blog by luke

I woke up suprisingly early today, 6.30am. I was confused to be waking up in a setting I can't remember sleeping and next to people I forgot I was with, that sounds really bad.. but thankfully it was my friends, Cas and Lee. They were fast asleep but I was feeling refreshed and awake, slight hangover but that's to be expected after a BBQ night.

I decided to go for a little walk around the area. It was actually quite cold outside and raining slightly, makes a huge difference to the blistering heat of Tokyo. I'm going to assume it's cold and rainy because we're surrounded by mountains and lakes. I only took a short walk before going back to the cottage and waiting for the others to wake up.

Genta was the first to wake up, he rose like a zombie from his sleeping mat and soon spung to life. Cas was second to wake and after walking around in a zombie like state for a bit, he quickly woke up and began constructing an Uno tower of cards. He's damn good at building these, sadly, Genta had the window open and the unexpected wing blew Cas' final attempt at a giant tower down.

It wasn't long before the rest of us were awake. We had to be out by 10am and only had one bathroom but we had no trouble all getting ready in time. When we left it was raining quite a bit, so a mad dash into the car and off on our way to our first destination, Shizuoka.

I'll admit, I don't know anything about Shizuoka apart from the fact that the giant Gundam statue has recently been moved here, we were planning to go see that. The car journey was about an hour and a half, it went quite quickly and to a play list Cas created on my iPod. It was a good play list, it had the Polysics cover of My Sharona.

The drive around Kawaguchigo was really nice, it was a sleepy mountain town and reminded me so much of the setting for the first Rambo movie. We drove around a large lake and up quite high, the sky off the side of the moutain we were driving was white, no sky to be seen.

While driving around I fell asleep on the way to Shizuoka, it took a lot longer than we assumed. When I woke up it was raining still. We drove around looking for the parking lot near the Gundam Statue, we could see it in the distance and eventually found a place to park up, outside two big shops.

While we were waiting for Lee and Mayu to arrive, me and Penny went to look in the shops. One sold jeans and the other was sort of like Homebase but with a babies department. There was a small snacks stand in here so I decided to give the Hershey's Cookies and Cream Bar a try, it was good!

When me and Penny left the store it was raining quite hard, we joined up with the others (who thankfully brought umbrellas) and then it was a short walk around the corner to the Gundam Statue.

The statue was originally in Odaiba but moved to Shizuoka. They made a wise choice not putting this in an area surrounded by grass like in Odaiba as the grass was completly destroyed by the huge crowds that came to see the Gundam. The Gundam is now in a sort of make shift mini festival area, it's the Hobby Fair.

There are lots of snack stands here and the Hobby Museum which we didn't check out. We walked around the path getting photos of the Gundam on the way, we eventually made our way to a photo point, you go up some stairs and a photographer takes your picture. I decided to get the picture, i've mentioned my dislike for digital photos before and this was a nice one so I decided to get it despite costing £7, memories attached are worth more than that.

We then went to queue up to stand under the statue to see it in close detail. Because of the rain, there was hardly anyone here but I imagine this place could get very crowded in nicer weather. We didn't have to wait long at all before we were up close with the Gundam, the detail on this thing is incredible.

You only get a few minutes here but that's all you really need. We continued around the path towards the exit.

I passed many Kakigori stands and eventually gave in, I bought an ice snack in heavy rain, I think I have a problem.

Back in the car and out of the rain we went to go some lunch. We eneded up in a place which looked like a Jungle / Shack themed TGI Fridays. There was 60's music playing to give it a bit of a hippy vibe.

One thing that really impressed me about this place aside from the interesting decor was the waiting system. Rather than standing around waiting for someone to come seat you or tell you there are no tables, there is a machine to cut out that person. It shows you how long the wait is and you press the button for your party (guests, smoking preference) and a ticket is printed, the staff then know and you're in the queue. It's really efficent.

Our table had a massive menu waiting on it, another good idea, a giant menu for everyone to see rather than pass around something smaller. The place sold hamburg and rice, curry and a few other things, it was a mix of Western fried foods and Japanese.

