Osaka (Day 5) - Universal Studios

It's our last full day in Osaka and our plan is to check out Universal Studios. This is the only thing on our agenda for today, so we're in no hurry this morning. It looks like Jeff may have found an actual breakfast Cafe so we stop in on our way to the train station. There are two breakfast options, fried egg with home made bread or croquette mush, which is cheese and ham on home made bread. We're delighted and order one of each, as well as a couple of coffees, which are fantastic.

Feeling energised from having some real coffee (as opposed to the drip stuff or sugary cans from the many vending machines), we head for the train. A couple of trains and a bit of back tracking later and we've arrived. We purchase our tickets and head on in. We're pretty impressed as we wander through 'Beverley Hills' , 'New York' and 'San Francisco'. As we've come to expect at big tourist attractions, there are masses of people everywhere. Courts hates to admit it, but one of the main reasons we're here is to check out the Harry Potter world. We head in that direction and know we're on the right track when the path turns all forest like and we spot the crashed car from the Chamber of Secrets. Pretty cool.

We wander through the gates and arrive in Hogsmeade. To the right is the Hogwarts Express train, conductor and all and ahead lies all the shops from Hogsmeade, complete with snow capped roofs. We're thoroughly impressed. We see the line for the Harry Potter ride (which is inside Hogwarts Castle) but we don't see the castle. Courts follows the line around the corner and sees a sign which says there's a 160 minute wait for the ride. Je-sus. We get in the line, which is moving, but then decide to come back later hoping the wait time will be shorter. The line snakes back and forth and we can't even see where the front is. Incredible.

We wander back through Hogsmeade where you can purchase all the tricks and treats featured in the books. We grab a butter beer to sip on. It's non alcoholic and couldn't be further from a beer, other than the colour. It's sweet with a buttery, foamy head. De-lic-ious.

We continue on through the park and check out the town of Amity next, which is the Jaws world. Very cool and well done. Jeff's spotted the biggest, sickest roller coaster in the park, in Jurassic Park world. We wander in and are again impressed at the effort that has gone into replicating the movie. We even encounter life size Stegosaurus and Velociraptor! Jeff finds the line up (Courts is gonna sit this one out, she's reached her limit for extreme sports on holidays) and the wait time sign (really helpful touch), which says it's just about as long as the Harry Potter one. We've decided we've only got one extensive line up for a ride in us, so Jeff gives it a miss.

We walk past Water World, can't enter until the next show, which isn't for a little while. We keep meandering along and see a Terminator 2 experience, which doesn't have any line up, woo! We head inside. The experience starts with a lady dressed in a pink suit, addressing us from a balcony. This goes on for a little while and it's in Japanese so we have pretty much no idea what's going on. We finally head into a theatre, take a seat and don our 3D glasses. The lady dialogue continues and finally someone comes and shoots her. We thinks she's one of the baddies working for Cyberdyne, so it's ok. A couple of massive robots rear up to the left and right and then Terminator, the kid and Sarah O'Connor enter the stage. They make a plan, speaking in Japanese and things really kick off. It's a pretty cool 3D experience with stuff flying at our faces, smoke and the seats do a thing which makes you feel like you're amongst the action, almost. Luckily Terminator isn't the most complex of stories and we know the gist of it so we can follow along with the action well enough.

We meander around a bit longer then take a break for lunch. We decide on a cafeteria style restaurant where we get some meat and veg (finally)! After we eat (and keep scurvy at bay for another day), we head back to Hogsmeade. We join the line for real this time, which is down to an estimated 140 minute wait time (we've heard from others who went on the ride that it's worth the wait, plus we need to get something out of the eye watering entry price to the studio)! We whip out our books and settle in. The line is actually moving pretty consistently, considering. We're still astounded at how long it actually is and get a better understanding of why the Japanese have so much patience! 2 hours later we're at the front of the line (it went relatively quickly).

We head into Hogwarts and it is awesome! We get to walk through parts of the castle on the way to the ride and again, it's really true to the story. Talking and moving pictures and all! Very cool.

We get to the start of the ride, seems like they've got a pretty good and quick system for this. 4 hop off and we hop on, while the ride continues moving. It's a roller coaster type seat, facing sideways and we're strapped in tight. Thankfully, because what we experience is wild. It's a full blown virtual reality experience where you're flying along on a broomstick. If you have a fear of heights, you'll feel it here, even though your actual seat has barely left the floor. Courts admits afterwards to having to close her eyes a couple of times due to the intensity! The ride goes between VR and not, the non-VR parts are equally as cool, beasts breathing fire (you can actually feel the heat) and spiders spitting something wet at you. We find ourselves clapping at the end of the ride like we've just completed a mission. We hop off and are raving about it for the next 10 minutes. Definiteley worth the wait, we both agree.

After spending most of the day at Universal we head back to the hotel and put the feet up for a bit. We're both pretty spent from what's been a massive few days in Osaka, so decide to keep it local for dinner.

We head to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel, where we chow down on deep fried dim sim and slices of duck for entree, steak and chips for mains, accompanied by a bottle of red. A bit pricier than most of our dining out experiences, but it's our last night in Osaka and we haven't eaten much red meat (or wine!) this trip. Feeling satisfied we head back to the hotel for a well earned sleep.