Fuji-Q Highland

Today, I got up decently early (it was really easy considering my Jet Lag) and met Yoshiko, Brian, Akira, Rin, Keleih, Beth, and Yuka to get on a train to go to Tokyo and take a bus to get to an amusement park near Mt. Fuji called Fuji Q Highland. Not sure why the Q was included, but I guess it works. Anyway, instead of buying a normal pass to Tokyo (which I wouldn't know much how to buy them since I am not used to the train terminals at all) we bought something called a "Holiday Pass" This pass can be used on times of National Japanese Holidays or weekends at a cost of 2300 yen. Living in Oyama, we are lucky because it is the northern most station you can buy/use the pass as you use it to ride any train (but the shinkansen) to get to Tokyo. I would later find that it would be a very useful pass. Sure, a one way ticket to Ueno is 1250 from Oyama, so in essence the savings would only be 200 yen, but if you decide to ride any of the JR lines in Tokyo, it saves more money.

Anyway, we got into Shinjuku to the bus hub around 9AM. This was the first time I have seen Tokyo since I arrived in Japan. The streets were pretty crowded and many of the buildings seemed familiar as several were featured in various movies I have seen that took place in Japan. We stepped aboard the bus bounded for Fuji Q Highland after I went and decided to try the water "Pacari Sweat". I knew about the strange name before, but unlike what the name says it tasted nothing like sweat. It's more sweeter than most bottled waters I have ever had in the states.

We later took the bus to Fujiyama. It was about a 2 and a half hour ride, but I did get to see some really excellent sights on the way to Fuji-Q. We passed by Tokyo Disney Land and the location of Square Enix's downtown Tokyo headquarters. From about 2 hours in however, you can really see how big Mt. Fuji is from a distance. At 3,737 meters (over 12,000 feet) it is Japan's tallest mountain. Not any mountain is completely safe, but during the official climbing season (July to August), as many as 3,000 people climb the mountain everyday. It's the most climbed mountain in the world. Japanese people do it, foreigners do it, I wouldn't be surprised if animals do it too.

We arrived around noonish, and departed off the bus to hand in our tickets at the booth. For some strange reason however, when we handed our entrance ticket in we received another ticket to be taken to a series of booths where your picture is to be taken and printed on a special ticket. This seems to be the norm here and I thought it was really interesting. I guess it prevents people from giving their tickets to another person whom is coming into the park.

The lines were really long for just about everything, so we got in line for the closest roller coaster (called "jet coaster" in Japanese) Dondonpa. The wait was about an hour, but the line had various crazy signs printed just about everywhere in the park. I would later look back at all the pictures I have taken and say that they are indeed pretty crazy.

After that we split into various groups because some of us wanted to not ride the other roller coasters while as the others wanted to ride other things in the park. In the end, we had a fun time. Before the bus came we had a good chance to take pictures during the sunset with Mt. Fuji. It was very cold, but it was a fun experience I would never forget.

(Insert pictures here later)