of hidden gimmicks you can activate with a wristband (¥4200, sold separately!) results in an area that could keep someone busy for far longer than the size would suggest.

We rode the Mario Kart ride which was astounding. You don an augmented-reality visor before boarding, and as you ride the world around you comes alive with other karts and enemies that you can shoot with shells to earn points. It’s mad and overwhelming and technically astonishing but also loads of fun, and unquestionably the most impressive ride I’ve ever been on.

However it’s not the best ride – for me that honour still goes to the Harry Potter ride, which I rode today for my seventh time (and Kristin’s sixth). Every time is great, and I could happily ride it over and over. I wish the lines had been shorter so I could have.

Indeed, the park was extremely busy today. Ride lines quickly exceeded two hours, and people were even lining up for restaurants and shops by 9 am (the park opened at 7:30). I believe it would have simply been impossible to ride everything in one day with crowds like today’s, since you’d need more time for lines than the park is open!

We were successful though, and managed all four rides and one show that we had targeted in advance. We also had a much-better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be lunch at the Harry Potter restaurant, and caught the ‘no limit’ parade that ends soon.

The most unusual ride we went on was a dark roller coaster themed after Sadako, the ghost girl from the Ring films. While the Sadako link was very slim, the coaster was truly pitch black, and since the carriage spun around as it rode the tracks it made for a very thrilling experience! It was far better than we expected.

The parade was fun, with the Pokemon and Mario floats being the obvious crowd pleasers. As you can see, almost everyone was filming it as well. I wonder how many of those videos will never be viewed?

And as a souvenir update from my last visit: they still sell the Spider-Man and Minions cup noodles but have now added a Jurassic Park version which is turkey leg flavored! I wish I could have bought just one of each to review on this blog; alas they were only sold in boxes of several.

It was a fun day at a great park that continues to give Disney some very strong competition. And with USJ embracing Japanese properties and ever-expanding (a new Donkey Kong zone opens this year) I’d say there’s a decent chance I’ll return again one day 🙂

Yesterday we went New Years Day shopping for fukubukuro (lucky bags). Kristin stayed in the main shopping district near our hotel and I went to the hobby/game shops a few stations away. We were all set to make some good hauls only… things didn’t go according to plan!

It turns out Osaka isn’t as open as Tokyo is on New Years Day and most of the shops – including all the department stores – were closed! The same was true for the hobby shops, so our pickings were a bit meager.

We reunited in the afternoon, and around 3:30 pm I went out for a food run while Kristin waited in our room (which is in the building looking above the shop in the above pic). A little after 4 pm there was a strong earthquake in northwest Japan, which shook much of the country including Osaka.

I was crossing the street at the time and I could feel the ground moving (sliding it seemed like) under my feet. When I got to the curb it was still shaking but absolutely no one around me seemed to be reacting, which made me feel a little crazy.

Kristin meanwhile was on the 34th floor in a skyscraper which was shaking side to side very noticeably. She was scared because it seemed to continue for too long. After it had subsided she went to the lift to try to get down but they weren’t working.

Apparently the quake had damaged the lifts to the high floors, and to cut a long story short I wasn’t able to return to the room for almost 3.5 hours, and by that point it was by service elevator. Even as we went to bed last night the lifts weren’t working, although they are back now (it’s the next morning).

The earthquake was the strongest since the one that resulted in the Fukushima incident, and it has caused extensive damage in the regions close to the epicenter. Every TV station last night was running endless commentary, and it was all a bit surreal. Life goes on though, and looking out the window it just seems like a normal day here in Osaka today. I hope the people and communities most affected by the quake receive the help and support they will surely need in the days and weeks ahead.

So what of our fukubukuro? Here’s the three we got:

The first was this Kamen Rider one for ¥2024, which I only bought since the pickings were so slim. It’s surprising how much was inside – including two full sized crane game prize figures – but much of it is destined for the recycling bin in our room 🙂

This was a ‘trading figure’ bag also for ¥2024, which contained a random assortment of gacha/blond box figures. There’s more than I expected for the price, but once again most will be trashed. There’s a few good ones here though, including one from a game KLS likes.

Lastly was this skin care box Kristin bought from a major store (Yodobashi). It had a range of items for keeping your skin in tip-top condition, but due to size/weight much of it will need to be used here. She said it was good value though.

We were going to go to Universal today but will delay one day due to this stubborn cold I have that has worsened. Maybe we’ll go out today and see if the reopening stores have more fukubukuro?

We visited Tenhinbashi-suji today, a covered pedestrian shopping street that is the longest in Japan. At 2.6 km in length with 600+ shops, it’s quite a place to shop, although today being New Year’s Eve a good portion of the mostly ‘mom and pop’ stores were closed.

There’s still a lot more evidence of Covid here than in the USA, and as one example the street still has periodic hand sanitizer available. I found it charming that it was served by standees of young women holding signs that advise social distancing:

The street runs alongside a shrine that we had identified as a new years celebration location, so after an afternoon/evening siesta we returned to the shopping street late at night and found it considerably more active:

The festival stands had set up and all sorts of unusual food was for sale, including fried eggs served on shrimp crackers, roasted chestnuts and ‘castellas’ (cream-filled cakes). We even saw a stand where you could catch fish like the one I tried in Asakusa last week. It was very popular with young women!

I always love the mask-sellers, and I was a fool for not buying any of these:

And look at these insane chocolate bananas!

As it turns out the shrine was actually closed despite (or maybe because of) the increasingly large crowds and since midnight wasn’t for about 90 minutes and we were tired (and I have laryngitis) we grabbed a quick bite and headed back to the hotel:

Happy New Year! Happy 2024! Happy Year Of The Dragon! Let’s hope it’s a good one 🙂

Today we visited two of the more touristy parts of Osaka: the shopping districts of Dotonbori and Shinsekai.

The crowds in Dotonbori were bonkers. A sea of people everywhere you looked, it was almost difficult just to walk around! I imagine this is part new years and part the overtourism that Japan is struggling with. We’d been here before so it wasn’t a bother, but I imagine were you a tourist with only a day in Osaka and chose to spend it there today you’d be a bit frustrated!

Shinsekai is a mile or so south, and while it was busy it was far from as popular as Dotonbori. I visited this part of town when I was here myself years ago but it was early in the day and almost nothing was open: today we got to see the lit signs of the landmark kushikatsu restaurants in all their glory.

Shinsekai is a bit low brow, a bit run down and seems proud to keep one foot in the past. The amusement arcades there have shooting games for instance, and there’s a pachinko parlour using very old fashioned mechanical games. There are lots of tiny pub/restaurants – many of which allow smoking – and some establishments a bit far from the norm like one in which you can eat fried gecko! It’s fun to walk around, and I imagine gets very rowdy at night. If you’re ever in Osaka, I’d recommend this part of town even over Dotonbori.

That happy inflatable man is enticing you to go in and play the shooting game (which in retrospect I should have!). But by this time we’d been strolling for many hours and it was time to head back for dinner and some relaxing (perhaps past time in fact since I’m feeling a little unwell).

I’ll end with a mention that I purchased an extraordinary retro-game-related item (or two) in Denden town as we walked through it on the way to Shinsekai… but those details can wait for a future post 🙂