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cyphomandraSunday 8th Jan
Sunday morning involved doing a lot of laundry at the hotel, and then leaving my kids with my sister’s family and heading out to meet up withnnozomi! We started with sushi at a delicious sushi train restaurant in Kyoto Station, and then wandered through the streets chatting and looking around. We eventually ended up at another cafe selling tea & scones & apple pie (I had the caramel apple pie), and then coordinated meeting up with everyone else on their way to Nijo Castle before nnozomi went back home. It was great meeting her and ambling around Kyoto, and I will now be staring at her photos of Japan even more wistfully.
We explored the castle - the kids’ favourite thing here was probably the moat filled with koi - and then, as everyone’s irritation levels rose, exited in search of food, and ended up at a ramen restaurant for the traditional ramen gyoza and chips. All the ramen places we ate at had used machines for ordering - you select your meal, pay, and it gives you a small printed ticket, which you hand over to the staff, and this is both convenient and avoids the bit where I have carefully worked out how to order what I want in Japanese and then someone tugs my arm to make sure I’ve heard them, someone else suddenly changes their mind, and yet another person asks me something totally unrelated and I panic and order something no one wanted at all.
After lunch, we went to the Kyoto Manga Museum - I’d wanted to come here the last time I went to Kyoto, but it was closed over new year’s, so this time I was determined to go. It was great but it does make me wish I knew a lot more Japanese. There’s a chronological wall of historically significant manga, and I managed to locate Banana Fish there in well-used volumes (it’s all set up for browsers). They have people there drawing manga, although the ones who will draw you/your family had reached capacity for the day, and there was also a giant Tezuka phoenix on display. I did find a small English section and a rather confusing display titled “Let’s read Gaiman”, which was not promoting the comics of Neil Gaiman but was instead a smushname for gaikoku manga, or translations into Japanese of manga created outside Japan (Heartstopper was on display).
After this we headed home for ice creams and onigiri, as well as Netflix for everyone - we wanted a relatively quiet evening as the next day was going to be busy again with our third (and final!) theme park.
Monday 9/1
I rounded my lot up and out and we made the 8.38 train from Kyoto. I panic-bought a large quantity of food from a French bakery in the station and then remembered after we sat down that you weren’t allowed to take food into Universal Studios, so we would have to eat it all on the train. This was not entirely successful. We had to change twice to get to Universal City (at Osaka and at Nishikujo) but it was all very organised with another train waiting for us on the adjacent platform, and we were inside the park by 9.30 with only minimal queuing.
We started with the Despicable Me Minions ride - I am not actually a fan of minions but the kids like them, and the ride, which used film effects as well as a car that gets shaken around etc, was fun. The pre-ride entertainment was also good - a short film (with subtitles) and various effects for those waiting. Then we did the Jaws ride, where you go on a boat on a delightful cruise around Amity Island, supervised by your boat guide, who tells you how safe everything is and how nothing can possibly hurt you, right before you see a bitten-through boat sinking under the water, flames erupt from the damaged gas works and a giant fin circles closer and closer… The boat guides really throw themselves into their parts and this was a lot of fun (it is however not translated at all), and we also got rather wet. My son promptly bought a plush shark hat that wraps around his face so that he looks like he’s being devoured, and I bought everyone shark pancakes and nuggets & a rather sea-like jelly drink.
Given that we were already wet we then went to Jurassic Park, which is a water ride with a drop. It starts off going through the park with all the friendly dinosaurs, and then things go wrong and you climb up slowly through a maintenance tunnel with the lights going on and off and velociraptors ripping out the wires, before you plunge down screaming into the lake. I did not actually check and while Disney's Splash Mountain (which the kids had decided they didn’t want to do) is a drop of 16m, Jurassic Park is 26m, so it was not entirely surprising that my son was very much “I don’t want to do this!” as we went over the top of the drop, and they were both quite shaken afterwards (it is a big drop! You do feel like you’re coming out of your seat, so I can entirely sympathise). We had bought ponchos by this stage so at least we weren’t too wet. On the way out we encountered some more dinosaurs, these ones people in costumes and a puppet baby dino in an incubator - it was the first of quite a few encounters, and I enjoyed these more than the parades at Disney, although we didn’t do any character greetings there.
