On September 28, CFAS released an updated travel map for Japan and the entire country turned green starting October 1! With this news, Bryan and I were eager to knock more cities off our Japan Bucket List; especially cities that have been "red" for the last six months! Bryan mentioned to Alex (aka "Chubes") that we were planning to travel over the holiday weekend, and before I knew it, the guys had booked an AirBnB stay in Osaka for our two families! Shortly after, we had flights scheduled and I began planning our Colombus Day Weekend in Osaka, Japan!
October 7- Flying to Osaka, Japan
Bryan had to work the morning of Thursday, October 7, so while he was doing whatever it is a dentist does in port, I was packing our bags! This is easier said than done because we flew Peach Airlines and they only allow 7kg (15.4 lbs) of weight per person for carryon & personal items, combined! After some maneuvering, I was packed and ready when Bryan got home around noon. We jumped in the car and began our hour drive to Nagasaki Airport, where we made it with ample time for our 2:50 pm flight!
We landed in Osaka around 4:00 pm, and--thanks to our smaller carryons-- we didn't make (as big of) fools of ourselves as we had when we disembarked on the tarmac in Sendai! After buying our train cards, we enjoyed the hour train ride into the city to our AirBnB! We settled into our home and had an early night in preparation for our adventure tomorrow!
October 8- Universal Studios
We were up and out of our rental by 8 am, and headed west to Universal Studios, Japan! We got there right as the park was opening and walked right in!
Once in the gate, we headed straight back to the Super Nintendo World, because we knew this area of the park would fill up and require a timed entry ticket later in the day. Due to COVID delays, the Super Nintendo World area opened just a few months back in March 2021, so we weren't sure what to expect! We were also excited because this is the only Nintendo World in the world!
As we walked into the Super Nintendo World, we bought a Mario-themed wristband to share between the two of us. The wristband connected to our Universal app and kept track of our points, rankings, and keys that we earned in the park. We quickly learned that points are earned by hitting the famous golden question mark boxes, by playing several mini-games, and by finding hidden digital keys!
We entered through a green tube, and emerged smack dab in the middle of a Super Mario Brothers game! The creators of this park knew what they were doing and didn't miss anything when designing this world! Peach's castle, huge Piranha Plants, spinning golden coins, and Bowser's castle were all included and really made it seem like we were players in the old Nintendo games!
The first ride of the day was Mario Cart: Koopa's Challenge, which is located inside Bowser's castle! As we got towards the front of the line, we were handed Mario hats, that clicked into VR goggles once seated on the ride. Then we steered our carts while firing turtle shells at other virtual players as we rode through different Mario cart race venues! Bryan compared it to the original Buzz Lightning shooting ride at Disney World, only Mario-themed and updated with VR interaction!
We were quickly reminded of the language barrier when entering the waiting area for the Mario Carts ride. Apparently, the staff thought one of the Castillo kids was ours because they grouped us all together and we got tangled up in the "child switch." While we had no clue what happened, Chubes rode with one of the girls, and then Kaiti, Bryan, and I got to ride later. It was confusing, but we couldn't help but chuckle that the six Americans were assumed to be together. I mean, it all worked out in the end!
After Mario Carts, we headed over and rode Yoshi's Adventure, which reminded us of "The Little Mermaid" ride at Disney World, minus the classic music! This simple ride was a great way to ride and look at the amazing setup of this area of the park from up high!
We walked around the park a little longer, snagged a picture with Toad, spotted Mario, Luigi, and Peach, and then headed out of Super Nintendo World to explore more of the park! We were impressed with this area and we were hopeful we could snag a park entry time later in the day to come back at night!
Jurassic Park was next on the map! We started by getting wet on "Jurassic Park: The Ride," where we were chased by dinosaurs on a log ride and got soaked by the giant drop at the end! Then we endured "The Flying Dinosaur," where we were tilted completely forward and faced the ground for the entire ride! Bryan and I agreed that this was the final (and possibly the only) roller coaster we could endure before lunch. I guess this is the first sign of aging....not being able to go hardcore on the coasters... it's happening.
Oh well... off to Hogwarts!
We were giddy as we headed towards the Harry Potter area! As we turned the corner, Bryan was sure to point out the rock structure from the Prisoner of Azkaban where Hermoine punches Draco! We also spotted the Weasley car coming out of the forest! Bryan was like a small kid as we entered Hogsmeade, and he could barely stand still to get a picture in front of the Hogwarts Express!