I decided to get the Japanese Curry Hamburg with Rice, the others all got something similar, take a took for yourself, there's 8 of us and I forgot the names of everything to list or bore you with.

The food was alright, the portions were quite small but it wasn't too expensive. We decided to skip desert and head back to the cars to head back to Shinagawa, Tokyo. A quick passenger swap (Hiroe left our car to go with the other girls) and Lee joined us in the party mobile. Me and Cas created an awesome playlist and we set off on our 3 hour journey.

Randomly, Genta had loads of chewing gum in his car, including Hawaian Blue flavour (Kakikori Blue Juice)

The drive was mostly on a standard motorway after leaving the city. We pulled up at a service station midway to catch up with the others.

This service station had a lane of food stalls, a food court and a large food shop selling regional snacks and sweets. I really like the service stations here, they're full of interesting things and lots of food.

There was an interesting chicken snack stand, I had to try it and so glad I did.

The snack is called Brave Chicken, it's a long chicken nugget but tastes like the old Burger King Chicken Strips, these are SO good!

Walking around, still hungry, I came across a Baskin Robins, nice to see one of these so far out in a service station.

I decided to try the Mango and Banana Flavour with the Popping one again, it was a great mix. The Mango and Banana flavour was lovely.

Randomly, Penny went off for a wander and came back with some mini game gashapons. There was a bowling one and a sort of robot fighting one, interesting for a few minutes.

Eventually Hiroe, Mayu and Takako arrived so we had a quick catch up and then headed back to the cars to finish our journey.

Randomly, I noticed a funny sign, it read, "Because it is easy to glide at the time of rainy weather, please be careful", Ok, not as amusing second time around.

An hour or so later, we arrived back in Shinagawa. It was a long car ride back but most of it was spent sleeping or playing DS. Big thanks to Genta for the ride.

We waited for the others to catch up and then had a bit of a chat and a goodbye, as it would be the last time to see 'The Others', Genta, Takako, Lee and Mayu. It was really nice meeting them, a very fun and friendly bunch.

Back to the station and we parted with Hiroe, making our way back to Ningyocho and then a slow and sluggish walk back to our hotel.

The trip was amazing, from start to finish it was a lot of fun, I can't even properly describe how much of a great time I had, it was legend... wait for it... dary!

It was all possible thanks to one person, Hiroe. She planned the whole thing and organised everything for us, it was stress free and fun filled the whole time.

The company on the trip was great, it was a really cool group, everyone was friendly and fun to be around. So Genta, Takako, Mayu and Lee, it was great meeting you and I hope we'll meet again soon.

Another big thanks goes out to Hiroe, thank you so much for organising this trip, it's pretty much all down to you. Also another thanks to Genta for driving us there and back, it was a long ride and we're all very greatful.

Thanks Hiroe, you're awesome.

Today we had to be up, ready and leave at 7am, so when I was woken up by the telephone at 6.54am, I was in a bit of a panic. It was Penny, "Luke, are you ready?" I had literally just woken up. I wasn't feeling well, nothing serious, just a bit sickly and feeling slow. I battled through that to get showered, dressed and put the last few things in my bag before speeding out the door.

Despite me waking up super late, we managed to leave around 7.15am which isn't too much later than originally planned. We had to meet Hiroe at 8am, Shinagawa station. It wasn't too far so we was good for time and headed to the mini mart to pick up some breakfast.

We arrived at the station just in time, about 5, 10 minutes short of the meeting time, 8am. Cas lead us to the meeting point, West Exit, it was very specific so we headed there to wait.. and wait.. and then realised we might have been in the wrong place. Cas then mentioned a clock tower, which was the actual meeting point, I hurried over there to check while Cas and Penny waited.

At first, I didn't notice Hiroe and Takako standing there. Hiroe was wearing glasses (never seen her wear them before) and also dwarfed by the giant backpack she had on. Eventually we were all in the same place but had to wait for the others to arrive. I say 'The Others' because that's how I knew them at the time, I didn't know who we were meeting, just 'other' people.

The plan was to all meet at the station and then drive to our destination for the next two days, Mt. Fuji. Today we were going to Fuji-Q Highland, one of the biggest theme parks in Japan, it is very close to Mt. Fuji, hence the name.