We then went looking for something tamer and ended up doing the Flying Snoopy ride (there was a whole Snoopy area) and the Hello Kitty spinning cupcakes, and then sent lots of texts trying to coordinate meeting up with my sister and her family, which we eventually managed by a large Christmas tree. We handed over our ponchos in exchange for my nephew, and took him to do the minions ride again. We’d booked express passes in advance (this is different from Disney) that got us fast pass access to the minion tide, Spider man or Jurassic Park, as well as timed entry to Nintendo World + Mario Kart and Harry Potter World + Forbidden Journey, so used these, and then headed over to Nintendo World for our 14:10 entry time.
Nintendo World was absolutely packed - it’s only been open since 2021 - and it has a lot going on. It does look fantastic. I was not a Nintendo child, so Mario I’ve only really encountered as an adult, but I do love the Zelda games, and I do really like Mario Kart, and this was a lot of fun. I bought the kids power up bands so they could collect coins and do mini game challenges - each one got them a key, and you needed three to unlock the golden mushroom and face Bowser Jr in a mini game. They did the first challenge, where you defeat a Goomba, and the second, where you have to slap alarm clocks to put them back to sleep (this they did as a group of four, with a random other child added in) and then they attempted Thwomp Panel Panic, which was hard and they failed first time around - you had to touch panels to turn them all the same colour, but there were heaps and every so often bombs would explode and you’d have to start again. I took my daughter’s band and we tried again, and just made it; then I reluctantly handed the band back and let the kids take on Bowser Jr, which was a full-on mini game with leaping and throwing stuff, and much more successful.
Mario Kart was also great. The walk through - Yoshi’s world and then Bowser’s castle - is very cool, and I almost wished we had more time (we were on fast pass) to look at all the little details. You’re in a cart of four, wearing AR googles (on a Mario visor), collecting question mark boxes and throwing things while your cart moves along, and it is overwhelming and chaotic but very enjoyable (and yes, you do get to go on Rainbow Road). My only problem was that my visor didn’t fit well with my glasses, and ended up being very painful (I should have tried to refit it but we were on the ride by then and I didn’t want to miss stuff). We made it out of the gift shop with only a few more minor purchases and a photo of us all doing an offical Mario victory pose in front of Mario himself.
We then went in search of food and went to Kinopio’s (Toad’s) Cafe, which did take about 30 min to queue for but had really nice food and staff who ushered us to seats (as opposed to Disney, which had neither). I had a mushroom soup in a Mario mushroom bowl, and the kids’ meals had a Mario burger, an omelette, some crumbed prawns, and a question mark box with a dessert inside.
After that we did some more child-swapping and exploring - my sister and her family headed out of Nintendo World to do Space Fantasy and Hollywood Dream, although no-one went for the Flying Dinosaur (you’re suspended underneath a pterodactyl for the whole ride, it looked terrifying). I took the kids on the Yoshi ride, which has a great view of Nintendo World, and then we left and did Jaws again. By this stage it was dark and eventually we found our way over to Harry Potter world for our timed entry - this wasn’t until 18:50 and I think it must have been the last slot, as they actually stopped checking passes by the time we went in. There were no earlier entries available when we checked on the day, but it wasn’t nearly as crowded as Nintendo World.
Everyone was a bit overwhelmed by the time we got in, and we ended up sitting around at the 3 Broomsticks drinking butter beer and eating ice cream or treacle tart. My niece was really struggling with her fondness for HP versus her dislike of JK Rowling, and my brother-in-law was also dealing with his mother’s recent death (her funeral was in the UK, this day), and we were all pretty tired. I did the Forbidden Journey ride, which was actually genuinely touching when you get back to Hogwarts and see everyone standing there in the Great Hall applauding you, and my sister took the kids to do some of the spells around Hogsmeade with wands she’d bought at a previous HP world, and then we staggered out and back to the station. I got on the special rapid train to Kyoto, which wasn’t too bad but I didn’t have a seat. Kids did and promptly fell asleep, as did the two Japanese people they were sitting with; my sister and her family were a bit later and ended up on a train stopping at every single station that took ages. We finally made it back to the hotel, 18 000 steps later, and went to sleep.
Universal versus Disney - if I had to pick one to go back to, it would be DisneySea, closely followed by Universal. I liked the food best at Universal (next time I go to Disney I am booking restaurants when the bookings open a month out) and they had some great individual rides as well as Nintendo World, but DisneySea was just so strong with its theming. There is a massive expansion at DisneySea due to open in 2024 - Fantasy Springs, which includes Frozen stuff - so maybe then if things work out.
