Universal Worlds Apart

Early start for myself, Samantha, Paul and Anya to make the most of our visit to the fantastic theme park Universal World. 

Quick stop for breakfast to get the energy for a couple of short train journeys...45 minutes later we were met with the huge rotating Universal globe. 

All anxieties about not getting into Nintendo world were alleviated within minutes of being in the park when I acquired the help of an employee who explained where it says "Register park tickets" was where I registered park tickets and where it said "Time Entry Tickets" is where I book out time entry tickets. 

Clicking onto the earliest possible time led to a morning quick pace shuffle to Nintendo World. 

This theme park has some rapid rides and adrenaline pumping roller coasters...the lethargic Yoshi ride was not one of these but enjoyable nonetheless as we got a view of the whole park. 

As I spent a week's wages on an interactive Mario watch I decided to stay behind and complete all of the challenges while Anya, Paul and Samantha travelled back in time to visit the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. 

Integrating myself with the locals I seamlessly joined teams to complete spinning boxes, stop the clock and flip the boxes challenges before defeating Bowser in the castle. 

Paul, Samantha and Anya had a long queue for the first big ride of the day. A few screams, splashes and laughs later we all met up again and tried out the local cuisine....Terriyaki pizza giving the guys a chance to dry out. 

The wizarding world of Harry Potter was next up with a visit to Hogsmead. Photos with Hogwarts Express and Hogwarts School before the next big ride "Flight of the Hippogriff". Waiting for around 90 minutes for a 90 second ride...totally worth it just to hear Paul invent a new emotional noise somewhere between laughing, howling and crying. 

Before lunch at a reasonably priced American diner we queued for the big ride. The employee randomly chose myself and Samantha for a muscoskeltal assessment we took on The Hollywood Backdrop....a rollercoaster in which you're going backwards the whole time. Honestly the most fun I've ever had in a rollercoaster and this was nothing to do with being able to choose your own songs to listen to on the way round (Shake It Off by Taylor Swift since you wanted to know) but more the unknown and false finishes. 

A wander around the Minions park and gift shop killed some time before the big live show of the day Sing - The Tour. We watched a live show of the characters from the movie singing and dancing...bit like the masked singer but you actually know what the character is. 

The highlight of the day was The Amazing Spiderman ride...just the 60 minutes to queue the sign said (really only 45 including the ride) which was a 4D experience where we were in the middle of a Spiderman battle with all of his enemies...once again Paul, Anya and Samantha got wet, this was my first time...but the flames did dry us off mostly before getting out. Characters jumping all over, we were hit with anti gravity guns rising into the sky before plummeting back to earth. Just brilliant from start to finish. 

One last ride was Jaws...every previous ride today we were sat at the front section so got the best seats... the streak ended on the Jaws boat ride, when we were sat at the back. To our joy this is where the shark attacks the boat so we got the best seats again....and once again we all got splashed with water. 

We couldn't leave without visiting a few gift shops and getting a delicious Mario dessert. 

Two trains we were back at the apartment to finally take the weight off and relax for the day. 

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Jazz and I decided to give the park a miss and have a lie in instead. Chilling around the BnB until 11, we got dressed and went in search of some local attractions and temples.

After using Jazz's broken satnav we got back on track and headed for the first attraction which was a lovely park. It was serene, zen like and very instgramable. A few photos later and we were heading to the Osaka tower. This seems to be a hot bed for good food sushi and weird buildings. 

A little more wandering ensued as we continued to get our step counter over 20000 each day. A green tick on the watch dinoting we had achieved our goals had a fun Brother/Sister day (no arguments either which was great). We grabbed some 7 Eleven treats and snacks and headed back to await the thrill seekers return.

This evening Samantha, Paul and Anya took some much needed R&R while Me, Jazz and Zak went out to central Osaka..just a brief walk through the slums of Osaka to get to the correct train station. 

For the first time on this trip my navigational instinct didn't fail and led us to a busy street of restaurants. We enjoyed a katsu meal at another family restaurant - which looked exactly like one in Kyoto with the same menu, uniforms and probably the same in all of their 300 family restaurants across the country. 

Zak practicing his Japanese, trying to order a beer was just yelling the word blue at the waitress, or was it building, or was he ordering a blue building...if he keeps going like this I'm sure we'll own a chain of restaurants in every city instead of him getting that elusive beer.

Colin and Zak