Planes, Thrills and Meals: SQ to Kansai, Osaka , Kyoto and Universal Studios Japan

[yflyer]

Back below, on the castle grounds, we had a few snacks at the stalls below, including dango, which are dumplings made from mochi (rice flour),





…grilled sweet potato…



…and takoyaki…



…all wonderful snacks on a very cold day.

[yflyer]

Later that afternoon, we took the subway to Osaka Aquarium…



The aquarium impressed us with its range of exhibits, including a very large main tank filled with fish and other ocean life, with rays gliding through the water like a flock of birds in the air…



...more than one very large whale shark.



This aquarium was fun, and also educational. Signs taught visitors more about life in the sea. Others signs provided scientific answers to questions you never thought to ask…



“I recommend the touch pool”, Miss yflyer No.1 SMS’ed…she had gone ahead in the aquarium and were several exhibits ahead of us.

The touch pool was really impressive.

While other aquariums filled their touch pool with small sea creatures, slugs, sponges and maybe small stingrays, the Osaka Aquarium team had more extreme ideas…



There were sharks in the touch pool. Rays too. The rays were larger than you would expect.





I wondered why this sign was in English only…



…I also wondered how many fingers were lost each year…

And in the evening, outside the aquarium, very skilled street performers performed, to roaring approval.

[yflyer]

The next day we headed to Universal Studios Japan.

Our girls could barely contain their excitement as we caught the subway, and then a short train connection to Universal City, a shopping, retail and hotel complex that had sprung up close to the theme park.



Getting off the train at Universal City Station, we walked through the shops and hotels of Universal City before arriving at the main entrance of Universal Studios Japan.



It was a beautiful day, cool weather and blue skies. The theme park had been open since 10am. We arrived at 10.40am...



We had printed out our e-tickets (Essential for admission, since they had 2D bar codes on them), and so bypassed the ticketing queues and headed straight through to the admission turnstyles.

A tip: Apart from your admission ticket, buy an Express Pass, which gives you priority one-time entry, bypassing the queues, to many of the popular rides. This really helped us navigate the theme park without spending too much time in queues, which could be quite long. An added bonus was guaranteed timed entry into the Harry Potter section of the theme park, which is severely congested to the point that it is very difficult, or even impossible to get in unless you have a timed admission ticket, which you need to either obtain in advance, or early in the day at the attraction itself.



Signboard showing queuing time for all attractions in the park...



This is a larger theme park than Universal Studios Singapore (USS), with a different set of attractions and rides. For example, this was a body of water which formed part of the Jaws ride (You can see Hogwarts in the background), which is not offered at USS.



Some visitors to the park posing with Jaws. We noticed that Japanese visitors to the park are really fond of dressing up for their visit -- notice the Wizard robes this group is wearing. I did think that the Christmas decor around Jaws sort of ruined the fearsome effect of the Great White, though...



Another thing that stood out about this theme park, apart from the fact that all rides and announcements were in Japanese, was the high quality of F&B, compared to US theme parks.

There was very good food here!



And not just food. They served beer and whisky high balls in the theme park restaurants. A great idea.



I was quite happy to see beer and other drinks on the menu. Some theme parks, including Universal, serve beer and other alcoholic beverages. Others, notably Disney's Magic Kingdom, do not.The last thing anyone wants is people wandering through theme parks in an inebriated state, but the stresses of navigating a theme park would be much easier to handle if stressed out parents could sit somewhere for a beer in between the queues and the child care.

We didn't actually choose our lunch venue in the theme park...we merely headed to the nearest restaurant when it was lunchtime, which in this case was the Jaws-themed restaurant near that attraction.

It was a decent choice. Apart from tasty fried chicken and fries, Mrs yflyer and I shared an ice-cold Suntory whisky highball, which really hit the spot.



Soft shelled crab sandwich -- also delicious...

[yflyer]

There are actually two Jurassic Park Rides here. One is a water themed ride which requires ponchos (Similar to, but different from a similar ride at USS).

The other is a high-speed rollercoaster, which is not yet open.



A glimpse of the upcoming ride, scheduled to open some time in 2016.

[yflyer]

At the appointed time, we headed into the Harry Potter section of the theme park. This was a separate section of the park, with a walk through the trees required to reach it.

Quite a few Japanese students in uniform were at the park.

“What kind of school brings their students to Universal Studios?” Miss yflyer No.1 asked, her voice dripping with envy. No Singapore school does…



You first entered into a very convincing recreation of Hogsmeade…



…where the Hogwarts Express was on display…



The buildings and shops in Hogsmeade were meticulously modelled and decorated to mirror the movie…



Very convincing detail in the window displays…

[yflyer]

Minions outfits seemed very popular that day…



There was a live owl on display, although strictly speaking it was a different breed from Hedwig, the owl in the movies…





And past Hogsmeade, you arrived at a model of Hogwarts Castle…where the exciting Harry Potter ride was located…



In the early afternoon, if you did not have an express pass, there was a 180 min wait time for the ride. As I suggested earlier: get yourself an express pass!



There was butterbeer on tap, with prominent signs indicating that this was non-alcoholic, unlike the real beer abundantly available elsewhere in the theme park…



…either in a souvenir mug…



…or a regular plastic one.



