Destination Kansai

After that awesome day around Mount Fuji, we caught the Shinkansen at Shinagawa Station down to Osaka for the next few nights.

This time, our travel would be over lunch so we each picked up one of the famous Shinkansen bent boxes before boarding. There were about 12 varieties to pick from and everyone loved their choice!

The Shinkansen really is such a civilized way to travel: on time, fast (of course), and spacious. The only thing that isn’t so great is the Wi-Fi connection because you’re constantly going through tunnels in a lot of areas.

On a rainy afternoon, we arrived at our hotel – somehow we managed to get a room for 3 with a sofa bed on the side. Someone was pretty pleased about that arrangement.

I’d forgotten how hotels in Japan provide so many amenities that you need for your night – toothbrushes, razors, etc – and even jammies.

I got a little snack from the Lawson store downstairs. Sake, yum!

We didn’t want to go out too far in the rain so we went to Bikkuri Donkey across the plaza. We went to one of these in Kyoto last time. I could best describe it as Japanese comfort food.

Who changes clothes or puts on makeup in Bikkuri Donkey?! (This sign was on the table by the menus)

This is the Citywalk – looking towards the Universal Studios entrance. Our hotel was just out of view to the left.

The rain stopped overnight as promised and we were up early to line up at Universal Studios Japan an hour before opening. It’s the only way that we could get a chance of visiting the Super Nintendo World area of the park, which is extremely popular and was the venue on the trip that Dicky’s son, Frederick, was most excited about. So we couldn’t miss it by sleeping in. You could guarantee entry to Super Nintendo World and skip the line on certain rides by purchasing express passes in advance, but we initially waffled on it as they weren’t’ cheap and you had to buy set groups of rides, not pick your own, and then by the time I reconsidered it was too late as they were sold out for our day.

When you enter the park, you come on to a covered “Main Street” which I suppose is meaning to look like a classic street in Southern California. It kinda does. But more so at night.

Well, thankfully we made it to Super Nintendo World by walking quickly, before they closed the gates and implemented the timed entry scheme. It was busy already though. We went to hit one of the most popular rides in the park first, in Donkey Kong Country: Minecart Madness. We didn’t realize how long the line was until we’d already invested about half an hour waiting in line.

The ride was fun, but we ended up waiting almost 3 hours in line! This truly is a park where buying those express passes would have made a huge difference.

After that, we spotted Toad giving high fives and handshakes out in the courtyard!

We got a lunch reservation at Kinopio’s Cafe, hosted by Chef Toad. Thankfully the reservation was free and just required some waiting (about an hour and a half) in which time you could roam around. We went on the Yoshi Adventure ride in the meantime and it was pretty cute to see these real moving Pokeys!

The interior of Kinopio’s Cafe was pretty cool. Well done.

It was just typical Western style fast food for the most part. Decent quality for a theme park, and it was very, very nice to be able to sit down for a bit instead of standing on concrete as we’d been all morning.

Ellie, Charlotte and I did some exploring around on a few of the more tame rides and then lined up for another long one – the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey, which was displaying a 2 hour wait time. The village of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts Castle outside the ride was well done, and again, would look even better at night.

The ride, which is “inside” the castle was fun, but we were pretty much done with waiting in long lines by that point.

We regrouped with Dicky and Fred and headed back to our evening timed entry slot to Super Nintendo World so we could see it at night and try the Mario Kart ride.

The girls and I decided to use the singles line for Mario Kart, and got on the first run in 15 minutes only!! We got to do a second run too, which took about a 25 minute wait. Dicky and Fred waited in the group line for about 75 minutes, which was still much better than earlier in the day when it was over 2 hours.

The ride required 3D glasses and it was super cool. Worth doing the second run for sure.

Super Nintendo World looked so cool all lit up.

There’s where we had lunch!

We were basically at closing time now, so headed back towards the gate, down that American Main Street.

Goodbye USJ, it’s been a fun but long day. We were there for 14 hours!

The next day, we ventured over to the city of Nara, a bit east of Osaka. Nara is a historical capital of Japan and is famous for its bowing deer in Nara Park, a huge green expanse near the city centre.

Thankfully there were signs telling people what can happen if you’re not careful. I’m sure there are people that do very stupid things with the deer!

The street that acts as the park boundary is packed with tourists, and deer successfully begging for crackers that are sold by numerous vendors for feeding.

At least one poses for us in front of Nandaimon Gate.

We didn’t go inside the inner gate to Todai-ji Temple.

This is a Sorin – a spire that sits atop a pagoda. This is a replica of one that stood atop an ancient pagoda.

As we walked further up the hill, it became much, much quieter.

And the views opened up, as we paid a small admission fee to walk the trails up Mount Wakakusa.

We could see the whole city from up here! Osaka would be beyond the ridge in the distance.

Of course the deer were right at the top, munching away.

The backside of the mountain was comparatively wilderness.

We walked back down on this gorgeous afternoon in the sun, and enjoyed the spring blooms and a small bamboo forest, before catching the train back to Osaka.