2 Week Tokyo/Osaka Trip Report (w/ Disney & Universal)

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but there are two staples of Japanese snacks that I’ve never grown a taste for: Red Bean and Matcha. As such I’ve never cared for Taiyaki. But Pocky liked it.
I agree with you on those red beans. I love most Japanese food far more than most American foods. But traditional red bean flavored desserts/snacks just don't cut it for me. I'm all for eating my veggies, but when I bite into something I'm expecting to be delectable and I end up tasting bean paste, ugh! :crazy2:
 
I agree with you on those red beans. I love most Japanese food far more than most American foods. But traditional red bean flavored desserts/snacks just don't cut it for me. I'm all for eating my veggies, but when I bite into something I'm expecting to be delectable and I end up tasting bean paste, ugh! :crazy2:
I don’t like the red bean desserts either. I always go into it thinking it’ll be sweet and it never is. The texture is weird to me too
 
I love adzuki bean dishes. I don't generally like desserts. (Too sweet) Maybe that is related? Because I perceive adzuki as sweet, and not like any other bean's flavor... Hmmm....
 
My wife loves the red bean desserts as well, and also finds them quite sweet. For me it's more of a texture thing. The flavor is just kind of meh, but the texture is grainy and unappealing.
 


Day 11 - Goodbye Shinjuku, Hello Osaka!

It was now time to depart my beloved Park Hyatt Tokyo. Staying here for 2 nights was a dream come true... but also kind of a tease! I doubt I'll ever get to stay here again, and now I know what I'll be missing.

Today we would be making our way to Tokyo Station to catch a shinkansen to Osaka. At this point we had lots of luggage. Between the two of us we had 2 large suitcases, 1 ridiculously large duffel bag (purchased at Don Quijote lol), a small suitcase, and a backpack. We didn't want to haul all of that onto the Shinkansen. So we packed enough for the 3 days we'd be in Osaka into the small suitcase and backpack, and were going to have the three large bags sent to our next hotel, the Hilton Tokyo Odaiba. The bags wouldn't arrive until the next day at the earliest, but that was plenty early for our arrival in three days time.

We had called Yamato Transport Co. ahead of our trip, and they said all we had to do was let the hotel know on the morning of our departure that we'd need bags delivered to another hotel. So when we were almost ready to check out, we called the concierge and told them we had three large bags we wanted to transfer to another hotel. Within minutes two ladies had come up to our room to take the bags downstairs. When we got downstairs, we just had to answer a couple of questions, provide the confirmation number for our next hotel, and agree to payment. I couldn't believe how cheap it was. To transfer three very large bags, it only cost $45.55! I was expecting it to cost that much per bag!

With the bags situated, we asked for a taxi. This was one of the rare occasions where the language barrier had an impact on our trip. We were planning on taking the taxi to Shinjuku Station, and then taking a train to Tokyo Station. We explained it a few different ways, and eventually I thought they understood. They asked which entrance, and I wasn't prepared for that (my mistake). I explained that we would be taking a train to Tokyo Station, and that I would look on Google Maps to try to find out which entrance. The cab driver nodded his head enthusiastically, and waived his hands indicating I didn't need to look it up, he knew where we were going.

Aaaaaand then he took us to Tokyo Station, lol. I figured it out pretty quickly by following along on Google Maps. I checked the estimate of what the fare would be to Tokyo Station, and it was something like $35, versus like $10 to get to Shinjuku Station. We decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and just enjoyed the ride to Tokyo Station. Had it been a $100 ride, I would have said something.

We got to Tokyo Station much earlier than we'd planned. We thought about walking around, but decided we'd make our way to our platform, as we really had no idea what we were doing. In retrospect, I wish we'd explored. We now know there is really no point arriving at your platform more than a few minutes early. And we were like 90 minutes early, lol.

Anyway, we picked up a couple of bento boxes and headed to the platform. Getting there early did have one benefit, though. There are hardly any seats, and we were able to snag some.

Finally, our train arrived.

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We boarded our assigned Green car.

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And we found our seats.

