Universal Studios, Osaka

Universal Studios

Right from Day 1 - since we started planning for Japan - Universal Studios was firmly on the list!! Ajey and I had been to the one in LA many, many years ago - but he really wanted to take Manasi, she's old enough to go on all the rides now! As for me, I was so glad to have dodged the Tokyo Disney bullet, that I would have agreed to anything! Besides, with my itinerary chock-a-block with all the things I wanted to see, I guess Ajey and Manasi deserved a day of fun! So Universal it was!!

Getting there wasn't a problem - remember our magic key, the JR Pass? Working out the logistics - from the Shin-Kobe station where we were staying, we could only get to the Shin-Osaka station. The Metro line for Universal was from Osaka station - so we walked from our hotel to the Sannomiya station and then took a JR train to Osaka, and then the Metro to Universal. Of course, we could have saved ourselves the walk, gone to Shin-Osaka, then a train to Osaka and then Universal - which is what we ended up doing on the way back! That morning, however, we still hadn't discovered how awesome the train network really was!

It was a Monday - so we weren't too worried about the crowds. Although, when we bought our tickets, the FastPasses were all sold out - that should have been enough to warn us!! The biggest attraction was the Amazing Spiderman ride - we figured we should get that one off the list, before exploring the rest of the park. The boards outside said the waiting time was 2 hours - but all the other rides we had passed also had similar waiting times - so we decided to go for it. And then we were in line...waiting, waiting, waiting.... oh, look, we're entering the building now....and then back to the waiting!!! 4 hours - I kid you not - 4 hours we stood in line for this 'Amazing' ride!!

Amazing Spiderman....

...even more amazing was the line!

It wasn't too bad when the line was outdoors - but once inside the building, it had been decorated to look the Daily Mail offices - which meant narrow stifling corridors winding through and TV screens with snippets of the Spiderman cartoons - too bad they were in Japanese! As if the wait wasn't bad enough, the corridors really got to me - at one point, we were single file, no windows and low ceilings - deep breaths, push that claustrophobia down!! Seriously, someone needs to check the fire codes for this building!! Was the ride finally worth it?? Well, yes and no - it really was awesome, the effects are amazing (cliche, much?) - the best part is the freefall from a New York skyscraper at the end, with Spidey's web to the rescue at the last minute - but I kept thinking, 4 hours, I waited 4 hours for this??!!

Just 1 ride in, and we were all kind of exhausted! At this rate, we would be lucky to even get couple more rides done before closing time! It did get a little better - we didn't have to wait more than 90 minutes for any other ride! And surprisingly, we checked off most of the ones we wanted to go on!! The best ones, of course, are the 4D - Terminator and Shrek were the next on the list after Spiderman! Seriously, how awesome would it be to watch full length movies in 4D? Amazing what can be done with puffs of air, water droplets and moving seats! Those spiders scurrying along the floor in Shrek? - even I pulled my feet up for a second!!

The Jaws ride is more for laughs, and so is Backdraft - although, Manasi was a bit scared by the pyrotechnics! I begged off Jurassic Park - 15 years later, I still remember getting drenched, and then having to walk around in wet jeans for the rest of the day - instead I enjoyed a nice quiet hour with a cup of coffee and a book, while Ajey took Manasi to see the giant T-Rex before plunging 30m down a water slide! Shivers!! Of course, we skipped the whole Snoopy-Hello Kitty-Sesame Street part of the park!! The evening ended with the Magical Starlight Parade - in my opinion, this is easily the best part of the day! The floats are really so magical, fun for kids and adults alike!!

 In a million years, I would have never imagined I would go to Universal Studios in Japan!! Seriously, I could go to Universal Studios any time - no reason to add that to Japan! Also, most of the shows are in Japanese - of course, we've seen all the movies, and we don't really need to understand the dialogue, but still - it would be nice to know what the entire room is laughing at!! And a strange thing - there didn't seem to be too many tourists around - most of the crowd was Japanese, no Caucasian faces, no SE Asians (apart from us, of course)! The food turned out to be another surprise - for the last 4 days, we had managed to eat like kings - so it was a bit of damper to be faced with a choice of hot dogs, hamburgers or pepperoni pizza!!

To be honest, I would have preferred spending the day actually in Osaka - but Manasi was so happy, that it made up for missing the sights of Osaka! Another sign our little girl is growing up - an entire day at Universal Studios, and she did not ask to buy a single souvenir! The last couple of times at Disney were a nightmare - with her asking for anything and everything that she could see, and then pitching a fit when she didn't get it! This time it was all about the rides - and that made Mom and Dad really, really happy! So, not a bad day at all!! Now if only I can find the time to squeeze in a visit to Osaka Castle...oh well, another one for the 'Next-time' list!!

