Actually we just hopped on a train for about fifteen minutes and walked up to the front gates since it's located in the Higashi Yahata neighborhood of Kitakyushu, a handful of stops from Maia's place. I'm not sure how anybody can cruise by this place--and you must if you take the train from Kokura to Fukuoka and vice versa--and not be absolutely tantalized by the UFO-themed log ride, the roller coaster that wraps around a 1-to-1 scale model of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the "Space Eye" ferris wheel, the 17th tallest in the world. Being filled with such childish glee and lofty expectations we were a bit bemused when we got to the ticket machine and there was virtually nobody around. Mind you it is late-October, but it wasn't windy or cold that day. Heck, it got hot enough for the two of us to break a sweat and strip layers, yet nobody was around. Could the mighty and impressive Space World have already succumbed to the condition that doctors from the Hollywood Upstairs Medical College professionally refer to as East Asian Theme Park Degenerative Syndrome?
OMG, the future is here, today, with this astounding Space Bird House! What fantabulous dreams will tomorrow bring? Only time, and Space World, can tell us.
Mind you the park did open in 1990 and the rides are, well, getting on their age, but I would have thought Japan's renewed interest in The Final Frontier thanks to the success of their H-IIA rockets would have signaled a renaissance for the park. Whatever, the two of us were there on our continuing mission to seek out new kitsch and new ridiculousness--to boldly go and wallow waist-deep in the insanity of Japanese theme parks and extract a unique pleasure from it all that only our twisted minds can comprehend. And I guess to ride some roller coasters and stuff.
First stop was the Zaturn ride, a combination roller coaster/drop tower ride that was freaking awesome...if you could ever get off the ground. The thing is just a long track with a vertical u-shaped tower at the end that you are steam catapulted towards, launched up and twisted so as one's orientation is upright for the trip down. Like I said, awesome, but it takes about three minutes per launch, maybe a bit more since they don't allow anything--and I mean anything to be in one's pockets or on one's face. Glasses, hats, pocket change, etc. are all no-nos. By the end of the fifteen second ride Maia and I were blind and had fantastic hair. That was sarcasm there, did you catch that? Right, actually we looked like crap. There's also the pointless drama aspect of the ride that slows the process down, which is to say that before they find it in their infinite grace to launch everyone we had to do a yell or put our hands in the air or get pumped or something. Lame people, just lame. Push the button and put us on our way, there are others waiting in line.
Oh my, this race has my glands all aflutter!
That drama theme was continued at our next stop, the Venus GP coaster--before launch we had to fill an energy meter for no apparent reason. We did this coaster twice and both times didn't yell loud enough to fill the meter past 75%, so I guess we could have had 25% more speed and more fun if only we'd have put our hearts into it. Oh well, we have only ourselves to blame. This coaster is cool though because it has a wicked loop and wraps itself around the Space Shuttle mock-up.
"First they took me in their ship, then they probulated me, then they removed my neck, Agent Chartreuse. I count myself lucky though--Norman doesn't even have a head anymore and as for Craig and Hortenz back there, well, they've been turned into what look to be characters from early Russian cinema."
So by 2PM we'd hit the park's two main operational coasters, but there was a third one that looked, frankly, astonishing despite not being open. It's called the Titan V and it was a sort of cross between a steel coaster and an old wooden one in that it was made of metal, but relied only on drops and rises for exhilaration. I've always dug that kind of thing, I think because of my mother's insistence on riding the Big Dipper every time we headed to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and I felt cheated it was closed down. The track was incredibly long, running the length of one entire side of the park then taking a right turn onto another side, forming an overall L-shape. It was incredibly tall and had a superbly steep initial drop as well, the steepest and tallest in the world when it was built in the mid-90s according to sources. Apparently there were two incidents in the past ten years, however, and the ride was closed for examination. Nobody even died in those incidents it seems. Looking over the amount of injuries and deaths at Great America...well, let's just say that if that park ran on Japanese standards the place would have closed in the 80s.
Near Titan V was a sort of kiddy land play area thing that was pretty cut and dry and dull...except for the giant pair of silver space tits growing out of the Earth. You heard me--space tits. I guess it was a kind of moon walk thing, but they had two inflated mounds of silver fabric many meters wide popping up out of the ground with kids jumping all over them. The sight was disturbing and perfectly explains so many woes in Kitakyushu's youth.
And what trip to any theme park would be complete without the obligatory trip through the haunted house ride? Jesus H. Christ, do they really have these things at theme parks still? Well, it was a haunted spaceship to be perfectly accurate and dear lord did the line take forever to get through--about thirty minutes to get ten meters. The English section of the warning sign was quite amusing, ultimately ending in a threat of park expulsion if we broke any of the above rules. I don't think I've ever seen such strong language from a Japanese person, let alone a corporation. Kudos for growing a sack, even if it is expressed through crude English and situated on a well-intentioned, but lame attraction. Well, there was a cool false mirror thing where an actor wearing a skull mask and "scary" jumpsuit clutching chains did a little jig for us. That was pretty cool. Oh, and I got some interior decorating ideas from in there, though that doesn't fall under the "spine-tingling terror" category methinks.
Well, I think I got my system flushed of any theme park hijinks for a good long time, though the desire to feel the cuteness power (or perhaps misery) of Harmonyland in Hiji, Oita has been simmering for some time. I mean, who doesn't want to spend an expensive day in the presence of walking, talking, giant-headed animal-themed characters that started out as stationary mascots? Who I ask you, WHO?!
--Matt, Romantic Yet Powerful
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