Re: Trip Report: ECC/ACE Japan trip 9/3-16 -- overall impressions


"David H.--REMOVE "STOPSPAM" to reply" <davidhhhSTOPSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote in message news:vbqkj15qvgc4qo4373j88cev7o12cb539g@xxxxxxxxxx

> I was also nervous about food. I'm not exactly an open-minded eater. I'm
> not big on experimenting with food. I'm a pretty meat and potatoes and
> pasta kind of guy. Chinese food to me is spare ribs and chicken wings
> and
> pork fried rice. And teriyaki beef or chicken is about as Japanese as I
> get. So, I admit to being worried about finding food that I could
> recognize, much less enjoy! And there were those stories about food
> being
> so very expensive in Japan. Well, none of this was at all an issue.
> Just
> about every establishment that offers food has little plates out front
> with
> plastic versions of everything. This is apparently some Japanese
> tradition, but it's very helpful to us foreigners! And many of the
> restaurants have either pictures or English or both on their menus. And
> even at the more remote parks, it was easy to find something western to
> eat, from hot dogs to hamburgers to sausage to pasta, with lots of fried
> chicken (both bone-in and pieces, although the pieces were usually
> wok-fried.) And most places had fries as well. For snack food, there are
> convenience stores all over the cities, where you can find ice cream,
> chips, candy, soda and the like. You're not going to find many water
> fountains, though. (Disney and Universal were some of the only places we
> saw them in the whole country!) But there are bottled water and soda and
> iced coffee/tea machines EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. All over
> parks, in the train stations, in buildings, and all over the streets. So,
> as long as you're not cheap, you'll never go thirsty. The Japanese seem
> very big on sports drinks with interesting names like "Pocari Sweat" and
> "Aquarius", which were just about everywhere. But you're not going to
> find plain water in many of the machines.

My favorite quick dish at parks were soba noodles. Every time I tried them
they were prepared exactly the same in a plastic "to go" salad container.
And they were *always* 400 yen ($4). It made for a tasty, filling lunch.

> As to the parks themselves, well, they're somewhat different from those in
> the US. Most of them charge an admission price. Then you can get either
> individual tickets (or buy a card with a set number of yen on it) or buy
> a
> "free pass", which is basically a POP (pay one price) ticket. The free
> pass can be either a ticket that you have to be very careful not to lose,
> or a wristband. (At Fuji-Q, you actually get your picture taken in a
> machine on your ticket, though we didn't get those on our group rate
> tickets.) The parks are very expensive in Japan, which I suspect is one
> of
> the reasons tat they're not terribly busy, at least not in the
> off-season.
> Admission and a free pass at most parks will cost you between $40-60.
> That's even at parks that have only 3-5 coasters! And we complain about
> the cost of Six Flags! This also slows down loading of most rides, since
> they have to scan the tickets or wristbands for everyone. And loading is
> horrendously slow just about everywhere in Japan besides Disney and
> Universal. The Japanese are seemingly obsessive about body fluids, so
> they
> often clean off ALL of the seats of a ride before they let anyone on.
> THEN
> they collect the tickets, one at a time, and let people on. Even with
> the
> parks dead, don't expect to get many rides in during a short period of
> time! And often you can NOT choose your seat, even if the people behind
> you want to go ahead of you. Some ride ops are VERY aggressive about
> this!

While most things in Japan didn't seem overpriced, amusement park admissions
were overpriced. Most parks had per ride ticket options and the coasters
cost $5 - $10 for a single ride.

> Flat rides are mostly what we see in the west. And they are plentiful.
> But
> there are Ferris wheels EVERYWHERE. Supposedly, this is because the
> Japanese frown on public displays of affection, and Ferris wheels offer
> one of the few semi-public places where it's ok to snuggle with your
> sweetie. Not only did almost every park we visited have a Ferris wheel,
> but we passed countless ones on the road, as well. if there was such a
> thing as a Ferris wheel "credit whore", he'd be in heaven in Japan!

Ferris wheels, driving ranges, vending machines and pachinko parlors are
everywhere in Japan.

> A few notes about my trip reports. This was a long trip with a whole lot
> of parks with many similar attractions. So my memory is not exactly
> perfect (and it's not great anyways!) I'm probabaly going to mostly
> stick
> to overall impressions of the parks, with specifics about many of the
> coasters, particularly the better ones! I didn't ride many flat rides,
> simply because we didn't have much time at many of these parks (2-3 hours
> at quite a few of them!) There were lots of rides that I would have
> liked
> to have ridden, but I had to prioritize. I also didn't get to reride many
> of the coasters, for the same reason. A lot of the dark rides and
> walkthroughs are a blur to me, given that I saw literally dozens of them!
> But I did try to get on as many of them as possible with the time we had,
> even though quite a few of them were upcharge attractions. Finally, this
> is a TRIP report, not just a parks report, so expect to see some tangents
> about other things we did, or other things we found amusing about the
> parks. If you just want to read about coasters, then these probabaly
> aren't the trip reports for you.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip.

--Tim Melago


.

Quantcast