Shinkansen to Kobe...

Shinkansen

High speed trains - G trains in China, TGV in France - almost a been there, done that feel for us! The shinkansen, however is special - it is after all, the pioneer in this field, and right up to 2011, Japan's shinkansen network boasted of the highest number of passengers annually! What happened in 2011 - why, China caught up, of course! We have all heard about how punctual these trains are, and how comfortable - what strikes me as the most incredible is the shinkansen's safety records - 50 years of service, 2 derailments (one due to an earthquake, one due to a blizzard) and zero passenger fatalities! Yes, that's right - zero fatalities! I'll take these stats over air travel any day!!

Of course, this paragon of virtue does not come cheap! Good news for tourists, though - the Japan Rail Pass, which can only be bought outside of Japan, and is available in 7 day, 14 day and 21 day durations - an absolute must-have to travel in Japan! With our vouchers in hand, we headed to Tokyo Station - the rest of the process was easy as pie! The JR office has a separate counter to redeem JR Passes, and after looking at our passports, the very nice JR agent handed us our key to the magical kingdom of train travel in Japan! At this point, I still wasn't completely convinced about the benefit of the JR Pass, but over the next few days, as we blithely flitted to different cities - well, it truly is the key to train travel in Japan!!

Waiting on the platform for our train to Kobe - seriously, I had never thought that the words 'railway platform' and 'quiet' could ever go together - but like in the other places we had been to, the noise level was at a minimum. The train arrived, the cleaning crew got in before we could board - again very efficient - really delightful was the discovery that all the seats were on pivots and could be turned to face the direction of the travel!! My mom would especially love this here - she always hates to sit with her back to the engine in Indian trains!! Takes about 3 hours to get to Kobe from Tokyo - and the landscape didn't vary much! Buildings, buildings and then some more buildings! I wonder how they keep track of city limits?!! Mount Fuji eluded us once again - the day was rainy and overcast - I guess I just have to put that on my list for 'next time'!!

View from our room

In Kobe, our hotel, ANA Crowne Plaza, was located right across from the Shin-Kobe station - couldn't be any more convenient!! Surprisingly, here too, we had to wait an inordinately long time for our room - what is with these hotels?!! In the end, we did get a get a room with a gorgeous view of the Osaka Bay - and the hotel staff were genuinely sorry for the delay!! After freshening up, we set out to explore Kobe - and we had our very own 'personal guide' to show us around! A really good friend of ours, AD - we go way back, right to our first years in Peoria - was in Kobe on a business trip, at the same time, in the same hotel! Well, AD and his family lived in Kobe for 5 years while we were in France -  and this is almost a second home to him! He graciously showed us the 'sights' - and we were able to get a local's view of Kobe that no tourist guide would have been able to provide! As much as I love and depend on wikitravel.org, it does have its limitations!

We took the Metro to a place called Harborland - a mall with awesome views of the Kobe Tower and Kobe Maritime Museum, and then we made our way back to the hotel on foot. After getting in our typical tourist photos with the Kobe Tower - the 'no-going-up-towers' rule is still in effect - and the Maritime Museum was closed for the day, so moving on! There's another museum here - more of a memorial, actually - 1996, the Great Hanshin earthquake, magnitude 7.3. Kobe was the worst hit, a large number of its ports destroyed, a section of the elevated Hanshin expressway literally toppled over. The memorial has actually preserved some of the original damage to the port - horrifying to see the concrete blocks sheared away, lampposts twisted, and metal railings completely bent out of shape - even more horrifying to imagine this devastation multiplied a hundred-fold! The outdoor exhibit also displays images taken right after the earthquake - that Hanshin expressway just lying on its side, as easily overturned as a child's Lego bridge - seriously unbelievable! Even more unbelievable - the amazing spirit of the Japanese - in just a few years, they have completely restored and rebuilt the city! Absolute respect!!

Kobe Tower

View of Harborland from Kobe Tower

Earthquake memorial

Earthquake memorial

Sannomiya - our last stop on the Kobe Walk - is kind of like the heart of the city, the most happening, in place in Kobe! Tons of restauarnts, bars and nightclubs - all kinds of fun to be had here! Our dinner options ranged from the famous Kobe beef (yeah, right!) to sushi - and of course, we ending up eating at an Indian restaurant, Sona-Rupa! Yes, we're totally predictable when it comes to food!! Back at the hotel - AD was not only in the same hotel, but on the same floor as us - and was a big help in planning for the next few days. Kobe was going to be our base - and we got plenty of advice on what to do, where to go! Tomorrow - by popular demand - Universal Studios, Osaka! Coming up soon...

