Space World!

Space World

First of all, a link so it all makes sense to you. Space World is an amusement park with roller coasters and other rides and attractions. I went there years ago with Kanji and rode on the Titan and Venus. It has a space theme, so there are aliens, and a Nasa shop and a Star Wars shop with a life-size Jango Fett. I'm sure Peter would love it!

We met the Kodomo-Kai group at the station, and we all went there together, and got our tickets, but then inside, we separated and each person did their own thing. I was pleased about that, because with two small kids, we couldn't go on the roller coasters. Lena was just tall enough for some more exciting rides.

We started here at the Soft Egg bouncy thingy. The kids nearly wore themselves out here before we had even begun! Next we took a ride in the teacups, I ride I have coveted since childhood! It was major fun too! The best thing was that, unlike the big-kids rides, there was almost no waiting time at the kids' attractions! Next came the planes, trucks, carousel, and bus , the first ride that had a height check - Lena must be exacly 110cm at the moment, because she only just made it! Then we stopped briefly at the Space Jungle playground where the kids had a go at this vertical slide - you have to hold the bar at the top and go down with your hand above your head to stop you going down head-over-heels. If that sounds way too dangerous for the safety-paranoid Japanese, it was -they had playground assistants who climbed up with the kids and taught them how to do it properly!

We stopped for lunch, hot dog (I had a healthy salad pita bread roll, but coveted the hot dogs so much that I am going to cook them for dinner sometime!), and went to the Galaxy theater, which wasn't an iMax, and I had thought, but the kids have never been to the cinema before, so it was a big deal to them. It was a pretty cool short movie about a dinosaur world, visually stunning, but not the most impressive film I've seen. Then we went here , a maze and slides inside the volcano. They were tube slides, and very dark at first, so I had to go down first, braking on the way, with the kids behind me. They got some confidence after that and slid down happily over and over again.

We stopped after that for ice cream, then went to the Star Shaker, a virtual reality attraction with a movie screen and moving seats. And boy did they move! The movie was an Indiana-Jonesish adventure, basically with a lot of scenes of going down rushing rivers and waterfalls and once down the throat of a snake. That was the best fun so far, and Amy wanted to go round and get on again, but I vetoed it because my precious tum was getting a bit shaken up! Welcome to Space World junior!

Next we went into the Space Dome for the Mission to Mars, another VR attraction, where after a briefing, you walk down Star-Trek-like corridors to a space shuttle in front of HUGE screen, then go for a VR spaceship ride from Mars to Earth. Or vice versa, I wasn't really sure what was going on! It was fun though. Then a giant blow-up space-ship slide, which I got to go on because kids under 7 needed an adult to accompany them.

We had just enough time at the end to go to the 4D theater, which was dumb, pretty much a let-down for the last event of the day. The 3D part was fun - watching the kids reach out to try to touch the things that came out at them. But the 4D stuff consisted of a blast of air at our heads, getting whacked on the ankles with a little rubber strip coming out from the chair, and then at the very end, the chairs moving back a little.

We finished up in the shops, where I bought a space blanket, a dinosour egg (which has now hatched, the girls called her 'Puppy', made a cage for her, and fed her soggy cornflakes) a wooden dinosaur to construct (unfinished), and some astronaut freeze-dried food.