Entries this day: AM Fuji-Q_Highland PM mystic_river

AM

5:06am JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

I trust that this will be a super awesome day, no matter what happens.

My intention is to take terrific photographs and videos at Fujikyu Highland and have them published online and in print.

7:13am JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

We're on the second to last train: from Takao to Otsuki. We had been early, and I skipped one train in Hachioji, so now we are exactly on time. I was a bit worried about making the connection in Otsuki; we had one minute to make it across (and down) the platform. But we made it. I noted the sign on our train had changed from Takao to Tokyo (Takao was its last stop that direction and it is now headed back for Tokyo) and I was like, eeep what train?? and then I saw the kanji for Otsuki. 大月 Easy kanji, but kanji. And I read them and knew which train to take.

"We're inside a mountain," clarifies janette as we speed through this tunnel.

- - - -

Going from Hachioji to Takao, be more toward the middle of the train than the very end. That way, it's easy to change to the next train; just walk across the platform.

Fuji Q Highland

11:15am JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

Damm that Dodonpa is fast. I snuck my camera on in my pants and took a video of the ride. But the video is nearly useless except for the very beginning of the ride. The rest is less than a blur; it's just white. I don't know if I was aiming up at the sky or what. I might ride it again to try videoing it again, but that line is long for a short ass ride on which I can't even wear my glasses. (It's that fast)

Right now we're on the ferris wheel and I moved all my pics from my camera to my computer. I wanna ride the ferris wheel again (no line whatsoever) and get a video of Dodonpa.

1:28pm

Okay.

There's this cool cheapy little dungeon game where each player gets a card onto which little card reader(writer)s will write (or not) one of four different symbols. In this darkened three story maze, we try to find all the readers, some of which are completely fake, and some of which don't write anything, and one of which will "erase" (write X on all four corners of) the card.

This has got to be the cheapest attraction for FQH to maintain, and it has captured my attention. I want to solve it. We've played three times and are making battle plans on how to go back in there with a systematic technique for winning.

Oh, the card readers (the real ones) do different things each game; they are reprogrammed between games, so the key, as we see it, is to learn which card readers are real, and memorize where they are. Then we'll put an old card in to test the readers' settings this game. If they are good, we'll put the real card in (one card per couple upon entering the game) and collect that symbol.

I'm writing now just before we put our jackets and computer in a locker while we run around inside this maze.

ps: my computer screen is solar powered right now. (solar illuminated)

5:47pm JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

Fuji-Q's haunted house closed before we went in. I wonder if/why they didn't tell us they would close soon the first time we went to check the time. We wanted to go in after dark; or rather we wanted to not waste daylight on an indoor ride.

- - - -

We won that card reader game. We got a card full of all the right shapes, but then got killed in the last room. The second time we got all the shapes, we ran up to the room and read the instructions. "Get through the room without touching laser beams." Ah. I stepped over one and slid under another, pulling myself with my forearms. janette passed through similarly. We got little keychains that pointed us to www.fujikyu.co.jp/shingen.htm with password tm46yw.

(( what a crock. That page doesn't exist. There's signage outside the game that says "now play online" or some shit like that, but [bang] 404 on that page. ))

At the top of victory hill when we successfully completed the game, we got some pics of me an' janette before Mt Fuji, and a video of me sliding down a railing on my butt.

- - - -

So, pretty much the lines were short today. Plenty short that I'm more likely to wanna come back in the freezing winter than in the summer. We probably rode more rides than Nami and I did.

I'm really thankful for janette waking up in the middle of the night to go.

PM

8:47pm JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

Now we're going to Sakuragicho to watch a movie.

mystic river

9:51pm JST Wednesday 28 January 2004

The movies were fucking PACKED with people in line. What the hell was up with that? Oh - they're buying tix for Lord of the Rings III. No we haven't seen it yet in Japan.

              LORD OF THE RINGS
          WORLDWIDE RELEASE DECEMBER
          
              (japan february)

1:17am JST Thursday 29 January 2004

We chose Mystic River for its convenience.

wow. what's up with Celeste being left all alone without a husband; a miserable wreck at the end of the movie?

And with Jimmy's wife like totally getting hot over her husband killing some cat, their friend no less??