Richard Bannister

During my first week in Japan, I made numerous trips on the Shinkansen bullet train, and found it to be a haven of peaceful serenity, with only the gentle hum of the engines breaking the silence as the countryside flashed by at more than two hundred kilometers per hour. As such, I was very worried about the poor unsuspecting Japanese unfortunate enough to land in the same reserved seat carriage as one hundred and seventeen gaijin. As it happened, however, our group was split into two, and those in our car were for the most part silent. I wasn't brave enough to venture into the next car, but I feel confident that it would have been, well, somewhat different to the norm!

My seat was beside our charming local guide, who had a single group train ticket for us all. This is worthy of note largely due to its cost, a spectacular ¥1458990, or somewhere around the ten thousand euro mark. I asked if there was any discount for such a substantial purchase; it turned out that there was. Some seven thousand yen, or about half of a percent of the total, had been generously knocked off the overall price. There is no doubt that the maintenance of the bullet train system costs money, but nevertheless it was quite a wake up call to discover how expensive individual tickets were; we had had completely unlimited use of the system for one week with our Japan Rail passes, which it seems paid for themselves with two tickets. Future travellers to this wonderful country should take note; JR Passes will save you a lot of money.

 

The original tour plan had us leaving Expoland at 5:00pm, as this was the expected time of closure. Signs at the gate indicated the park was open much later, though, and after discussion we decided to push the leaving time back to 6:00pm. However, despite two coaches being in agreement on this one the third argued the point, and consequentially we ended up splitting the difference and leaving at 5:30pm. One might regard this whole paragraph as pointless, and it is, but I feel compelled to remark that people who don't want to spend time in parks probably shouldn't be on a trip like this one. The departure time left me without enough time to do all the attractons I wanted to, just so that some people could get to their hotel room half an hour earlier.

After yesterday's experience of technicoloritis in Nasu Highland it was a bit of a change to discover that the four major coasters in Expoland are painted a mixture of white and pink. This presented an even greater obstacle for budding photographers; as per usual I took a lot of pictures, and it was very challenging to sort out which pieces of track belonged to which coaster.

Our first port of call turned out to be a close contender for the worst coaster of the trip so far. Fujin Raijin II (#628) embodied all the worst features of the TOGO stand up coasters in the United States. It had a very exciting layout, but unfortunately the trains it used were completely incapable of negotiating it without causing severe headbanging to all on board. After riding its little brother last week I was expecting a good ride. Instead, I found a useful addition to the park. Two years subsequent to this visit an accident on this ride resulted in the death of a passenger that was blamed on shoddy maintenance work. The park subsequently closed, and as of January 2008 has yet to reopen.

Mini Coaster (#629) seemed like a good way to recover from the previous nightmare, and despite being incredibly noisy for its size it rode pretty well. It featured a rather unusual tire drive lift hill; rather than locate the wheels on the top of the lift they were found on the side. They were quite clearly struggling to move the train properly, with some very jerky motion and some slipping. An anti-rollback device on the lift hill would be an absolute prerequisite to run more than one train.

In sharp contrast to many on the trip I really liked Daidarasaurus (#630), currently the longest operational coaster in the world. The layout takes riders most of the way around the park not once, but twice, using the traditional dull gently sloping hills. If you are looking for a high speed thrill ride this is absolutely not the coaster for you, but if you want a scenic view of the park taken at a reasonable rate then look no further. The only black mark for me was the noise produced by the steel wheels running on steel rail. Passengers could hear nothing else, and those on the ground need to shout to make themselves heard whenever a train is in the vicinity.

Nigel remarked that it was truly a sad state of affairs when a corkscrew was the best coaster ridden in the park, and while I don't agree with his assessment (see the previous and next paragraphs) there was no doubt that Space Salamander (#631) was smooth in comparison to what I have come to expect from older generation Arrow rides.

It only took me a glance at Orochi (#632) to determine that I had ridden the exact same layout before, in the guise of Raptor at Cedar Point. In all honesty, I don't think B&M have ever built a bad inverted coaster, and this one was an intense and enjoyable ride, one of the best experienced in Japan to date.

Wild Mouse (#633) and Family Coaster (#634) were the last two coasters for us. The latter was a particularly amusing experience due to two corpulent americans who could not get the lap bars to close due to the sheer volume of blubber hanging in front of them. They really wanted to ride, and on their request Martin (who is not insubstantial himself) pushed the lap bars as hard as he could, closing them enough that the ride could be run. The ride operator seemed to find this even funnier than we did, though it could not possibly have been comfortable for the people involved.

With only limited time left in the park I decided to spend the last horu on my own. The Big Ghost House dark ride operated with a transport system that could not have been less than thirty years old. It did feature one scene which made me jump, though otherwise it was missable. The Mystery Adventure was a Senyo Cosmo Cruiser ride along the lines of the somewhat underwhelming Garaxy Grand Prix at Mitsui Greenland. It seems that these rides are popular in Japan, though it is not hard to see why they have never sold abroad. The Shooting Ride was a Senyo attraction with the easy-to-hit targets seem previously at Lagunasia. Finally, the Ice World was similar to that at Uminonakamichi, albeit for the fact that it was almost completely frozen over, making it impossible to see the stuffed animals and the like within. It probably needed a full defrost before being chilled back to -30° again.