Fuji me??? FUJI Q!

A mere weeks after one unfortunate woman in Osaka got her head severed as a result of a malfunctioning roller coaster, Manami and I decided it would be a kick ass idea to go to Fuji Q Highland, a theme park just minutes from the ever-glorious Mount Fuji. And it was good. This day, no one died. At least not at the theme park.

I'll start off by saying I rode what was probably the coolest roller coaster I've ever been on. It's called "Ee Ja Nai Ka," which I guess you can translate to "It's okay, isn't it?" or some people think more along the lines of "Ain't It Great?" Well whatever, either way this ride was nuts. The seats you sit in flip 360 degrees forward and backwards. So, for example, on the very first drop (which is almost completely straight down) you're at the top of the summit facing the sky, then you start going down the drop, your seat flips and you're staring straight down at the ground. Then take these same mechanics and imagine cork screws and loop-de-loops. It's pretty insane, intense, and I won't lie, it left me feeling dizzy. But it still kicked ass.

Marvel at the beast-


The glorious Mount Fuji-San-


Lunch at Japanese amusement parks? Either ramen or indian food. Manami stole my nan!


In Japan, you get a raincoat before going on water rides. Doesn't really make sense to me, because isn't the point of these rides to get wet? Well, whatever.


And of course, you can't visit a theme park without taking these kind of pictures. Here we established a pattern:
Manami being cute-


Ryan being gay-


Manami being cute-


Ryan being gay-


There were also other roller coasters like Dodonpa, which begins by propelling you at like 172 km/hour. Can anyone do the math into miles? Either way it's fast. Then there was Fujiyama, which I think until a couple years ago held the record for highest drop and fastest roller coaster.

We were walking around with a little extra time when some guy approached Manami and asked if she knew how to cook. We knew what that meant, because there was a little booth set up for shooting a TV show where a girl cooks and the people she's with taste the food and comment. After much convincing, Manami took the challenge and made some food that if I describe here, probably wont make sense. But it was black seaweed, konnyaku, and carrots....see? told you it wouldn't make sense. Then they asked me what I thought, I said it was okay. Cuz it was only okay :-P ...There's a chance we will be on TV in Japan, which would kick ass. Afterwards, I went to the bathroom and apparently some guy came up to Manami and said "you were just cooking right? you're boyfriend is soooo cool." I guess he's right, though.

Manami doing her best for the cameras-


Good times at FujiQ Highland, but to be honest, DisneySea was more fun. Got a couple more theme parks in Japan I want to visit.

Sunday, Manami, my buddy Dave, his girlfriend Maki, and I decided to have a picnic in Yono park, which is near my house. It was a good time, we had a ton of food, including sandwiches, karage (fried chicken, J style), sushi handrolls, a melon that wasn't ripe enough yet, and shoe cream (which is what the japanese call cream puffs). Sweet picnic food, and plenty, plenty of ants. After we ate, we played some Uno, threw a football, and then saw some high school kids having a water balloon fight. They let Dave and I join, and the wetness began. It was fun, man. I forgot how fun water balloon fights were, and it gave Manami and I an idea to arrange a big water balloon fight with our friends at Yoyogi Koen. We'll see if it happens. It's in the planning stages, so be excited for that one, blog friends. Picture time!





I've talked about how people love their dogs in Japan, right? Here's a couple feeding their dog water from what looks like a baby bottle-



Home for a month in 45 days. Cheers to that.

Ryan being gay-