The others were all running late, so we went to Mc Donnalds to wait for them. I think Cas got a Sausage McMuffin (he expressed his craving for one on the train) and the girls got something too, I forget what. Eventually two of the others arrived, Lee and Mayu.

Lee and Mayu are both friends of Hiroe and Takako, they all work together in a hotel on the reception desk. Lee is from China and Mayu comes from Osaka, they both live in Tokyo now. Lee and Mayu were going to rent a car to drive down, so we headed off to the car rental shop which was a few minutes down the road.

We waited in the tiny office whlie Lee and Mayu sorted out a car, it wasn't too long before they had their car and Hiroe got the call from the final 'other' to say he was waiting around the corner in his own car. We left Lee, Mayu and Takako and went off to meet the final other, Genta.

Genta was sitting waiting in his car, he also works at the hotel with Hiroe, Takako, Lee and Mayu. We all bundled into the car, filled the back with our bags and set off on a mini road trip to Fuji-Q.

It's a 2-3 hour drive from Shinagawa to Fuji-Q, seems like a long time but it didn't feel like it. There was quite a bit of traffic getting out of Tokyo but we eventually got out of the city and onto one of the nicest motorways i've ever been on. It was a road that went alongside mountaints covered in thick forestation, you could see tiny villages and towns in the hills and mountains in the distance. Trees overhung onto the motorway and the sky was a nice clear blue. It was a great drive.

Randomly, the best song in the world came on the sterio. I decided this was the perfect moment to make a little video.

We stopped off at a service station to stretch our legs a bit and catch up with Lee and Mayu who were trailing behind us. The area was full of snack stands and busy with people from all other Japan, it looked like a travellers meet up point, it was a nice crowd. Everyone went to the toilet while I wanderd off to get myself a Kakigori, iced perfection in a tub, covered with a sweet blue juice that slightly melts the fluffy ice as it hits. I'm really going to miss this stuff, it's delicious.

I met up with the rest of the gang back in the large food court area. There were several food stands and a rather large mini mart type store that sold mostly regional choclates and sweets. In Japan, each region has it's own specialty sweets and snacks, these are boxed nicely as they are commonly bought as gifts. There are only 6 mini bars in the box, but it's worth getting as you will have trouble finding these else where.

KitKats also get the regional treatment, travel Japan or read some KitKat fan blogs and you'll find loads of weird and wonderful flavours. Fuji was no expection, walking around I managed to find Strawberry Cheesecake, Soy Sauce, Spicey and Wasabi KitKats. I decided to get the Strawberry Cheesecake and Spice flavours, Wasabi is too strong for my liking and Soy Sauce KitKat makes me feel a little sick.

While paying for my expensive KitKats (£6 a box) I spied some rare Banana KitKats at the till, I grabbed one for the remainder of the car journey. We eventually met up with Lee and Mayu, had a bit of a chat, got some photos and then headed back to our cars to continue the journey.

It didn't feel like any time at all for the second half of the jounrey, eventually we could see the roller coasters from Fuji-Q in the distance, I don't think Lee and Mayu did beceause when we eventually arrived at Fuji-Q and got to the car park, Lee and Mayu had gotten lost. Thankfully, it was only a few minutes before they arrived and we were all ready for some fun at Fuji-Q Highland.

The park is home to two record holding roller coasters, The world's Tallest and the world's Fastest. There is also another big roller coaster and a Horror House. Also, there are a bunch of other rides, nothing that really stands out as different or noteworthy.

Randomy, I noticed some curious signs leading to the park. It seems that bear fighting is not allowed and that the bears are fobidden to eat from the bins. Seems there is a bear problem in the park but to be honest, I bearly noticed it...

We headed to the enterance and Hiroe gave us all our tickets, she had prepared this trip well, we didn't have to queue to get in. The enterance is through a gift shop, a large shop filled with gift sweets and snacks aswell as lots of merchance. As i've mentioned before, many things and places in Japan have their own mascots, Mt. Fuji is no expection.

