After a hearty buffet breakfast at the bustling Teatro restaurant on the second floor which served 80 tantalising dishes to choose from, we made our way to the theme park. It was a pleasant 5 minute walk across the hotel, down a path scattered with fallen maple leaves in various shades of autumn. The impressive grand entrance archway to Universal Studios Japan welcomed us at the top of the staircase to Universal City. I felt my heart skip a beat as we walked under the archway, through the turnstiles and into the park grounds. Let the fun begin!
We took a leisurely stroll throught the different themed areas of the park. The first attraction we hopped into in New York was T2 Terminator 2 in 3D. The show started with a simulated tour and presentation at Cyberdyne Systems in Japanese so we were clueless as to what was being announced. The visual presentation was rudely interrupted by a live transmission by the Connors exposing Cyberdyne's dark side. Cyberdyne's presentation then resumed and we were led into a theatre for a live demonstration of Cyberdyne's robots. We put on our 3D glasses and the action started. It was an exhilirating action-packed show with superb eye-popping 3D projections, special effects such as smoke, strong blasts of air during helicopter scenes and lastly a free-falling platform. Definitely not recommended for the faint-hearted!
Strolling past the replica old town buildings of New York City, we headed over to our second attraction located in San Francisco: Back to the Future - The Ride. It was a good 20 minute wait to take a wild ride on the DeLorean as this ride appeared to be very popular. To kill time, I took out my Angry Birds game on my mobile phone and started flinging birds around. This ride was a motion simulator and the DeLorean took us on a time travel, but not without the ruthless bumps, shakes, flings and tosses. No wonder the ride attendants advised us to empty our pockets before getting in. It was rather intense indeed! After the ride ended, I felt a bit sick.
We then crossed a bridge and walked into Jurassic Park. This was by far my most favourite themed area of all time as I am a Jurassic Park fan and have been waiting for almost two decades to visit something like this! I unfortunately do not enjoy flume rides and I do not like getting soaked in the cold, so I decided to skip Jurassic Park -The Ride. Instead, I spent a good 30 minutes scouring the souvenir shop for goodies to take home. Just beside the souvenir shop was a snack stand that appeared to be extremely popular with its long queue. The smoked turkey drumstick at JPY770 per piece was their best selling item with almost everybody who queued up munching on one as they left. It looked intimidating but the whiff of smokey goodness was good enough to make you salivate. Opposite the stand was the Discovery Restaurant, built to resemble the Visitors Centre in the movie with its signature conical roof and tall palm trees, giving it that tropical feel. Inside the restaurant was a large T-rex skeleton placed upon a pedestal just like in the movie. Even the murals looked authentic. The only thing lacking was the banner "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth".
We left Jurassic Park, briefly stopping to take one final look at the gargantuan archway with its lit pillars, and headed into the next section of the park: Amity Village. This area had a very small coastal town feel to it with white picket fences and sun-bleached wooden structures surrounded by a water feature to resemble the sea. Right in the centre of Amity Village was a huge replica of a great white shark showing its fearsome maw filled with rows of razor sharp teeth, hung by its tail. The entrance to the JAWS ride was located behind this tourist attraction. The JAWS ride was less intense physically, yet still as thrilling with an enormous shark pursuing and ramming the boat, explosions and lots of splash. Since I had a side seat on the left of the boat, I witnessed most of the action up close and got a good soaking.
After experiencing three very exciting rides, it was time to refuel on some light afternoon snacks. We headed back to the New York area and bought a hotdog each from the hotdog stand outside The Amazing Spiderman ride and found some empty benches to savour our warm afternoon snack along a quiet lane decorated with a yellow NYC cab. Even though it was just normal street food, the hotdog was delicious. The sausage was extremely juicy, bursting with flavour while the hotdog bun was warm, soft and fluffy. Perfect for a cool afternoon.
Just as we chomped down on the last bit of hotdog with ketchup and mustard zig-zagged all over the top, a parade was about to start. It was the Halloween Special parade with floats featuring a Masquerade, Mardi Gras, Halloween costume party and Rio de Janeiro Carnival. The atmosphere was party-like with loud Latin music featuring brass, percussion and catchy choruses to get you into the rhythm of the parade. Psychedellic floats flanked by performers and dancers all decked in brilliant costumes looking very much like a flock of birds from the Amazon rainforest passed us by.
As the parade moved on, we queued for our fourth ride at The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. The queue area resembled the office of The Daily Bugle and showed a 'live' video feed of some supervillains besieging the city. This ride was a combination of 3D projection and a motion simulator on tracks navigating a myriad of elaborate physical sets. We were flung around on Spidey's sticky web as the superhero fought his many nemeses, such as Electro, Scream, Doctor Octopus, Hydro-Man and Hobgoblin. We had mist sprayed and hot air blasted onto us to simulate the elements during the show. A most memorable scene was when Hobgoblin threw exploding pumpkins at us, only to have the pumpkins intercepted by Spiderman.
As evening approached, we proceeded to our final attraction: Backdraft. This attraction was placed in a building which resembled a fire station. Inside, we were led to three separate rooms with a display in the centre. The final room was where all the action began. It looked like a movie set of a flammable liquid storage facility. After the warning alarms were sounded and everybody safely behind the barricade, the flames were ignited. The way the set burned made it look like a real fire broke out. The immense heat from the crackling flames added a couple of degrees to the already warm indoor temperature. We were in for a surprise at the final moment when the whole platform where we were standing on fell abruptly, but it was all part of the Backdraft experience.
After our final ride, we took one last walk around the theme park before heading to the souvenir stores near the exit. The shops sold a wide variety of souvenirs ranging from stuffed toys, keychains, clothing and even snacks. One of the snacks which drew my attention was the Spiderman instant noodles. Apart from the colourful Spiderman packaging, the contents also included some thin round dehydrated food bits with Spiderman's face printed on it. The shops were packed with mostly last-minute shoppers cramming their shopping baskets with all kinds of goodies before leaving the park.
It was already dark outside when we made our way towards the exit as the sun sets at 5:00pm during this time of the year. The surrounding area was brightly lit and still buzzing with activity as tourists busily snapped photos at the Universal Studios revolving globe and the park grand entrance. After unloading our belongings at the hotel and freshening up for the night, we headed back to Universal City for dinner at the Universal City Walk - a strip of restaurants and shops adjacent to the entrance of Universal Studios Japan. We settled for omurice (rice wrapped in omelette) at Pomunoki on the fifth floor. The plastic food on display at the front of the shop looked mouth watering enough to beckon us inside. My omurice served with pork katsu and curry sauce turned out pretty well. The portion was extremely generous and it was extremely satisfying down to the last spoonful of rice.
After wandering around at the Universal City Walk paying a visit to almost every shop and prodding around at peculiar products in a Japanese pharmacy, we bought some ice cream from Lawson. Eating ice cream in the cold outside is a good experience for those who come from the tropics. At least the ice cream doesn't melt too quickly. The reduced noise from human traffic and shops closing for the night signalled that it was time to head back to the hotel to wash up and to get ready for another day of excitement.
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