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When I booked our JR passes, I spent a lot of time deciding whether to get the Green pass or not. Ultimately, I erred on the side of caution, and went with the more expensive passes. Man, I'm so glad I did! These seats are bigger than the seats in the regular cars... and I just barely fit in these. I'm pretty sure I would not have fit in the regular seats. That would have been so awkward and embarrassing!

Not only were the seats a bit too small for me, but I didn't have enough legroom. I had plenty of knee room, but not nearly enough foot room. The footrests were totally in my way. So for the next two hours or whatever, I was squished on all sides. I guess I should be happy my head wasn't hitting the top of the car!

Eventually, we dug into our bentos. I had fried chicken cutlets.

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And Pocky had, well, a little bit of everything.

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We both made very poor choices. Mine was soooo dry and dense, and none of her items really tasted like anything.

A woman pushing a cart with snacks and drinks came by a few times during the trip. The first time she came by, I was about to tell her we didn't need anything. But down on the bottom of her cart, I saw something I couldn't believe. Mini bottles of my favorite whiskey in the world, Yamazaki 12! This whiskey is very, very difficult to find in the states these days. I had no idea they made mini bottles of it! And they weren't insanely expensive. $11 each, and that came with a bottle of sparkling water. So I bought 4! I took these pictures at home after we returned.

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These go nicely with my one remaining big bottle of the stuff.

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I thought about giving them as gifts, but who am I kidding? They're for me!!!

When we booked our shinkansen seats, we made sure to get them on the Mount Fuji side of the train. The view wasn't too bad, though there were some clouds in the way.

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Eventually, we got to Shin Osaka Station. For some reason, the time on the shinkansen went by much faster than a flight of similar length. The first thing we did after getting to the station was book our seats for the return trip in 3 days. Then, we went outside and got a taxi.

I booked 3 nights at the Hotel Keihan Universal Tower. It is right next to Universal Studios Japan. I love being able to walk from my hotel to the theme park. And it wasn't crazy expensive, either. We paid $160 a night. And when we first entered the hotel, we had very high hopes. It was quite beautiful inside.

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We went up one floor (via elevator) to the front desk, and checked into our room. I had heard that people in Osaka didn't speak nearly as much English as people in Tokyo, and that immediately proved to be true. While checking in, I tried to inquire about the possibility of shortening our stay to 2 nights. I think I didn't realize just how far out of the way this area is in relation to the rest of Osaka. On the train ride I did some research, and realized we would have quite a trek to get to Dotonbori and the like. So I wanted to see if we could get a hotel in the thick of things for our last night in Osaka.

This request proved to be a huge ordeal. It took like 6 people before we got one that spoke more than a handful of words of English. She had "English" listed on her name tag. After a few minutes of phrasing our request in every way imaginable, she finally understood what we were asking. She said that yes, we could leave a day early. I looked at Pocky with a bit of relief on my face, and then the hotel employee continued "but no refunds". So she was saying we were more than welcome to leave whenever we liked, as long as we paid for all 3 nights. I guess it was good to know they weren't going to trap us in the hotel for 3 days!

We headed to our room. Every room we stayed in so far had been wonderful, and we were hopeful that the streak would continue. Yeah, not so much.

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The room was old, tiny, and just felt dirty. I didn't take any other pictures, but the bathroom was very small and dingy as well. It did have one thing going for it, though. A pretty decent view. Universal was right outside our window!

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There was absolutely nowhere to set anything in the room. There was a tiny little round table, and that was about it. I've probably stayed in a thousand different hotel rooms, and this was probably in the bottom 3 of all of them. And I haven't gotten to the worst part.

We decided to relax for a bit before heading to Citywalk for dinner. My wife laid down on the bed, and immediately got up and told me I wasn't going to be happy. I have a hard time sleeping in good beds. It's almost impossible for me to sleep in a really bad bed. And this was by far, without a doubt, the worst bed I've ever had the misfortune of "sleeping" in. People often refer to overly firm mattresses as feeling like sleeping on wood. Well, as soon as I laid down, I could feel literal wood digging into my back. This was like no mattress I've ever heard of. There was no cushion whatsover. It was literally wood wrapped in cotton or whatever. Spoiler alert: I literally didn't sleep a wink that night.

