Yesterday was my sixteen hour Mt. Fuji adventure, beginning with a 5:30 am rise to catch a 7:00 am bus to Fuji-Q Highland, the theme park at the base of Mt. Fuji.
The purpose of the trip was threefold: to see Fuji, to ride Eejanaika, and to visit the spa resort near the theme park.
Fuji-Q Highland was very cool. A number of great roller coasters, with Eejanaika being the main attraction. This muther spins you 14 times in the fourth dimension while you're looping and seemingly free-falling.
In fact, it has so many loops that it currently holds the Guinness Record for the greatest number of inversions in the 4th dimension... basically it's the gut-sludgingist roller coaster in the world. And they proudly display the paperwork at Eejanaika's entrance:
When you board any of the roller coasters, the attendants interact with you ... shouting things and waving their arms (this might just be, "you're going to die, gaijin pig") and applauding when you safely return ("yay! we don't have to clean up blood this afternoon"). One of the cuter little additions were the safety signs, which looked like this:
Based on the pic, I would imagine clothes flying off to be the greater problem.
There were other rides, some cooler than others. My second favorite was a haunted hospital. It had once been a small hotel on the park's grounds and now transformed into something that so closely resembled Silent Hill that there must be some copyright infringement going on.
Entered. Got the rules in English. Number one is no photos (sorry). Number two is don't hit the zombies, they're just actors. Basically it's a fully-decked out maze with loads of moody props. You get a penlight to guide you there are people dressed as zombies lurking in the shadows who will leap out or follow you around. One guy was sitting in a dark cafeteria area, made-up as a zombie, tapping at a table with a butcher knife. I couldn't help wonder if he was thinking, "What the fuck am I doing with my life that this is my job?" But that's breaking the mood.
They only allow people to go in small groups at a time and as I was heading in, two Japanese girls asked if they could go with me. Sure. Why not. Brandishing penlight, we headed through the hospital. The setting wasn't so scary if you get off playing Silent Hill and Resident Evil (I do), even when we were trailed by zombie doctors or had people jump out at us. But having the fingernails of the two girls dig into my arms as they hung on to me for safety wasn't fun.
The maze takes about 15 mins to walk through and at the end, a pack of zombies chase you out. Problem is that I'd banged up my legs on another ride and really couldn't move fast. So the poor zombies had to kind of slow down their pace as they were chasing me. I apologized that I couldn't run faster. As I was leaving, one of them shouted, "Hey George, you're really cool ... don't get scared..." I asked why the zombie had called me George and was told that they just took a guess that that was my name. George, of course, is the name of my dead father. Fittingly eerie end ...
The high winds shut down some of the other rides but the Ferris Wheel (which is like taking an elevator to the top floor of a building before realizing you don't want to be there and taking it back down) was working, so I took a ride and was glad I did. Mt. Fuji is really amazing:
From there I headed to the nearby onsen - the public bath. Someone has to introduce these to the United States. Just wonderful. A wooden, glass, slate, and granite structure with seven different kinds of bath, including an outdoor garden pool, and a sauna and steam room. An hour here and I was ready for sleep.
The bus got me back to Shinjuku about 10 pm. It was strangely comforting to be back in downtown Tokyo and felt very much like I had returned home. Okonomiyaki for dinner and it was a quick JR ride train home to Meguro and bed. Great, great day.
1 comment:
You write very well.
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