TacoCat’s Travels #34 (Japan Ver1): Going Universal! 🌎

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So in the previous post, we explored Kobe for a little bit; walking through their famous shopping street - Kobe Motomachi - and tried Kobe beef at Nankinmachi (Kobe's Chinatown)! At the end I eluded to us visiting Universal Studios Japan (USJ) which is what this post will be about, so strap in because it's gonna be a long one (this might be a 2-parter if it gets too long)!

2 January 2016. Saturday.

We woke up a bit earlier today since we wanted as much time to see the park as possible, but unfortunately we couldn't get to eat our favourite karaage because it wasn't ready so early! Darn it. 😣

We went to stock up on some snacks at the convenience store (since the food in theme parks are always overpriced) before waiting for the bus to USJ.

Waiting for the bus

We chose an Airbnb that was close to the park so we wouldn't need to travel so far and we could maximise our time there! 😄

I'm quite a big fan of theme parks and I was really excited to see the Harry Potter world at USJ!

After about 15 minutes we arrived!

They still had Christmas decorations up since it was just after New Years' so we got to see those too!

Hard Rock Cafe!

The obligatory shot at every Universal

I don't think we managed to get one without tourists photobombing us but whatever, I just wanted to get into the park and see everything!

I think the entrance of Universal Studios' are pretty much similar across all the Studios; with the Hollywood style shops.

Tourists, tourists everywhere. I guess it's to be expected since it was just after New Years', and a weekend too.

Usually my "strategy" to navigating theme parks is to take a walk around the whole park first, take pictures along the way, and see which rides look interesting, or which rides to abandon because there's too long a queue. That way you don't waste your time queuing and lose out on enjoying the park.

I think this diner is a staple in all Universals as well. I remember reading an academic paper citing it as an example for glocalisation for Human Geography. It was pretty interesting.

So many old people around for some reason

Sorry I couldn't get a better picture of it but I'm sure everyone knows what it looks like. There're always performances outside the diner; I think there was a band playing at the time.

Classic Hollywood-style theater of course.

We walked past what I believe is called Universal Wonderland. It's basically the "kiddy area", with Snoopy, Hello Kitty and Sesame Street attractions. This was where the real crowd was; the walkway was jammed with parents and kids and strollers. 😒

I'm a big fan of the Peanuts comics (I actually own quite a few Peanuts comic books) and I was pretty excited to see Snoopy Studios but it was too crowded at the time. But I managed to get a shot with the Snoopy ride so yay!

After that was a bay/pier-like area which I believe is based on San Francisco, and we saw this shark photo area which was pretty funny.

The shark was advertising for the JAWS attraction. We didn't ride it in the end because it was too crowded but I read that the ride uses tour boats to take guests through a harbor of the fictional Amity Island, which begins as a leisurely tour that is abruptly interrupted by an attack of the famous great white shark. There are quite a lot of special effects involved, like an animatronic shark and some waterworks.

Oh wait here's the classic diner at every Universal, called Mel's Drive-In!

So I did a bit of research, and I found that Mel's Drive-In was originally just a regular diner founded in 1947 by 2 people, Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs, in San Francisco. It became popularised by George Lucas when he chose it as a feature location for his 1973 film, American Graffiti. In the movie, the diner serves as the setting for the opening scene as well as the backdrop for the opening credits. The prominent play given to the location has been credited with having saved the company from possibly going out of business. Since that feature, there have been a number of Mel's opening in Northern California that share the same general American Graffiti nostalgia theme and the similarly styled Mel's logo, and since Universal Studios recreated the diners at their theme parks, practically everyone round the world knows of this classic diner.

I love the reflection of the roller coasters in the water.

I've never seen any of the Back to the Future movies, but I thought it was pretty cool/strange that they used a college-like building for the ride.

Walking along we could see a huuuge Christmas tree in the distance!

Minions was and still is, a big thing (unfortunately), and we saw quite a few people carrying Minion popcorn buckets around their necks.

That Backdraft attraction is actually pretty cool. It's a fire special effects show based on the 1991 film of the same name. Visitors could learn how the pyrotechnic effects were created and experience some of them first hand, like a 5D show or something. It was the first attraction based on an R-rated film at the Universal theme park. I actually went to see this at Universal Studios Singapore and I remember the fire was so close I could feel the heat from it!

Like in most theme parks they had a board showing the wait times for all the rides, so we could see which ones we could possibly go on.

We decided to walk around some more first before deciding which ones to ride. I think we had walked almost half the whole park by this point, which is pretty impressive since the park itself is 54 hectares large (or 530,000 m²).

Here's another reflective shot!

Thank goodness for the nice weather that day. It was still pretty cold even with the sun out since it was right in the middle of winter but we were nicely bundled up so no worries there.

I'm not gonna go into globalisation or anything like that, but I always thought it was so cool how going to a theme park like Universal makes you feel like you teleported to a whole different place. Other than the announcements being in Japanese, and everyone around me speaking in Chinese/Korean/Japanese, it didn't feel like I was in Japan at all. Like if I blacked out and came to in this place I would not know that it was Japan.

This shot always reminds me of How I Met Your Mother; because the bar that the main characters always hang out in is slightly below ground level, and there's a staircase right beside it like in this pic.

We finally reached the super huge Christmas tree we saw earlier!

There was a stage with the Universal Studios' globe near the tree in what I assume is the middle of the park, and there were plenty of people sitting around (and some even taking a nap).

Just behind the Christmas tree was the Spiderman ride; a hybrid ride combining special roving motion vehicles with 3D projection, elaborate physical sets, and both practical and tactile effects.
The ride turns park guests into last minute reporters of the Daily Bugle, and after boarding a vehicle known as the "Scoop", the rider learns that the Sinister Syndicate has captured the Statue of Liberty with an anti-gravity gun. This evil group is made up of five famous Spider-Man villains; Doctor Octopus, Scream, Electro, Hydro-Man, and the Hobgoblin, and it is up to Spider-Man to defeat the villains and save the guests.

We actually didnt ride this one either, because by the time the queue was short enough it was closing! Shame too, because it sounds pretty cool!

There was an alleyway near this ride that had a photo-op with spiderman so guess what we did instead!

That's not my belly btw, I had a hot drink in my pocket to keep my hands warm.

After that we walked along and found this violin quartet that was performing. There was a whole crowd watching them and they played pretty well!

We just took a stroll admiring the scenery after watching them for a while. This was probably the closest we'd come to visiting US anyway. 😅

I think this was supposed to be a strip club. Woops.?

We saw this show didn't have a long wait time so we went to check it out. Turns out the show is entirely in Japanese and I couldn't understand anything. But a lot of people were laughing so I guess it was supposed to be pretty enjoyable. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough so I think I'll leave Harry Potter world for the next one! I still have about 200+ photos so this might turn out to be a trilogy. 😅

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

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Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #33 (Japan Ver1): Happy New Year!