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| Fuji-Q Entrance |
I would definitely recommend Fuji-Q for 3 reasons!
- It has amazing rides! No slacking on that
- Right next to Mt. Fuji-san (pretty much!)
- A really scary haunted hospital!
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| Mt.Fuji-san from the Park |
So what the heck is Fuji-Q? It’s a giant amusement park near the base of Mt.Fuji. I mean you couldn’t walk out the front door and start climbing or anything, but it’s a pretty short distance when you consider that Mt.Fuji is HUGE! It’s right at the base with other things to enjoy for another day.
You can get to Fuji-Q by bus or train or car (if you are industrious to rent a car, drive on the other side of the road, and get an international drivers license). I studied the various routes and settled on bus. So far my long distance bus rides in Japan have been nothing but good. You don’t have to stay awake during the ride, no guarding of meager possessions from thieves. You’ll find Japan is rather low on crime of that nature. Also Fuji-Q has a great deal that packages your bus ride and park pass for one price. Some rides are extra but not that much. I think the haunted hospital ended up to be about 500yen. I don’t know if it was because the attraction was new or what, but it was well worth it. I screamed my head off in it!
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| Bus station ahead |
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| Behind us |
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| Bus station |
Well as a cautionary tale, I will definitely talk about our bus mishaps. It started with our arrival to the Shinjuku train station. The station was rather large with two floors open to the street. We ended up going out on the bottom and walked underground for a bit. It felt a bit off, so we ducked into one of the entrances (or more like underground backdoor) where an attendant was standing by the elevator. He was quite aged, maybe into his 70s. He was dressed very traditionally for a doorman. I asked in several ways where the bus station was. He shrugged. I drew the bus in case my Japanese was too bad. He still looked befuddled and pointed top side as our best bet. We took the elevator up. I looked around for the camera store as indicated was across from the bus station. We looked at the train station map of the area and it really looked so close. It is not right out of the station though. You walk from the station on the right side a bit. It’s at the bottom corner of this HUGE insurance building. I mean it’s a tiny little station right on the corner. It’s not the kind you can sit inside and get a drink or anything. It’s really just a place to buy a ticket and then go out to the stop for the bus. You will see the camera store across.
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| Across to the right side of bus station |
The other mishap is the bus station doesn’t really have people who are proficient in English. So write down what you want or gather enough words like “ Fujikyu passu.” They will bring the person who speaks the most English (a small amount) and the pass should help you get somewhere with things. Otherwise it became a bit complicated when she was asking when we’d like to go because I didn’t understand the schedule enough or have enough Japanese. We did eventually figure something out. I think she brought out a paper and wrote down some times. We ended up missing the first bus somehow. I had shown our tickets to the outside attendant for the buses, but it hadn’t came or it did a long time ago, we waited about 30 mins or so and decided we definitely missed the bus. When we went inside, I thought that the attendant was trying to say we had to pay the whole fare again and got upset! But J was the voice of reason this time. It was only 200yen for each person to change our tickets. Thank goodness! This time I hounded the attendant outside who called the buses out loud. Also the inside attendant made our tickets for the terminal right next to the station instead of down the street. I showed the outside attendant our tickets and he got us on the bus. Finally we were on our way. Before you figure it’s too much trouble, after that first part we had no more troubles what so ever with the park. And once you are on the bus its smooth sailing since you will recognize your stop (FUJI-Q). The bus stops at a convenience store/bus terminal. It’s actually all convenience store and there is a window the clerk man for tickets or bus info. They allow you to sit inside to wait for the bus, so it’s rather nice.
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| Entrance Neon Evangelion |
Once we got there, we followed the flow of people heading to the entrance. It was to the right of the store and outside. You walked a bit and then the entrance is hard to miss. You go through a large tourist shop and then outside again, where the real ticket taking entrance is. Just so you know the Fuji-q pass also covers entrance fee, so we gave our passes and got in. Our first stop and main reason to go to the park was the Neon Genesis attraction. It had drawings and set ups with characters. You could pose inside a fake elevator with Asuka and Rei, as well as other areas where you could be with your favorite characters or scenes. I went a bit wild and took a million pictures with everything. It was a bit confusing because you saw do not photo signs, but saw that there were definitely photo opportunities specifically made for people to take pictures with characters! We also watched a show with a giant head of one of the machines. Then we wandered. We took photos in a puri kura booth (photo booth with decorations). I accidentally hijacked one of the 2 photos that J got. So I let her hijack mine. You don’t get much time when it starts taking pictures (it’s timed), so really on accident. J bought some cool stuff in the store. I ended up getting a surprise toy. Basically you buy blind and get to open to a surprise. It was a rei and asuka collection so I felt I couldn’t really go wrong. I ended up getting rei in a ballerina costume. It was cool. I actually bought it for someone else, so I didn’t know what I got till I got home.
