Wednesday, December 25, 2013

July 21; Downtime in Osaka

Day 14
Our last day in Osaka was spent exploring the neighbourhood in the rain. We ended up in a Uniqlo, random supermarket where I purchased my unique beverage of the day, a Walmart-y store, and a 100 Yen store/shopping mall sorta place. We always end up in shopping places.

My special purchase, which I called my love potion: Tasted...weird. 
Green DaKaRa = 100 Yen

Apparently, we were residing in a little Manila of some sort.

After the day of gallivanting , we headed back to have dinner and watched 21 Jump Street. Side note: It was actually, so funny! This movie made me like Channing Tatum. 

Night bus to Tokyo! Ugh, an uncomfortable journey.

July 20; encountering americanism in Osaka

Day 13 in Japan; Day 165 in Asia

We decided to check out Little America today. In grade 11, I had to create a travel itinerary for Japan. I vaguely remember specific details about the imaginary trip I whipped up for my Travel and Tourism class, but I did remember I wanted to visit Little America. It's a place in Osaka that  showcases Japanese youth culture's fascination with America.  It definitely had a different atmosphere, unlike any other area we visited. I could feel the American -- the music, brands, fast food chain stores, multicultural shoppers. 

Baby The Stars Shine Bright! <3 A designer lolita brand
We made our way to the Dotonbori area to check out Osaka's downtown night life.
Along the lit up streets of Dotonbori,  we noticed there were fancy dressed males lined up with umbrella in hands, trying to talk to girls. They were male hosts. haaaa...
Not remotely interested in the hosts themselves, the whole business seems fascinating though.  Perhaps research for another day. 

Friday, August 30, 2013

July 19; Universal Studios Japan

Day 12
The three princesses woke up with a grand surprise: 
Tickets for Universal Studio Japan courtesy of fairy godmother Tita Cecil. 
Domo arigatou gozaimasu! 
I went to the Universal Studios in Florida around 8 years ago. That was ages ago, and although I don't remember much, I do remember liking it more than Disney world. I was thrilled to go back, especially in another country!
Featured on the City Walk: Hard Rock Cafe
Admission: 6400 Yen

Queues: The average wait time for rides was 10 minutes and the longest we waited was 25 minutes. We went on a weekday, so we hardly had to wait in typical amusement park lines, and because of that we got to go on all the rides we could have actually go on.

Rides:                                                             
Shrek 4D Movie.
Since we were in Universal Studios Japan, the movie was in Japanese, no subtitles. It's not difficult to understand the premise of it though. Don't wanna give away any spoilers but at one point it smelt really good.

Terminator 2 3D ( for papa john!)
Mix of on screen action and live action. 
Way better than expected. They even hired a Caucasian guy to play Arnold.

Space Fantasy:
Space Fantasy is an indoors roller coaster that turns you around as you ride along the tracks to look at planets in outer space. One of my favourite rides I've ever been on. Ever.

Spiderman 4D:
I was really excited about this one cause it was Spiderman and the one in Florida had fire. 
No spoilers, but things got hot.

Back to the Future:
You sit in the DeLorean in a motion stimulated room and time travel. Cool concept but I admit it was a very rickity ride.

The Mummy Museum:
Mike Myers
Hand to hand with Eiji Wentz and Teppei Koike
We didn't actually go in the museum but had fun on the exterior where the walls were decorated with celebrities hand prints.

Jurassic Park The Ride River Adventures:
playing dentist with Rex.
It starts with a peacefully ride along the prehistoric jungle, but then things escalate. 
There were dinosaurs and water. We were very enthusiastic about getting splashed.

Jaws: Very similar to the one in Florida. Kristie really wanted to go on this one and Cat really wanted to get out of that one. It was great.

Hollywood Dream:
This was the only real outdoor roller coaster in the park. It was really fun and one of a kind. Before riding, you get to choose what you want to listen to. Some options were: Eminem, Bon Jovi, J-Pop. I chose The Beatles. 

Backdraft: This was more of a walkthrough than an actual ride. Still pretty cool to feel the heat and watch the set explode.

After riding all the rides we wanted to go on, we decided to explore the children's section.
Hello Kitty Dream:
 a teacup ride expect in a cupcake.

Sesame Street Carousel:
Like the name says, it's a carousel. We were perhaps the oldest...

Beside the rides, there were some cool photo opportunities too:
Moving dinosaur
                                         Jaws.
Spidey
It was an option to get a professional photo with Jaws and Spider Man, but for a cost. I think one photo was 1150 Yen (~$12 CND)

Snoopy World: they had a lot of models and cute stuff. I enjoyed taking pictures with them.
ball pen and bubbles area we (obviously) couldn't get into.
looked like fun though.
ugh, kids
break :)


Shows:
R&B Jukebox:
Four (American?) guys performed a medley of songs of R&B songs recent and not so recent with songs from artists from Bobby Brown to Enrique Iglesias, to songs from " Love In This Club" to "Forever".  It was actually quite entertaining.

One Piece Skit
 completely in Japanese and not enough gestures for me to make sense of it. 

Universal Studios helped movies create some fantastic sets. Some of these sets were emulated in the park.
Spider Man's New York neighborhood complete with the Daily Bugle and sketchy alleys:
 
Jurassic Park: 
 Amityville:


Waterworld:
and even Hello Kitty world. Its a really nice place to walk around.

As for fooooood, there were some restaurants and snack bars scattered around the park.
American Graffiti's Mel's Drive-In:
Coca Cola endorsed restaurant
Hello Kitty snack bar
Not an actual restaurant, but a takoyaki museum on the City Walk. 

Well Universal, you've been great.

Our day didn't end after the amusement park. We were invited to Tita Cecil's friend's place for dinner. (Yay, pinoy party!) She was so nice to invite us to her place. She made a homecooked meal and desserts. It was great. We spent the rest of the evening chatting with a mini Filipino community (I admit, I'm surprised to see that the Filipino community exists in Japan), I tried to befriend the adorable munchkin, and even got to hear Cat speak a bit of her own language (she refuses otherwise).
Such an awesome day. Oh fairy godmother Cecil, how will we ever repay you?