When we got into the park, the first thing we had to do was get our ride pass ticket. Without this, you won't be getting on any rides so if you go, don't forget to exchange your enterance ticket for a ride pass ticket. There are several stations to get one of these, you have to take a photo of your face and it gets printed onto the ticket.

With our ride pass tickets in hand, we were ready to roller... coaster (sorry, bad pun)

The first area of the park we walked around had two large roller coasters in it, Fujiyama and Dodonpah. Both of these roller coasters were world record holders for the worlds tallest and fastest respectively.

The first roller coaster we decided to go on was Fujiyama. When Fujiyama opened in 1996 it was the world's tallest roller coaster at 259 feet (79 m), and had the largest drop in the world at 230 feet (70 m). Info from Wikipedia.

The queue didn't look like it was too long but it took us an hour at least before we were in our seats and ready to go. While waiting, we played Rock Paper Scissors to determine who would sit with who. My ride partner was Mayu, we were both excited to ride Fujiyama.

We were all really hyped for the ride by the time the car we would be boarding pulled up.

There is nothing special about the cars, it's typical roller coaster style with the bar that comes down and crushes you and a seat belt to stop you falling out.

Randomly, I noticed a sign, "Chicken Way", it made me laugh as it was the exit for people who queued all that time and then chickend out last minute, none of us went the chicken way.

The ride ended with a cheer and round of applause from the staff, people waiting and of course, the riders. It was an awesome roller coaster, starting with a huge drop (and a fantastic view) it speeds down into tiled high speed turns and then several more drops. The ride lasted nearly 3 minutes which is much better than say, Nemisis Inferno at Thorpe Park, UK, which only lasts less than a minute, rubbish!

Of course, there are photos taken on the rides, they didn't come out so great so I didn't buy them, instead I took a sneaky picture.

I really enjoyed that ride, we all did. I think it's easily one of the best roller coasters i've been on. The view from the top was great, you could see Mt. Fuji quite near by but the peak was covered in thick clouds. We were all hyped and ready to do another roller coaster, well, all except Penny.

We decided to go on Dodonpah next. It's the fastest roller coaster here at 106.9 mph. When it opened in 2001 it was the world's fastest, it's now third but still holds the world record for highest acceleration at launch.

Penny decided to sit this one out, the gets terrible motion sickness and was already feeling it. While discussing the last ride, Fujiyama, she realised she actually blacked out on the ride for a few seconds! So while Penny went to go find somewhere to obviously play Dragon Quest, we waited in line for an hour and a half.

To break up the bordem of waiting in line for so long, Cas decided to teach the girls how to play slaps, they seemed to enjoy it. We also played Rock Paper Scissors again to determine who would be the single rider would be, Genta. My ride partner this time was Lee.

The ride was a lot of fun, it slowly leaves the station and turns a corner, there is a short wait in a small tunnel which opens out into the park. You wait at some traffic lights before the count down, 3, 2, 1... come on!.. GO! The ride doesn't go on 1, there is a wait of a few seconds before you're shot out at a neck cracking 187MPH! The shock of the instant speed boost was incredible, it reaches maximum speed in a single second before slowing down to a tollerable high speed and going around a short and typical roller coaster track.

We met back up with Penny at the ride exit, she pointed the photos out to us, pretty good i'd say!

After doing the two biggest and most popular roller coasters, we went to the food court to get something to eat. There are food stands near the two roller coasters but Hiroe led us to the Food Court as the stands are no good.

The food court looked a lot better. It served Noodles, Curry and some other Japanese foods. There was also a Baskin Robbins stand with no mega queue like in Shinjuku, joy!

We all got either Ramen, which I got, or Yakisoba. I was tempted by the curry but thought it might be too much for a theme park.

The Ramen wasn't really that great. It tasted far too much like Cup Noodle, I actually think it was. But it was still good enough to finish. I decided I wanted desert and excitedly ran over to the Baskin Robbins stand.

I decided to try the Popping flavour ice cream with Lemon Sherbert (Sorbet) I was in ice cream heaven, the two flavours went together perfectly, the Popping flavour was quite dense where as the Lemon Sorbet was very smooth and slightly melted into it.

