In my perpetual quest for fun on the weekend a few friends and I decided to go to summerland. Summerland is a huge indoor water—amusement—park just outside of Tokyo.1 A day ticket is 3500 Yen2 and this price not only includes entrance to the park, but also the fare for all the attractions in the attached amusement park, like ferries weel, merry go round, roller coaster and the free fall.
Upon entering it didn’t seem so crowded. After all I could see my feet when looking down — more than eight months in Tokyo have left traces and not only do I find my 15 square meter flat really roomy but I’m also used to elevators with more than the maximum allowed number of people in them.3
Well anyway turns out the real fun is in the water and not on the land. The swimming pool was filled to the brim with people and all kinds of plastic monsters. And when I say filled to the brim I don’t mean that it was hard to swim, no I’m talking about constant body contact while standing in the water filled to the brim. The plastic monsters where standing vertically out of the water, with the little kids and cute girls hanging desperately onto them, because there simply was no space in the water.
But the best part — the wave machine — was yet to come. At the end of every hour they start up a giant wave machine in the main pool. The people density gets even higher, reaches about 15 people in an elevator for 12 and then giant waves are unleashed on the solidly packed pool. I have no idea how the tall 1m65 japanese girls4 can survive a maximum wave height of clearly over 2m in a pool that packed, but apart from the occasionally stray rubber animal everyone seemed to be happy.
After the waves subside everyone leaves the pool, the body guards fish out the dead bodies and after 5 minutes in the dry the whole fun begins again.
Honestly I did it once and enjoyed the experience immensely for the strangeness factor, but considering that I don’t like to be kicked that much and sort of cling to my life, I guess I’ll refrain from going there again.
After the pool experience and one water-slide ride5 we went outside to the amusement park. By now it had started to rain, so apart from a group of japanese girls we had all the attractions for ourselves. Considering that the normal waiting time for one attraction is between thirty minutes and one hour I’ll take the rain over the waiting in the humid heat anytime.6
The best part about the whole park might have been my friend that came along with his girlfriend. While she wanted to ride all the wild attractions he was deathly scared of them. So let me finish this blog entry with a quote of him.
You come from a country of sadistic psychopaths! I rode that attraction once and when we were hanging head down he stopped the ride and asked if we wanted to have another go!7
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Maybe even inside, I can never tell where Tokyo ends and “the countryside” begins ↩
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a bit over 30 Euro ↩
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14 people plus bags in an elevator for 12 was my maximum up until now ↩
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short ones clock in way under 1m55 ↩
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30 minutes queue for 3 seconds ride ↩
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When I say humid heat I mean breathing liquid fire! On a “dry” day we have 60+% humidity in the lab with the airconditioning running on “dry” mode, but usually it rains once or twice per day, so it has a comfty 80-90% humidity with nice and summerly temperatures ↩
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Yes Superman in the Wiener Prater is not for everyone ↩
Aaaa, will auch in den Park!
Komme Anfang Sept, dh. wir können uns auf jeden Fall noch sehen, bevor wir fliegenden Wechsel machen
Also, wie ich den anfang des Zitats gelesen habe, dachte ich nicht, dass er den Mann im Prater meint… da gibts ja ne größere Auswahl an psychopatischen Sadisten.
@Sothany
Aber wir sollten eventuell nach 富士急ハイランド (Fuji-Q Highland) fahren. Dort gibt es angebliche viel coolere Achterbahnen, weil ehrlich so toll finde ich baden — eingequetscht wie Sardienen — auch nicht.
Im Prater gibt es sicher genug psychopatische Sadisten. Kann sein, dass manche schlimmer sind, aber er hat halt nur Superman ausprobiert (und dann geschworen nie wieder in Österreich so eine Achterbahn zu benutzen)
