Today, me and Ben… oh, sorry (Pat) – “Ben and I” took the train to Nagashima Spaland – a super cool amusement/water park.
Why did we decide to do this? Well, it was Pat’s birthday, and the plan was to meet Pat and some other guys (Adam, Wojtek, Edwin, and some french people I’ve never met before) at Nagashima. Wait a sec… Ben has these crazy fireworks on his birthday, and Pat has a party at an amusement park for his the next day… there better be something cool going on for MY b-day! =)
On our way there, we ran into a “fat sweaty Japanese man” who was selling discounted tickets for Nagashima that included the bus ride there. Well, it must be really easy to swindle some poor gaijin, because we got the water park ticket, the bus, and the roller coaster ticket… but this roller coaster ticket was only going to last for ONE ride! To cut a boring financial tragedy short, we ended up having to buy the all-day ride pass ON TOP of what we bought from the swindler. Okay, so he probably wasn’t really a swindler, there was just an evident language barrier.
Nagashima Spaland is home to the Steel Dragon. This is the biggest friggin roller coaster I’ve EVER seen. And so it should be! It holds 4 Guiness World Records! I think it was Fastest (150km/hr), Longest (2.5km), Highest, .. and something else. There was hardly any people at the park, so line-ups weren’t bad at all: 10-15 minutes, maybe. People were apparently going to a festival in the city later that night, so the park seemed very empty compared with most places in Japan. We went on almost all of the good rides. Oh crap! I just realized: Pat, Ben and I never got a chance to get super wet riding the crazy “Shoot the Chute” because we arrived a bit later. =( Oh well… looked super fun, though. After doing all the potentially stomach-tossing rides that we wanted to, we had lunch, and did a couple more after. Then, we decided to go to the big water park.
Ben and I got split up from the rest of the group at this point, but we had lots of fun riding the inner-tube slides and a couple regular slides. The weather was perfect, and so was the scenery… eheh. ^_^ It’s weird, I hardly saw any overweight Japanese – especially girls. They do exist, but not in the water park, it seemed. Eventually, we ran into the group again, and we went on a couple last slides, the fake river that used ocean water (filtered, I hope), and left.
After getting dressed, and some grabbed something to eat (I resisted with all my might, as the day was already SUPER expensive) only a few of us… okay, everyone except for the French people, went on a couple last rides. I really wanted to stay longer, because the park was looking cooler and cooler the darker it got, but it was good we left. We (Ben and I) actually had the easiest journey ahead of us, because everyone else was either from Osaka or near Kyoto, and Nagashima is near Nagoya. I bought a “chili dog” from a bakery in Nagoya train station, and that was pretty good. After we got to our last train station, (after switching a couple of times – I really have to do this on my own, some time), we got on our bikes and biked back to the dormitory. Home, sweet home! I sorted out a couple of things, had a BATH (so badly needed), and here I am. For some reason, it seems like I have SO MANY things to do! I have to organize my trip to Tokyo this upcoming week. I have to do school related and student loan related paper-work. I have to iron my clothes. I have to download pictures from my camera. Many more things, I’m sure….
Today was lots of fun! However, it easily cost over 10000 yen with travelling and food.
It’s now 12:47am, and I really REALLY do not want to iron. I want to sleep. What an exhausting weekend! Usually, I like to have one day of rest before going back to work. Not getting that, this week. So tired. Maybe my shirts and pants will just have to be wrinkly… can’t say it bothers me that much. =)