The ice cream was one of the best combinations I've ever had, I'll be hunting down a Baskin Robbins in London when I get back. The ice cream was so good, I actually got another.

It was a suprise to the others (not Cas and Penny) that I had got another Ice Cream, there's nothing wrong with two tubs... is there? We continued walking to go to our next ride, it was a water one.

When we got there, the queue was over an hour, we decided to go see what the time the queue was for the horror house. The queue time here was much longer than the water ride but it was closing in 2 minutes! Me, Hiroe, Genta and Takako were brave and went for the horror house while Cas, Penny, Lee and Mayu chickened out and went back to the water ride.

The Japanese Horror House, Fujikyu Hospital, is a large building over 3 floors. The ride is more of an experience where you walk through the building and actors are lurking around to scare the shit out of you.

It was a long wait before we were able to go in. The wait was long because it can take up to 40 minutes for a group (of 20~) to go through the horror house.

We went in as a large group, the building is made to look like an old Japanese hospital, if you've seen any Japanese Horror Films set in a hospital, it's like that, but with very low lights.

The experience started with us being led into the waiting room by a nurse. There was a large projection screen that was pulled down in front of the reception desk and we sat to watch a little film, it was basically video of the hospital and scary things happening. As the film came to a finish, a hanging corpse fell from the ceiling, it made us all jump.

We were then led into another room, it looked like a medical examination room, we were asked to split into small groups so we were now just 4. We had to sit on a bench and get an xray?! taken. All of a sudden the where a loud crash, air blew from the right and our photo was taken, not an xray.

The next room we were taken to had a torch for us to take, we were told to stick to the path and follow the signs. The rest of the experience we had to navigate the poorly lit corridors and rooms with only our flash light.

Some of the rooms were really dark and we couldn't see without the light. We were slowly walking around one room when my flash light went off. Someone ran past, we were a little spooked. I turned the light back on and there was someone there, we locked eyes and they chased us! We ran into the stairwell to screams of "YADA YADA YADA YADA YADA!!" from Hiroe.

The rest of the horror house was in this format, it was incredibly creepy and reminded me of the old hospital in Silent Hill. We reached the final room, as soon as we entered, someone hiding to the side of the door scared the hell out of us, we ran through the room and to the exit.

Great experience and well worth the wait. We were incredibly lucky to get to the attraction before the line closed, very early closing time of 3.30! We met the chickens at the exit, they were laughing at our photo, which I failed to snap.

It was quite late so we headed for another ride, a massive mid-air swing. There was hardly any queue for this so we was on almost right away. The swing takes you high up into the air, giving you an amazing view of the surrounding area, including Mt. Fuji which was now free of clouds and the peak was visible.

Cas and Penny gave this ride a miss as they would get too motion sick on the ride, so it was me Hiroe, Mayu, Takako, Genta and Lee. We played Rock Paper Scissors to determine the single rider, me.

We hurried to get to the last big roller coaster but the line was already too long and it was closed early, the guy wouldn't let us through so we had to give that one a miss, it was a shame.

We decided to have a little stroll around the park before leaving. We got a really nice view of Mt. Fuji in the background as the clouds from the peak had cleared.

Randomly, I saw a sign in the splash zone of the water ride, No Shampoo. Do people really bring shampoo to this area or do the staff just have a sense of humor?

Before we left the park we decided to get some photos of Mt. Fuji in the background. It was a lot of fun taking the photos, we had all our cameras on the table with the timer mode on.

We decided to spell out the word 'FUJIYAMA' for the last lot of photos, it was hilarious trying to get into the shapes of the letter. Lee was having a a struggle with the letter 'U' as he was on his back with arms and legs into the air.

Randomly, I noticed someone's bag had a penguin on it. I forget who's it was, but it wasn't a stranger walking past. There has been a lack of penguins in my post today and I thought this one was quite fitting, Chums.

Many photos later we headed to the exit of the park, had a quick browse through the busy gift shop then made our way to the car park ready to leave.

After Fuji-Q we split up into cars again, Mayu and Penny went back to the cottage we had rented near by and the rest of us went shopping. It didn't take too long to get to the super market.