Next up: kimono in Kyoto, and back to Tokyo
Sunday morning involved doing a lot of laundry at the hotel, and then leaving my kids with my sister’s family and heading out to meet up with
nnozomi! We started with sushi at a delicious sushi train restaurant in Kyoto Station, and then wandered through the streets chatting and looking around. We eventually ended up at another cafe selling tea & scones & apple pie (I had the caramel apple pie), and then coordinated meeting up with everyone else on their way to Nijo Castle before nnozomi went back home. It was great meeting her and ambling around Kyoto, and I will now be staring at her photos of Japan even more wistfully.We explored the castle - the kids’ favourite thing here was probably the moat filled with koi - and then, as everyone’s irritation levels rose, exited in search of food, and ended up at a ramen restaurant for the traditional ramen gyoza and chips. All the ramen places we ate at had used machines for ordering - you select your meal, pay, and it gives you a small printed ticket, which you hand over to the staff, and this is both convenient and avoids the bit where I have carefully worked out how to order what I want in Japanese and then someone tugs my arm to make sure I’ve heard them, someone else suddenly changes their mind, and yet another person asks me something totally unrelated and I panic and order something no one wanted at all.
After lunch, we went to the Kyoto Manga Museum - I’d wanted to come here the last time I went to Kyoto, but it was closed over new year’s, so this time I was determined to go. It was great but it does make me wish I knew a lot more Japanese. There’s a chronological wall of historically significant manga, and I managed to locate Banana Fish there in well-used volumes (it’s all set up for browsers). They have people there drawing manga, although the ones who will draw you/your family had reached capacity for the day, and there was also a giant Tezuka phoenix on display. I did find a small English section and a rather confusing display titled “Let’s read Gaiman”, which was not promoting the comics of Neil Gaiman but was instead a smushname for gaikoku manga, or translations into Japanese of manga created outside Japan (Heartstopper was on display).
After this we headed home for ice creams and onigiri, as well as Netflix for everyone - we wanted a relatively quiet evening as the next day was going to be busy again with our third (and final!) theme park.
Monday 9/1
I rounded my lot up and out and we made the 8.38 train from Kyoto. I panic-bought a large quantity of food from a French bakery in the station and then remembered after we sat down that you weren’t allowed to take food into Universal Studios, so we would have to eat it all on the train. This was not entirely successful. We had to change twice to get to Universal City (at Osaka and at Nishikujo) but it was all very organised with another train waiting for us on the adjacent platform, and we were inside the park by 9.30 with only minimal queuing.
We started with the Despicable Me Minions ride - I am not actually a fan of minions but the kids like them, and the ride, which used film effects as well as a car that gets shaken around etc, was fun. The pre-ride entertainment was also good - a short film (with subtitles) and various effects for those waiting. Then we did the Jaws ride, where you go on a boat on a delightful cruise around Amity Island, supervised by your boat guide, who tells you how safe everything is and how nothing can possibly hurt you, right before you see a bitten-through boat sinking under the water, flames erupt from the damaged gas works and a giant fin circles closer and closer… The boat guides really throw themselves into their parts and this was a lot of fun (it is however not translated at all), and we also got rather wet. My son promptly bought a plush shark hat that wraps around his face so that he looks like he’s being devoured, and I bought everyone shark pancakes and nuggets & a rather sea-like jelly drink.
Given that we were already wet we then went to Jurassic Park, which is a water ride with a drop. It starts off going through the park with all the friendly dinosaurs, and then things go wrong and you climb up slowly through a maintenance tunnel with the lights going on and off and velociraptors ripping out the wires, before you plunge down screaming into the lake. I did not actually check and while Disney's Splash Mountain (which the kids had decided they didn’t want to do) is a drop of 16m, Jurassic Park is 26m, so it was not entirely surprising that my son was very much “I don’t want to do this!” as we went over the top of the drop, and they were both quite shaken afterwards (it is a big drop! You do feel like you’re coming out of your seat, so I can entirely sympathise). We had bought ponchos by this stage so at least we weren’t too wet. On the way out we encountered some more dinosaurs, these ones people in costumes and a puppet baby dino in an incubator - it was the first of quite a few encounters, and I enjoyed these more than the parades at Disney, although we didn’t do any character greetings there.