We made our way to The Three Broomsticks for lunch, where Bryan bought the "premiere" Butterbeer for ￥ 4500. Yes, he spent his allotted funds on a metal mug. This is why you can't give that man "adult money." For lunch, we chowed down on the beef stew in a bread bowl and the Halloween special, which included corn, ribs, BBQ chicken, and a mini shepherd's pie. The food was amazing, but the view was even better! We got great pictures of the Hogwarts Castle as we ate!
With full bellies, we were off the ride the Flight of the Hippogriff, a junior roller coaster that highlighted Hagrid's hut in the waiting line. As we left the ride, we walked up on a show highlighting the tri-wizard tournament! We then spent some time browsing all the shops, where I held strong to my "no" stance on Bryan buying a $150 wand at Ollivander's.
After watching part of another show at the main stage, we headed over to the castle to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Walking through the castle and seeing some of the major sets from the movies was really cool! What wasn't cool? The nauseous feeling we all felt after riding. Whew. And I know it wasn't just us because as Bryan and I sat with the girls in the child switch room, a group of high school boys joined us and had to sit with their heads between their legs...at least we were better off than those guys!
As we left the Harry Potter area, the Castillos headed to the junior area with their little girls, while Bryan and I rode Jaws! Just like in Orlando, this ride is narrated. Unlike in Orlando, this ride was narrated in Japanese. We got the gist and were really appreciative of the extra acting skills our guide put into his performance! We don't know what he said, but the emotions came through!
Later in the afternoon, we made our way through other parts of the park! Neither of us cared to wait over two hours for the DemonSlayer VR ride. Based on a popular Magna and anime, this new ride opened just last month....but again, we have been spoiled with short waits elsewhere and decided to skip out on this one! Instead, we rode the Hollywood Dream roller coaster. Bryan wanted to tell everyone in line that this coaster doesn't portray Hollywood accurately- it was too clean and lacked the smell of sewage and haze from the smog that the city is known for. God Bless the USA!
Being the lucky people that we are, we ran into an awesome Halloween show in the middle of the park! Themed dancers dressed like Day of the Dead held giant puppets and danced alongside Elmo, Bert, and Ernie from Sesame Street. Later in the performance, two minions came out and joined the dance party! By the time we found the performance, there was already a crowd of at least 200 people dancing along and singing the songs! Again, we had no clue what they were saying but it sounded like fun and the costumes were awesome!
Then we endured another 3D ride- this time with Spiderman!
Eventually, we made our way to the minion area! By this point, Bryan was through putting up with my photo shenanigans...but he toughed it out and even mimicked the werewolf minion! The Despicable Me ride put us over the edge with motion sickness and we were back to feeling like 50-year-olds. (No offense to our readers who are over 50. Trust us, you would agree that the "kid ride" was indeed designed for small children who have stomachs of steel.)
After our near vomit experience in Minion-land, we were ready for more food and the giant turkey legs from Jurassic Park were calling our names. Actually, they were calling our names at 9 am this morning when we first walked by, but we couldn't be "those people" walking around with a prehistoric-sized bird bone at breakfast time. So we ate our fill at 5:30 pm instead and got a side of frozen strawberries for a truly balanced theme park meal!
At 6 pm, we reached our timed entry to go back into Super Nintendo World! We really lucked out with visiting twice, because this time around we focused on playing all the mini-games and getting as many keys and points as possible! You can see in the picture below how much fun Bryan had playing the games!
Eventually, we met back up with the Castillos and got some pictures in the park before it was time to head out!
As we headed towards the front of the park, Bryan had to get one final treat for the day- a giant chocolate "churito"- which he shared with the group. Let's just say the tiny humans were all for sharing Bryan's chocolate treat as the park closed down! As we headed for the exit, we had to walk down the main strip that had transformed into a horror parade of creepy costumes! We were all exhausted as we made our way back to the train station.
We enjoyed our first full day in Osaka at Universal Studios- Japan! Overall, we felt like this was the closest we could get to an American experience while living abroad, and we weren't disappointed! We would even go as far as to say we felt like we were at a Disney park with the friendly and helpful staff and the clean facilities- and you know that means something coming from us Disney snobs!
Stay tuned to see the real city of Osaka in our next post!
'til then,
Katie
Great write up but it always bothers me when I don't understnd what they are saying. Pictures were great.