Korea + Japan 04/17 – Hirakata Park

Day 8

Today was our last day in Japan and we were determined to end it on a high after yesterday’s nightmare. Things were off to a good start when a friendly lady came over to help us buy our train tickets and with them in hand we were in for a pleasant train ride to Hirakata Park.

Hirakata Park

With just a few hours left before we needed to the be at the airport we knew that as soon as we arrived we needed to hit the ground running. This was a massive shame in a way because Hirakata Park was a lovely little park and had a very simular feel to Greenland and Space World in that the staff were wonderful, it felt very “Japanese” and it was a rather pleasant place to just exist in. The perfect place to end our Japanese park list, just like Greenland had been the perfect place to start.

Crazy Mouse – Nothing special at all to this Reverchon spinning coaster, except the staff who were wonderful.

Elf – Adorable family sized Intamin woodie, nothing stand out but certainly a fun little coaster.

Fantastic Coaster Rowdy – I think they put more effort into the name than the coaster itself but I’m totally ok with that.

Peekaboo Town – The experience of a beautiful ride operator wedging my proportions into this tiny coaster is better than the ride could ever be.

Red Falcon – Maybe the best jet coaster yet. This time thinking to myself, “what an amazing trip I’ve had to Japan, also note to self, burn down Nagashima Spa Land”. The perfect coaster at the perfect park to finish up Japan.

We all left the park buzzing and with plenty of time spare to take it easy on route to the airport, then of course it went wrong.

As a group we completely ran out of Japanese currency between Hirakata Park and the hotel to collect luggage and due to reasons you couldn’t use credit cards on the Japanese subways. So we left the subway system to find a cash machine. First one didn’t take UK cards and the second one had a minimum spend of something laughable. After too much hassle we found one suitable and took out what we assumed was enough to get us to the airport.

After picking up our bags we ran to Osaka station where we learnt taxi drivers in the taxi rink don’t understand the word taxi and Osaka has 2 airports and we don’t know which one we need. We were already running majorly late now and couldn’t affford anymore confusion so we asked the information counter in the station which airport did we need and please sell us tickets for it.

The airport we needed was over an hour away and we didn’t have enough money to buy the tickets, so Heartline launched out of the station to look for another cash machine while I did some maths. At best we were going to arrive at the airport 45 minutes before the plane is due to take off, at worst and most likely we were going to miss our flight.

We managed to check into our flight after 30 minutes of bad signal on the subway but ultimately we all just assumed we were screwed. That was until after running through Osaka airport we got to the check in desk where they allowed us to check in our bags and made no fuss at all that we arrived so late. Then finally after an intense queue for security we got to our gate and collapsed in relief, we had made it.

Finally at peace, we landed in Korea at about 8pm and this time instead of taking the high speed train to Seoul station, then the subway to our new hotel, we opted to just board the subway at the airport and slum it the whole way which took forever. By the time we were all settled into the hotel it was midnight and we had to be up in 6 hours for Lotte World, I’d never complain but these trips really do test how dedicated you are for this game.

Thanks for reading, click here for our first day back in Korea, featuring Lotte World!