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| Neon Evangelion |
After we finished J was ready to leave the park. I was astonished since we paid such a huge amount to come! J admitted she hated amusement parks and fast rides. I said I really had to go to the Haunted Hospital since I psyched myself out with advertisements for it on the Japanese Fuji-Q site. The English site is paltry unfortunately. J relented but decided she didn’t want to just wait around outside. She came with and we bought our tickets at the vending machine at the back of the line. The park was luckily quiet that day since it was a weekday and due to the power shortages. Only half of the curving line area of the attraction was open and filled. Periodically people came out of the building screaming. Since the exit and entrance were so close together I imagined it small inside. We waited awhile and marinated in anticipation. There were video screens with a ghost nurse telling us not to commit violence against the ‘ghosts.’ And various other rules & notices. One was that there were doors inside all the whole way where you could leave if it got to scary. This was true. They were well interspersed.
They took groups in at a time. I won’t ruin it by talking about what actually happened. Suffice to say I did not think I would be scared at all. Especially since the first part is a video kind of telling you about the story of the haunted hospital. I was so wrong. The hospital is huge. Somehow they crammed a lot of stuff in there! There was even a basement. J got too scared about ¾ ways in. She decided to retire and I didn’t force her to stay, but I didn’t go with her. I was too curious to not finish. We reluctantly parted ways. When she left, I realized… I was ALONE. I can tell you I ran through most of it and then tried to glom onto a couple, who consented having some weird gajin clinging to the both of them. I did lose them and then find them near the end where we all ran out screaming. Ugh I was so scared I could have barfed!! Haha.As if that wasn’t enough horror I dragged J to the haunted mansion. She said she was sooo not going in. Unfortunately it was closed that day. So I ended up taking pictures with the weird traditional Japanese haunt statues in front.
We pondered what to do next and J actually suggested the giant Ferris wheel. I was surprised since she doesn’t like heights! It was massive and very slow. It never stopped and was slow enough to hop into the booth. It was fully enclosed with plastic on top of bars. No dropping of cameras or phones through the slats. We took photos of Mt. Fuji since we had such a nice view. After that we played a gundam game, where you run around and try to get pieces of gundam armor using little machines held up to sensors. The last stage had a huge gundam as part of the stage set up! The gundam game has a little session with a movie and instructions in English on how to play the game.
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| ROLLERCOASTERS! |
Finally we took our last ride on the carousel. I suggested it because I like them and they are reasonable for anyone who is scared of fast rides. This one was also very real. I say this because it was massive and everything was gilded. As an adult, I had to actually use the little stirrup to get in the saddle. That’s how big the horses were. I felt like a child on such a big horse! Then last call was made and people came out of the woodworks. We all straggled along and took last minute pictures in the fake ride with a huge fan making it look like you were riding it. We also took a photo that had these power rangers. Then we played a few booth games. They were like the ones you play at a carnival with ring toss and ball toss. You bought tries through a machine and handed your ticket to the attendant. It was low tech with bowls and such. J won twice and I won once. I got a stitch wash cloth that ended up replacing my kerropy one that got lost probably in the haunted hospital.. These little handkerchiefs made of towel material are good to have, because there are quite a few bathrooms without blow drying or paper towels. J refused the length of our stay to have one, but used mine a ridiculous amount. Also I encouraged her to carry tissues, but she also refused and then used the ones I bought for a lot of things including for toilet paper.
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| Giant Carousel |
Even though Fuji-Q the park was closing, this is when everyone mobbed the store that you go through to get to the entrance of the park. They had a lot of cute things. I searched for the Marimo and actually found some! We considered whether we could transport these to our respective countries, especially due to liquid and plant considerations. I don’t know how J managed it, but I put mine in my large luggage after draining a lot of the water out of the container. A friend of ours said that it would freeze and most likely die under there. I took the chance since I think the Marimos are in a cooler climate. They made it! They were extremely frosty but alive. Anyways we went to the convenience store/bus terminal. It was packed with people ready to leave. We ordered some food. The bus came before the food was cooked. We decided to wait for the food since we were so hungry. Everyone else left. We waited a very long time for the next bus and kind of regretted missing the first one. Nice thing is that our bus was practically empty when it came. I think there was a total of maybe 5 people on the whole bus. We spread out in two seats for each of us. At first J was hurt that I wanted to sit elsewhere but then enjoyed sitting across two seats. We were so darn tired!
They took groups in at a time. I won’t ruin it by talking about what actually happened. Suffice to say I did not think I would be scared at all. Especially since the first part is a video kind of telling you about the story of the haunted hospital. I was so wrong. The hospital is huge. Somehow they crammed a lot of stuff in there! There was even a basement. J got too scared about ¾ ways in. She decided to retire and I didn’t force her to stay, but I didn’t go with her. I was too curious to not finish. We reluctantly parted ways. When she left, I realized… I was ALONE. I can tell you I ran through most of it and then tried to glom onto a couple, who consented having some weird gajin clinging to the both of them. I did lose them and then find them near the end where we all ran out screaming. Ugh I was so scared I could have barfed!! Haha.
2 comments:
Huzzah, good to see you posting again!
Don't know how I missed this place - It sounds right up my street!
Ahhh! It's so pretty! I wish that I knew about this place when I went to Japan! It's my kind of thing entirely!
Your bus issues sound JUST like me. I have a horrible time figuring out city transportation sometimes. LOL!
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