Tonight, we were having a BBQ so had to get lots of food and drinks. We was here quite a while stocking up. As we got to the meat section, a staff member was putting stickers on all the meat, Half Price! Perfect timing.

Randomly, I found a new flavour of Fanta! Cider Zero, which is what I think they call the Cream Soda type flavour here, it certinally wasn't the alcholoic type of Cider. The drink did had that Cream Soda sort of flavour but also the flat lack of taste that is common with these Zero fun drinks, it also managed to taste dry.

When we left it was really dark, despite only being 7.30. There are very few street lights in the town, there were none when we left, it was almost pitch black when we pulled up to check the location of the cottage, we got a little lost..

The cottage was really nice, two floors, two large sleeping rooms and the usual. It was in a small residental area, the whole place was surrounded by mountains and crops. A really nice little village, it was beautiful.

I decided to do a quick video tour of the place as I couldn't really be bothered to go take photos of each room, I Youtubed it for you all to watch.

It's going to be hard to blog about the BBQ in fine detail as my memory is a little hazy in my hungover state, there was plenty of food, beer and good times. We started with the food, the girls were chefs for the evening and prepared some of the best BBQ food i've had in a very long time.

I can't remember the names of things but pictures are said to be worth a thousand words. Here's a few pics of the food we ate, I didn't seem to take many, too busy eating.

After eating we chilled out for a bit, the food was still coming but the most of it had been eaten already. It was a great night, we all had so much fun. Here are some random pictures of us having a good time.

It was recently Mayu's birthday, we picked up a cake for her at the supermarket as a surprise. She didn't expect it and we had a little birthday celebration.

I decided to record the preperation and delivery of the cake, along with the Happy Birthday which was thankfully sang in English, we would have had trouble had it been in Japanese.

We eventually ran low on beer so a late night beer run was required. There was a mini mart in the area, we just had to find it. There were no street lights, it was around 10pm and we had no torch...

Suprisingly, we managed to find the mini mart without getting lost. I think we ended up in some bizare crazy parallel universe because we were served by kids. That's right, kids served us beer, something about that doesn't seem right but we found it hilarious.

Randomly, me and Cas went off to explore the fields which were alost pitch black. We came across what we drunkly assumed was a grave, maybe it was. We rushed back to tell people and Genta came to see it, he then tried to dig to see what was underneath...

Hiroe had brought load of sparklers and some ground fireworks. We had lots of fun playing with these, i'll let the pictures do the talking. Obviously we were careful with these and did not light them while drunk. I most certinally did not knock a ground firework over pointing towards the house, then run back to stand it up nearly burning my face off.

Randomly, Genta found a frog. He decided to bring it over to the table where all the girls were sitting, you can imagine the response he got.

The whole night was a lot of fun, one of the last things I can recall was going to lay down in the field to look up at the stars, it was such a beautiful moment. Living in a built up city like London, it's rare to see the stars like this. I can't remember going to sleep so I assume I just crashed out somewhere, when I checked my camera in the morning I found this photo.

The next morning I was told of things I forgot about the previous night. Aparently I fell asleep in the field and was out there quite a while. I then crashed out in the living room area and was carried into the sleeping area.

One of the best days of my life without a doubt. The whole day was fun from start to finish. The company was great, everyone is so friendly. It was nice to meet Genta, Lee and Mayu, they're cool!

The drive down to Fuji was a lot of fun, I was tired but the view was too good to miss, driving along side the mountains was a few I don't want to forget, also, My Sharona was played.

Fuji-Q Highland was great! We got there kinda late, around midday so couldn't do all the rides but had a good time even though we did just three of them. I had been waiting 3 years to visit a Japanese Horror House, it didn't quite live up to expectations but was fun.

The evening was the best part of the day, everything about it was perfect. The area we stayed in Kawaguchiko, was beaufitul and was a refreshing break from the busy city of Tokyo.

I'm hoping everyone is reading this so I can thank Hiroe for planning everything, she did an incredible job of sorting out a really nice place to stay and basically making this possible. Hiroe, thank you so much, we all had a great time and it was all thanks to your planning. I'll never forget today.

Perfect.