Konichiwa, Tokyo! - Part II

Spring in Japan is not to be missed - the cherry blossoms are of course the biggest draw! The blossoming of the sakura is monitored closely and newspapers report the best places for viewing every day! A picnic under these beautiful trees is a must for the Japanese people every spring! The sakura hold an important place in Japanese culture - the intensely beautiful blossoms, and the short-lived flowering period - a celebration of the ephemeral, transient nature of life!

There are a number of great places to view sakura in Tokyo - to be honest, the entire city is covered with these cherry trees - the distinctive white flowers are kind of hard to miss - but to get the full impact, a visit to one of the many parks is a must! Our concierge recommended going to the Yasukuni Shrine, and then walking over to the Imperial Palace - so that's where we headed! This Shinto shrine seems innocuous enough, but has been the center of controversy a number of times - it is dedicated to those who lost their lives in service of Japan, unfortunately, these include some war criminals from WWII! One curious thing I noticed - after paying their respects at the altar, people would step back and clap their hands a couple of times - maybe similar to the ringing bells in  our Hindu temples?

Yasukuni Shrine

Admiring the cherry blossoms, we started walking in the general direction of the Imperial Palace - actually we didn't know it, but we were walking in the outer gardens of the Palace! This area is home to embassies and consulates of a number of countries - including India - it was a pleasant surprise to the 'Incredible India' posters and of course, the Indian flag! A very picturesque walk - a wide canal lined with cherry blossoms on either bank. Have I mentioned how quiet the Japanese are? There were so many people out to admire the sakura, but there were no raised voices, no hustle-bustle, no pushing or shoving and absolutely no littering! Very serene, very soothing - almost soporific! We must have walked for over an hour here - by the time we finally reached the entrance to the Imperial Palace, we had had our fill - both of the cherry blossoms and the walking! Besides, I had also promised Manasi that we would go souvenir shopping, and a 10 year old's patience with sight-seeing can only go so far - so no Imperial Palace! In any case, the sakura were heavenly - take a look at the pictures!

I did go a little crazy with the pictures!! Since we had walked so much yesterday, today was planned to be a little easier - Senso-ji Temple, and then we were done! On the way there, we accidentally missed our stop - and got off instead at the entrance of the Tokyo Skytree Mall. It seemed a shame to just walk away - so decided to explore a bit. This was a pretty cool mall - had both an aquarium and a planetarium - what really delighted Ajey was the World Beer Museum! This place, literally, sold beers from all over the world - they even had a world map showing where all the beers came from! We would have liked to watch a show in the planetarium - too bad they were all in Japanese!! We were almost ready to leave, when again by accident (got on the Up elevator instead of Down) we found ourselves on the 8th floor roof garden - and an absolutely incredible view of Tokyo Skytree Tower!!! This going-with-the-flow thing seems to be working better than my detailed itinerary!!

Tokyo Skytree

Senso-ji Temple is one of the oldest and most significant Buddhist shrines in Tokyo. Between the giant outer gate - "Thunder Gate"- and the inner temple gates is the Nakamise-dori, almost as famous as the temple itself! Nakamise-dori is lined with stalls with all kinds of souvenirs and of course, food! From kimonos to scarves, Japanese dolls to Hello Kitty merchandise, fake samurai swords to umbrellas, magnets to key chains - every possible Japan souvenir can be found here! Truly, the best place to get all the shopping done!! Unlike China, there's no bargaining - and what a relief that was! We did not go inside the temple, instead spent a few quite moments in a nice little pavilion in the courtyard - again very peaceful, very serene!

"Thunder Gate"

Nakamise-dori

Senso-ji

That was our 2 days in Tokyo - what I saw, I liked! Yes, it's another big city - but it has little pockets of peace, and it is charming in it's own quiet way. Time to move on, though, to our next city in Japan - Kobe! Coming up soon!

Konichiwa, Tokyo! - Part I

The visas did come in on time - sigh of relief - Japan, here we come! A last minute crisis with the washing machine almost derailed my packing - but finally, Thursday morning, we left right on time to get to the Pudong airport. This Spring Airlines was going to be interesting - we had booked our tickets sight unseen, only because of the great deals - I have to admit there was some anxiety! In the end, it wasn't bad at all - the plane was fairly new, the stewardesses very pleasant...yes, the seats didn't recline, but it wasn't really that uncomfortable! They are quite strict about the luggage allowance - 15kg total per person - incentive to pack smart! Beginning of this vacation, and I'm already wondering where else Spring Air flies to!