We then went looking for something tamer and ended up doing the Flying Snoopy ride (there was a whole Snoopy area) and the Hello Kitty spinning cupcakes, and then sent lots of texts trying to coordinate meeting up with my sister and her family, which we eventually managed by a large Christmas tree. We handed over our ponchos in exchange for my nephew, and took him to do the minions ride again. We’d booked express passes in advance (this is different from Disney) that got us fast pass access to the minion tide, Spider man or Jurassic Park, as well as timed entry to Nintendo World + Mario Kart and Harry Potter World + Forbidden Journey, so used these, and then headed over to Nintendo World for our 14:10 entry time.
Nintendo World was absolutely packed - it’s only been open since 2021 - and it has a lot going on. It does look fantastic. I was not a Nintendo child, so Mario I’ve only really encountered as an adult, but I do love the Zelda games, and I do really like Mario Kart, and this was a lot of fun. I bought the kids power up bands so they could collect coins and do mini game challenges - each one got them a key, and you needed three to unlock the golden mushroom and face Bowser Jr in a mini game. They did the first challenge, where you defeat a Goomba, and the second, where you have to slap alarm clocks to put them back to sleep (this they did as a group of four, with a random other child added in) and then they attempted Thwomp Panel Panic, which was hard and they failed first time around - you had to touch panels to turn them all the same colour, but there were heaps and every so often bombs would explode and you’d have to start again. I took my daughter’s band and we tried again, and just made it; then I reluctantly handed the band back and let the kids take on Bowser Jr, which was a full-on mini game with leaping and throwing stuff, and much more successful.
Mario Kart was also great. The walk through - Yoshi’s world and then Bowser’s castle - is very cool, and I almost wished we had more time (we were on fast pass) to look at all the little details. You’re in a cart of four, wearing AR googles (on a Mario visor), collecting question mark boxes and throwing things while your cart moves along, and it is overwhelming and chaotic but very enjoyable (and yes, you do get to go on Rainbow Road). My only problem was that my visor didn’t fit well with my glasses, and ended up being very painful (I should have tried to refit it but we were on the ride by then and I didn’t want to miss stuff). We made it out of the gift shop with only a few more minor purchases and a photo of us all doing an offical Mario victory pose in front of Mario himself.
We then went in search of food and went to Kinopio’s (Toad’s) Cafe, which did take about 30 min to queue for but had really nice food and staff who ushered us to seats (as opposed to Disney, which had neither). I had a mushroom soup in a Mario mushroom bowl, and the kids’ meals had a Mario burger, an omelette, some crumbed prawns, and a question mark box with a dessert inside.
After that we did some more child-swapping and exploring - my sister and her family headed out of Nintendo World to do Space Fantasy and Hollywood Dream, although no-one went for the Flying Dinosaur (you’re suspended underneath a pterodactyl for the whole ride, it looked terrifying). I took the kids on the Yoshi ride, which has a great view of Nintendo World, and then we left and did Jaws again. By this stage it was dark and eventually we found our way over to Harry Potter world for our timed entry - this wasn’t until 18:50 and I think it must have been the last slot, as they actually stopped checking passes by the time we went in. There were no earlier entries available when we checked on the day, but it wasn’t nearly as crowded as Nintendo World.
Everyone was a bit overwhelmed by the time we got in, and we ended up sitting around at the 3 Broomsticks drinking butter beer and eating ice cream or treacle tart. My niece was really struggling with her fondness for HP versus her dislike of JK Rowling, and my brother-in-law was also dealing with his mother’s recent death (her funeral was in the UK, this day), and we were all pretty tired. I did the Forbidden Journey ride, which was actually genuinely touching when you get back to Hogwarts and see everyone standing there in the Great Hall applauding you, and my sister took the kids to do some of the spells around Hogsmeade with wands she’d bought at a previous HP world, and then we staggered out and back to the station. I got on the special rapid train to Kyoto, which wasn’t too bad but I didn’t have a seat. Kids did and promptly fell asleep, as did the two Japanese people they were sitting with; my sister and her family were a bit later and ended up on a train stopping at every single station that took ages. We finally made it back to the hotel, 18 000 steps later, and went to sleep.
Universal versus Disney - if I had to pick one to go back to, it would be DisneySea, closely followed by Universal. I liked the food best at Universal (next time I go to Disney I am booking restaurants when the bookings open a month out) and they had some great individual rides as well as Nintendo World, but DisneySea was just so strong with its theming. There is a massive expansion at DisneySea due to open in 2024 - Fantasy Springs, which includes Frozen stuff - so maybe then if things work out.
Next up: kimono in Kyoto, and back to Tokyo
