crystal's capers

one girl's international adventures

Thursday, August 24, 2006

How To See Japan In One Week: Part One

I'm skipping ahead to Day Two, because Day One was primarly spent in-transit and walking the narrow streets of Osaka's Lower East Side looking for our fleabag hotel. I will say that after an hour of stumbling over homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk of this tawdry neighbourhood, my mom and I, though not usually the picky sorts, decided that our "Business Hotel" was likely not worth getting molested in a dark alley for and instead opted for an ever-classy Love Hotel in a nicer part of town.

The next morning, with about seven hours sleep under our belts and the enthusiasm of six-year-olds, we found our way to Universal Studios Japan! What a riot! We discovered the best way to evade the lengthy line-ups is to opt for the Singles Line. Waiting time was between 5-10 minutes and in all but one occassion, we rode in the same car anyhow.




Our favourite ride, which we did twice back-to-back, was Spiderman; it fabulous interweaving of rollercoaster and 3D special effects. Even better, I thought, was the 40-minute long adaptation of the Broadway musical, Wicked. Having recently read and loved the book, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, I was gung-ho to see the musical, regardless of whether it was all in Japanese. Surprise of surprises, it wasn't. Actually, it was about half-and-half English/Japanese, with a synopsis and dual lyric guide in the brochure. I found it funny that a Japanese girl played Glinda and a caucasian played Elphaba; but both put on a fantastic performances. Elphaba's voice was enough to bring tears to my eyes - in a good way.

From Universal we went to the Umeda Sky Building in downtown Osaka. After riding the the-sky's-the-limit escalators and a glass elevator that ascends 35-stories we arrived at a circular concourse that connects two skyscrapers. I think we were well-planned to visit the Floating Garden, as it is called, at night; the scenes were gorgeous.

Great luck with a third love hotel, and we were off to dreamland and another adventure-packed day...

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