This drink tastes quite good. The official recipe used at Universal Studios Theme Parks is a secret, but reverse-engineering the recipe from how it tastes, you can probably do a decent recreation of this drink with caramel sauce/syrup (Smuckers caramel ice cream topping works fine) and ice cream soda, topped with whipped cream.

They are making a fortune from merchandising and retail sales.





Look at the price tag for the wizard robes. And yet, there were people wearing them everywhere.



The various wands made for very good souvenirs as well. The wands themselves were very well made. It says something about Japanese culture, discipline and honesty that they had a rack of display wands in the Universal Main Store, near the entrance. None of the wands were secured to the table, or under glass, and people were crowding round picking them up and examining them, but none of the wands were missing! I can think of a few places where anything like that not bolted down would have disappeared in minutes.

[yflyer]

There was also a kids zone for young children in the theme park. Our kids are too old for that, but we headed in for a look anyway.







There was a parade in the afternoon.

[yflyer]

We waited till the early evening to try the park’s most exhilarating ride, a roller coaster called Hollywood Dreams.



This was a high speed ride with no loops, but with very steep drops that lifted you up fairly high off your seats, and pressed your body mass up against the restraining bar across your lap. A ride which Miss yflyer No.2 sat out, but which Mrs yflyer, Miss yflyer No.1 and I really enjoyed.

And there was something for extreme adrenalin junkies too. The same ride, named Hollywood Dreams Backdrop, with the only difference being that you did the ride in a special car sitting backwards!

After emerging from the Hollywood Dreams ride, I headed back in to join the single rider queue and queued 30 minutes for Backdrop, and rode it with my hands raised up the entire ride, at dusk with the sights of Osaka around me basking in a warm orange sunset glow…a near religious roller coaster experience…

[yflyer]

They had a night time concert, with Christmas Tree light-up that evening…



…we didn’t sit through the whole concert, but viewed snippets of it as we seized the opportunity, while the crowds were watching the concert, to ride on a few attractions during this lull period while the concert was going on.





A very satisfying theme park experience, not just because of the attractions, which were top notch, but also because of the food, the cool weather, and the polite and gentle crowds.

[yflyer]

The next day, we headed by subway to Umeda, which is one of the two main city centers in Osaka, with Umeda being the North (“Kita”) city center…and Namba Station in the South (“Minami”) being the other.

The difference between Umeda and Namba?

The south city center were we stayed, around Namba station, with Dotonburi, Shinsaibashi and other delights, was lively, colourful, and bustling -- more unbuttoned and relaxed.

I would characterise Umeda as being more posh and high-end, with large shopping malls and impressive skyscapers, such as the Umeda Sky Tower…



Apart from shopping at Hankyu and the other large malls in Umeda, we went in search of ramen.



We found ourselves at the Umeda branch of Ichiran Ramen, which is a popular chain of ramen shops, but one with an admirable focus -- they do only tonkotsu ramen. They also had a reputation for quality and consistency.



Once again, you order your ramen from a machine, where you pay and receive your order ticket.



Then you head to a board with lights showing available booths to sit. There are no tables here, only individual booths, with partitions that can be folded away if you are dining with others.





At the booth, there was a paper slip to fill out to specify how soft or firm you preferred the noodles, and how strong or mild you wanted your broth to be. You handed the slip of paper together with your order ticket to the staff across the table, in the working area of the restaurant.

A few minutes later your order appears…a steaming hot bowl of ramen in tonkotsu broth.



It was just a bowl of ramen, but what rich, intensely flavourful soup stock. What marvelleous noodle texture. The simplicity of the dish just belies how hard it is to get it just right, the way Ichiran did that day.



Miss yflyer No.1 found the ramen to be superb, and so did the rest of us.

There were sides you could order, like eggs, as well as bowls of white rice, which went very well with any remaining soup you had after you ate your noodles.

A very satisfying bowl of ramen.

[yflyer]

Tower Records in Umeda is located in a very distinctive cylindrical tower, close to the Hilton…





Umeda at night…

[saobangpo]

I wondered why this sign was in English only…

the shark looks like it's smiling

the touch pool looks like something in a live seafood market

[yflyer]

the shark looks like it's smiling

the touch pool looks like something in a live seafood market

My younger girl, Miss yflyer No.2, spent a loooong time at the touch pool.

Last I checked she still had ten fingers!

[yflyer]

A couple of days earlier, Mrs yflyer and I had gone to restaurant Kigawa in Dotonburi for our engagement anniversary dinner.



We were warmly welcomed into the restaurant, where two places at the counter had already been set for us, based on our prior reservation. The fixed menu, one of three dinner menus on offer, had been painstakingly handwritten for us in English by one of the English speaking staff.



The placemat, depicted an old map of Dotonburi…



We began with kelp soup…



Prawn and black sesame sauce…

[yflyer]

Things started to get really interesting with the next course, which included whale tongue, and salted entrails of trepang (Sea cucumber)…



The whale tongue tasted a little like bacon…



The sashimi platter was beautifully presented. The flavours were very adventurous, our chef today took risks, and pushed us out of our comfort zone…



A kudzu starch soup with wheat gluten and edible chrysanthemum was next, which Mrs yflyer really enjoyed …



The next course of shirako on Spanish mackeral was another love-it-or-hate-it dish…for many, the idea of shirako as something to eat is quite foreign, and yet this had unique flavour and texture, firmer than the shirako we had eaten elsewhere on our trip. This was a dish Mrs yflyer really enjoyed.