Japan Trip Day 2 — Universal Studios Japan
On the 20th of July, which happened to be my second day in Japan, I paid a visit to what is possibly the most prominent tourist attraction in the Kansai region, Universal Studio Japan.
Universal Studio Japan, located in Osaka, is a Hollywood-styled theme park with different villages (sections?) for prominent character franchises owned or licensed by Universal Studios, such as the Minions, Peanuts, and Super Mario. Each village has one ride (or attraction as called by the Japanese) themed with the village’s characters, along with a few gift shops and decorated streets.
After a train ride on the JR system with a few transfers, I arrived at the Universal City station, which was packed with more foreigners than Japanese people. It was as if I had returned to Canada for a few seconds.
After spending some time walking through the “Universal Citywalk” filled with famous restaurant chains and tourist hotels, I reached the main entrance to a lineup of baggage checks for some reason. No terrorists allowed apparently.
Upon initial entrance, I was greeted with Hollywood-styled streets of gift shops and restaurants. In fact, they did such a good job of imitating the North American style of streets and buildings that I once again felt as if I had returned to Canada, only to realize that its not because there weren’t garbage, rabid pigeons, and the smell of pisseverywhere.
At my friend’s request, I first went to the Harry Potter side of town, decorated with gothic-styled buildings and kids dressed in Hogwarts gowns and round glasses. From there, I rode the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey™, where you are strapped onto a seat which swings around in front of a massive screen in a way that simulates flying on a broomstick at full speed in a game of Quidditch. It was slightly scary during sudden drops, but that’s likely because I am weak at amusement park rides.
There was an hour wait just like almost any ride in the theme park. It was also glazing hot and I forgot to wear sunscreen which made me shades darker over a single day.
Afterwards, I went to Minion Park for the Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem attraction, another video-based 4D ride, just less scary this time. One notable moment was during the safety instructions when a staff member asked everyone to remove their bags, only to get no response. After a brief moment of silence and awkward looks going in all directions, the staff member asked, “No Japanese?” and delivered the rest of the instructions in English.
At the Happiness Cafe, I had a quick but expensive ¥2100 (Around 20 Canadian Dollars) “Minion Burger Meal”. The burgers were of mediocre taste (deep-fried patties?), and the portions of fries and onions were unreasonably small for the price. At least the salad was good.
Next, I rode on the limited edition Doraemon: Nobita’s Sky Utopia, an indoor roller-coaster with a VR/XR headset. I have to say this was the most interesting (and scariest) ride out of everything that I rode. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a photo of this attraction as my phone was stored in the lockers before the lineup.
I also rode on the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man 4K3D, which is planned to end service sometime next year after 20 years of existence. I could honestly see why, as this was probably one of the more mediocre rides at USJ.
However, the most exciting part of this trip was the newly-opened SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™ which required Advance Booking with limited spots available each day. Even though I booked a spot the moment I arrived at USJ (10 am), I barely scraped by with a 6:15 pm spot.
Once I entered the area, however, I came to understand this high demand. The landscape in every direction was beautifully crafted to emulate the in-game environment of Super Mario games. I would absolutely recommend everyone who reads this article (if there are any) to check this area out once in their lifetime, provided that they played and enjoyed at least one Mario game in their childhood.
As the last event of my trip to the USJ, I rode on the Koopa’s Challenge attraction which was a Mario Kart-themed ride requiring one to wear a Mario hat plus a goggle (with a display apparently) to shoot enemy Koopas with whatever item that they get from the question-mark box. Most of the gameplay was shown through the goggles.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy this ride too much as my head was too large to fit the headset properly, and as a result, the goggles were mounted above my eyebrows and forehead instead of my eyes. Needless to say, I didn’t see much through the goggle display.
After the ride (which took around 90 minutes to board), it was time for me to go home. For one last time before exiting the theme park, I bought a Snoopy plush keychain from the Peanuts gift store at the main street. I also took a nice picture of the spinning Universal Studios logo monument.
On the journey back to the Universal City Station, the Citywalk was packed with foreign tourists searching for a place to have dinner. In particular, there was a massive lineup at SUSHIRO, a very famous chain restaurant in Japan.
I don’t remember much of the train ride back home as I probably felt asleep standing.
Anyways, I would like to look back on this day as one of the most exciting moments of 2023. I’ll be back with another travel journal tomorrow.
Good night~💤
