What a day!

To start, there was an earthquake at 4:20 in the morning, which I think woke everyone up. It lasted for about 10 seconds and was a magnitude of 4.8, which is fairly high (made the bed shake a lot). There was also a little aftershock too (there always is after a fairly large one).

And then, not so many hours after that, we set off for Mitsui Greenland theme park in Omuda for Helen 's birthday. There were only three of us, unfortunately - Helen, Ellie and myself - as the others couldn't go for various reasons. After much confusion at the station (Japanese trains are perhaps the most frustratingly complicated things in Japan), we got to Omuda and took a bus to Mitsui Greenland.

When we got there, we did as we had planned previously - to pay the lowest entrance fee and pay for each ride in turn, rather than pay a more expensive entry and get a "free pass" to every ride.

Oh, what a bad decision that was.

It turns out that Mitsui Greenland is, in all honesty, a big con. One ticket for a ride costs 110yen, which you'd think is pretty good. However, what we weren't told is that all the main rides cost five or six tickets! After we found this out, we realised that it was of course cheaper - stupidly cheaper - to upgrade to the free pass. However, we'd already spent a lot of money simply on the tickets we thought we'd need for the rides, so we now didn't have enough money for the free pass! This meant having to take a 20 minute walk out of the park and down the road to withdraw cash, and return for our pass.

However, once all this was done, we did have a wonderful time. We certainly made the most of our free pass! We went on the rollercoaster shaped like a killer whale (which pleased me!), the huge Ferris wheel, the toboggans, three or four haunted house-type things (which were really so bad they were funny), the log flume, the "river rapids" ride, a dolphin ride designed for little kiddies (which also pleased me!), the Viking boat, the log flume, a simulator rollercoaster, a really good mirror maze that confused the hell out of us, mini racing cars, the carousel, and these sky boat things (they looked like pirate ships, arrr!)

Japanese theme parks are certainly...very Japanese. Aside from yakisoba, takoyaki and other Japanese junk food being sold alongside the more traditional hot dogs and burgers, there were lot of other things that made me go "that is SO Japanese!" One was the Ferris wheel. Each carriage, rather than having air vents or an open roof, had its own air conditioner! You wouldn't even dream of that in the UK. AND, in one of the log flumes (which we didn't go on), the car was contained in it's own clear box so the riders wouldn't get wet! Now what's the point in that....?

One of the ghost trains was interesting too - it was purely Japanese influenced so depicted all the scary monsters that Japanese kids grow up with - women with extendible necks, trios of bouncing severed heads, Buddhist demons and the like. I thought this was extremely cool.

So, while it turned out to be a very expensive day trip, it was extremely fun! And here's some pics:



Alright, yes, this has nothing to do with the park, but....while Ellie and I were waiting for Helen in the kaikan entrance, we found this rather large insect crawling about. I think it's a katydid, but since I've never seen one before I'm not sure... (my hand is there for scale)



Close-up of the katydid-creature-thing.



Helen and Ellie standing outside a cafe we found designed in the shape of a London bus on the way to the cash machine.



Giant inflatable Ultraman in the park (as viewed from the Ferris wheel).



This amazing -looking hotel we saw from the Ferris wheel.



Helen inside the air-conditioned Ferris wheel carriage



Helen on the carousel...



...and Ellie!



A tanuki! Not a real one, but a really cute cuddly toy I bought as a souvenir from the park. His name is, very originally, Tanuki-chan (officially Mitsui Tanuki). Isn't he the sweetest?! Not exactly a great representation of what tanuki look like in real life (but close to how the Japanese think they look in their minds!)