Korea + Japan 04/17 – Hirakata Park

There were a couple of different types of ticket machine in Osaka. One type were friendly and were easy to use. The other type didn’t like us so much. The train station we used today only had the unfriendly ones, so there was much confusion. After a short battle with one, a wonderful passer-by noticed us and came to help us out. She gave us a detailed explanation on how to earn the trust of these machines and successfully got us some train tickets to Hirakata.

Oh look, another ferris wheel.

Day 8 – Hirakata Park

Having needed to fit in a special mission in the morning, time was not on our side for this park.
With the flight back to Korea being later that afternoon, everything was done at an amusingly fast pace.

The first stop was #1 Fantastic Coaster Rowdy. It did inspire some rowdiness, due to a comedic sense of urgency and needing to take several shopping bags on board with us. It’s a small coaster with not much going on.

#2 Red Falcon restored the good name of jet coasters with some great views and one particularly amusing and jarring transition in the tracking.

This spinning coaster doesn’t spin. Different experience I guess.

#4 Peekaboo Town was almost as fantastic as Rowdy and 10 times smaller again. Amazing staff was a running theme in this park.

Saved the supposed best for last with this little Intamin woodie. It was a bit underwhelming really, some harmless fun at best.

Still had time for a go on the Dark Ride shooter, Return of the Garg. Was quite impressed with the ride system and unusual scenery, but unfortunately none of us got a high enough score to win a prize as advertised.
This may have replaced another dark ride that was here, we never found the one on that was our to-do list.

After successfully dodging a park mascot, we headed back out to the train station. A particularly troublesome but entertaining sequence of events followed, involving:
– Running out of cash for the trains (creds at all costs, too many toll roads)
– Not being able to take out cash anywhere
– The hotel staff giving us great advice on how to get to the airport when collecting our luggage, only to then discover it was the wrong airport
– Taxi drivers not understanding the word taxi
– Arriving at the right airport 45 minutes before our flight was due to leave and it not being an issue in any way

A hectic but fun final day in Japan. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Day 9