Japan 2023 - Day 10

 Be warned … this is a long one …

USJ Day. This is something that I’d been hoping to do with Emily for a long time. Ever since Universal opened its Harry Potter themed attraction at its parks, Emily has been dead keen to go. With the US and the UK being expensive to get to, Japan was the next best option, though the thought of everything being in Japanese made us a little hesitant, especially because when we’ve previously travelled here we haven’t been as far south as Osaka where USJ is located. Squeezing it in amongst two different ski locations in a two week trip was going to be a challenge to say the least.

It was part of the reason this current trip was planned to be a three week affair and there was  high level of excitement around finally getting to visit.

Now we’ve been fortunate enough to visit a number of theme parks over the course of our travels so we had some idea what to expect, but its been a while and we’ve certainly never tried visiting one with a group of ten people.

We immediately made the decision that beyond getting the same timed entry for the Nintendo attraction, we’d split up and do our own thing around the park, especially given the likely long wait times for the attractions.

We had a great day, but as you’d expect,  we spent a lot of it standing around and waiting. No one masters the art of a queue like a theme park. I can well imagine that there’s someone who when they introduce themselves and what they do, says “Oh, I’m the USJ line Guy/Gal”. Because there’s certainly an art to the weaving trail of a 2 hour queue and keeping much of it hidden so you can still entice people to join. Fortunately we didn’t wait in any lines for quite that long. I think the worst said it was a 70-90 minute wait and probably took just over an hour.

We got into the park as early as we could, got our timed entry for Nintendo world and then went to find something to fill the time before that. We ended up at a 4D movie which was of course anime based, spoken in Japanese and almost entirely lost on Caroline and I. But hey, it filled the time until we got into Nintendo.

Getting in was our first experience of trying to corral everyone in one place while in the park and after a couple of false starts, we managed to do it, eventually getting onto the Mario ride which was a hell of a lot of fun, even if it seemed like complete chaos!

The kids were lining up for the café in there so Caroline and I opted to go for the flying dinosaur ride. We joined the single-rider line (40 minutes wait rather than 90) and set about waiting … and waiting. Eventually we made it to the front of the line and though separated, got to enjoy the ride (well I say enjoyed, Caroline not quite so much given she came off feeling a little nauseous). If you’re not familiar with the ride, you strap in and then get pivoted so that you’re facing the ground, horizontal to it at the point of commencement. From there, you loop, drop, weave such that at times you’re facing the sky, the ground and everywhere in between. It was awesome, even with sharing the ride with three screaming Japanese teenage girls!

After that ride it was finally time to meet up with Emily and head into Hogwarts. From the first entry it lived up to everything one had hoped for. Emily headed straight for Ollivanders to get her wand and then we set out to explore. We wandered through the shops and waited a really really long time for the Harry Potter ride. It was definitely our longest wait of the day but well worth it as the ride was sensational. Very different from the roller-coaster but rather than put in any spoilers, I’ll just say if you visit you need to do that ride.

It was close to 1pm by the time we were done with the ride and time for lunch. Having seen a few options around the park we opted for The Three Broomsticks. Hey, the line outside was only like five people long, so why wouldn’t you? A tiny little naïve part of me didn’t consider they line guy/gal might have had their fun inside the restaurant! Half an hour or so later, we enjoyed our delicious meal.

Having survived our time in Harry Potter land, we explored a bit more of the park, managed to squeeze in a couple more rides and shopped for junk souvenirs.

As our time in the park waned, Caroline wanted to get on one last ride, the flight of the phoenix back in Harry Potter land. The wait said fifty minutes. The clock said the park closed in fifty five. The ride doesn’t scream excitement. It’s a kids-focused roller coaster. After a bit of back and forth I did the right thing and agreed to line up while Emily shopped for additional souvenirs and on the condition she bought me the Mario Hat I’d decided I’d need for go-karting when my turn came. So we waited. Certainly the smartest thing I’d thought of before entering the park was having a book to read on my phone. It certainly aided with the eternal waiting.

Fortunately we managed to get onto the ride in about thirty minutes. I climbed in and pulled the safety bar down and waited. The attendant came up and indicated it needed to go one more click. Now I’m wasn’t the biggest guy in the park by any stretch, but there was simply no physical way that bar was going one more click. So they delayed the ride, ejected us and told us we’d have to wait and go in the front of the next one as there was extra leg room. So that was what we did before meeting up with Emily and getting out of the park.

For dinner, Sam found us an all you can eat Yakiniku joint. We had to split onto three different tables for all of us to fit in and so Caroline and I ended up alone while the other eight ended up at adjacent tables. On investigating the menu it quickly became apparent that the all you can drink option made economic sense. Let the fun begin.

Caroline and I sat and ate our way through a sizable portion of a cow, one tiny piece of meat at a time.

Over on the other tables, Thomas and Cameron were apparently making sure they made the most of the all-you-can-drink aspect of the offering two highballs (Whiskey and coke) at a time. By the time our allocated ninety minutes were up they were both well and truly ticking!

We somehow avoided the need for a small crane to extricate ourselves from the restaurant and waddled back to the hotel.

The Elicient was a lovely hotel and even had an onsen. Unlike lots of the tiny onsens our previous snow-based hotels have had, this one was quite large, well-lit and immaculately clean (though I should be clear we’ve never encountered an onsen that wasn’t clean). There was also a little feature on the TV in our room that would let you know how busy the onsen was. Caroline was waiting for ‘Vacancy’ which was the lowest level we’d seen. I opted to go down as quickly as I could given that was the state of the men’s when I made the decision. It certainly didn’t mean it was empty.

Its been four years since I was last in an onsen and waddling in off the back of an all-you-can-eat dinner isn’t necessarily the best decision one can make, but it was our last night in the hotel and the last chance I’d have in Osaka. So I went in.

Now I’m not going to say a lot about a room full of naked men because most of you probably don’t really want to know. What I will say is that for a middle-aged white guy not accustomed to regularly bathing naked in a room full of dudes, it’s a little confronting, especially when the first thing you’re confronted with is a large Japanese guy walking straight toward you in all his glory. I didn’t exactly study the people in there, but there was certainly instances of champignons in tall grasses and some worms working their way through the moss.

When I went to bathe in the onsen itself, there were three young guys sitting on the side of the onsen chatting. One of them causally with one foot in the water and his other leg at ninety degrees laid out flat along the rim of the bath with everything on display. A welcoming spread indeed. I took my place and realised I was sitting and looking exactly in that direction, so quickly re-orientated ninety degrees so I wouldn’t have to look there. Instead I was left watching everyone walk past me on their way in. Let’s just say I have a much expanded (and not sought out) idea of circumcision rates in Japan).

I stayed until the heat was too much and quickly withdrew to find Caroline still waiting for the indicator to be something less than full. It was still full at half past midnight when she finally conceded and went down. Who would have thought the onsen would be the place to be at half past midnight on a Monday!?