The only drawback in flying Spring to Tokyo is that the flight lands in Ibaraki airport - about a 90 minute bus ride away from Tokyo. The airport itself is pretty well organized - although, the customs and immigration process was slow, slow, slow! - almost seemed like we were going to miss our bus! And of course, it took much, much longer than 90 minutes - once we reached the outskirts of the Tokyo, the traffic was so bad, we were crawling along at a snail's pace! No surprise the Metro system is so good!

We finally staggered into our hotel at 6pm - almost 12 hours after we left Suzhou - only to run into something totally unexpected! Our hotel - Intercontinental, Tokyo, mind you - didn't have a room available for us. Oh by the way, they had already charged us 3 nights stay for this absent hotel room - details, details! When they finally figured out a room for us, it was on a smoking floor - 5 minutes inside, and all 3 of us had raging headaches! So back to the reservations desk again! After another longish wait - a 'higher up' stepped out to talk to us - he wasn't exactly rude, but there was a glimmer of something not nice - it was either the smoking room, or another room that didn't have the bed preferences we had asked for. And no, they wouldn't refund our money - so we could pick one of the rooms, or else! Not cool, Intercontinental, was expecting much better! Later that night, we found an Indian restaurant right around the corner - amazing what butter naan and chicken tikka can do for drooping spirits!!

After the Burj Khalifa, Ajey and I have a deal about not going to any more towers - so instead, the next morning, we walked to Roppongi Hills. A mall,with an observation deck with views of Tokyo city, and sometimes even of Mount Fuji (weather permitting)! Roppongi was quite impressive - tons of restaurants - a very urban, upscale neighborhood. After a not-so-quick lunch at TGIF, we made it to the observation deck. No Mount Fuji - was much too hazy - but did get to see Tokyo Tower, and the Rainbow Bridge in the distance. Our ticket included the entrance to what was possibly the weirdest museum I have ever seen! Seriously, a Lexus car lit up with strobe lights, a room filled with lighted balloons - most exhibits were totally baffling! We could have also gone to the Mori Museum of Art - but philistines that we are, we chose to pass - heading to the Metro station for the next destination on itinerary (remember the itinerary?!)

Roppongi crossing

View of Tokyo Tower from Roppongi Hills

Japan has always known to be really technologically advanced - so a visit to Electric City in Tokyo is a must! Like any big Asian City, the underground Metro system is highly developed - complex yet very convenient. Unlike other cities we have explored, the Tokyo Metro was quite pricey - in Beijing, for 2 RMB, you can do unlimited exchanges, however, in Tokyo, we paid between $2 and $5!! There are daily passes, and in hindsight, we should have just bought a 2 day pass - but we weren't really expecting to travel that much by Metro! Anyway, Electric City - wasn't just a building like I had thought - rather a main street and a network of side streets with all kinds of electronic items for sale. With a vague idea of looking for a new phone for Ajey, we wandered into a few of these stores - but the prices didn't really seem to be any different form anywhere else. So we walked, and walked some more, and then a little further - so far the day was not turning out as we planned!! Coming up next - Shibuya!

Electric City

The Shibuya crossing - the Times Square of Tokyo - is known as the world's largest pedestrian crossing. More interestingly, the Shibuya station is also home to the statue of Hachiko - the Akita made famous by the movie 'Hachi - A Dog's Tale'. I've yet to see a movie about a dog which doesn't leave me sobbing - Manasi and I watched Hachiko together, and the film absolutely broke our hearts! So we eagerly stepped out of the Hachiko exit at Shibuya station - all we could see was a large mural depicting Akitas. Where's the statue? Maybe on the other side of the square? We walked over to the crossing - and I don't know about Times Square, but the sheer number of pedestrians was mind-boggling! We crossed back and forth a few times - all the time keeping an eye out for Hachiko - but no luck! Finally gave up - Manasi was crushed - she had been looking forward to this all day! She was so disappointed that we decided to go back for one more look - and there he was, partially hidden by the buses parked around the station - Hachiko in all his glory!!

Shibuya crossing

Mural outside Hachiko exit

Finally - Hachiko!

First day in Tokyo - and we had walked our feet off!! The Metro is really convenient, but what with walking between different platforms, and going up and down a million stairs - just getting from 1 place to another is completely exhausting! Technically speaking, the nearest Metro station from our hotel was a 5 minute walk away - well, the entrance to the station was 5 minutes away - once underground, we walked at least 15 minutes before we got to the actual station. Spent so much time underground - we were beginning to feel a bit like moles at the end of the day - surfacing for a few minutes, then diving back into the tunnels! Sure was glad to take a taxi back to the hotel after dinner - I don't think I would have made it back on the Metro!

As always, I'm rambled on a bit - and I have to finish our Tokyo travels in a second post! Part II coming up - don't go anywhere!!