We decided to put off dealing with the bed and started out towards Citywalk. Even though our hotel is next to Citywalk, we somehow couldn't find it. We walked around for a good 15 minutes before we finally found an elevator next to a parking lot that had a Citywalk button in it. It had started to lightly rain, so it wasn't the best time to get lost. But we eventually found it.

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We walked around for a bit, and found the entrance to the hotel I originally wanted to book. The Park Front hotel. The entrance to this hotel is literally just steps from the entrance to USJ. There are actually 2 different entrances connected to Universal and Citywalk. It looks quite nice from the outside. But then again, our hotel looked nice at first too! We didn't stay here because it was quite expensive. Almost double the price of our hotel, which is only slightly further away.

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We were starving, and couldn't decide what to do for dinner. We decided to get a snack to hold us over until we decided. Citywalk has an area called Takopa Takoyaki Park. It's basically a food court with nothing but Takoyaki places. We couldn't decide which one to go to, but finally found something to help us make our decision. Only one of them had this giant Tanuki in front of their shop.

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We got a combo that included two varieties of takoyaki. One traditional, and one with ponzu sauce. These were by far the worst takoyaki we had the whole trip.

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We finally settled on a Shabu Shabu restaurant called Shabu Sai. The display in the window that advertised all you can eat Wagyu sold me.

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We were seated and given an English menu. They had a few different options available. We went with the most expensive All You Can Eat option, which included their higher end meats like Japanese Black Wagyu, Kirishima Pork Shoulder Loin, Kirishima Pork Rib, and Japanese Beef.

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In addition to the meats, they had self serve vegetables, soft drinks, and waffles (???). For an added charge, they also had all you can drink self serve alcohol.

We were told that they start with a selection of a few different meats. After those, you can order whatever you like. There is a limit of 4 orders of each type of meat. I don't know if that was per person, or per table. After we ordered, we went to get our drinks. I was delighted to see they had melon soda, but it was a different brand and it wasn't as good. When we got back to the table, the English menu was gone and had been replaced with a Japanese menu. It ended up taking forever to get another English menu.

This place was really good. Like best theme park meal ever good. After the initial meats, we basically just ordered the 4 higher end options over and over. Pocky enjoyed dipping the beef in raw egg. I tried it, but didn't care for it much.

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I was absolutely stuffed when we left. I highly recommend Shabu Sai for any meat lovers visiting Universal. After eating, we walked the entirety of Citywalk, which includes 4 floors of shops and whatnot. Our last stop was the two story Universal Store.

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Pocky bought a Minions headband to wear to the park the next day. After that we set out to find our hotel. And then we had a major DUH moment. The hotel connects directly to Citywalk!!!

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The entrance is towards the back of the hotel, where you can't really see it from the front. I'm so glad we saw this, so we could use this to get to the park tomorrow!

We went back to our room and crashed. I should say that Pocky crashed. I was up all night because of the stupid bed.
 
Well, I know which hotel to never stay at if I go to Universal Japan!
The location was amazing, especially for the price. It made the Contemporary seem really far away from Magic Kingdom. But you couldn’t pay me to lay down in that bed ever again.
 


DH and I are all about a good night's sleep when traveling... so the beds comfort and quality is important... as well as making sure that the room itself is comfortable...

Sleeping on vacation is important... so that you can keep going, and not be a " Grumpy"...
 
Our reservation is at the Port Vita, so hopefully in June I'll return with glowing reviews of that one. It's not quite right outside the gates, but it looked pretty. And I already emailed them a question and they were quick to respond. (My reservation confirmation said 1 adult and a child, but it should have shown 2 "adults" per their policy, so I'd just wanted to make sure all was okay.)
 
DH and I are all about a good night's sleep when traveling... so the beds comfort and quality is important... as well as making sure that the room itself is comfortable...

Sleeping on vacation is important... so that you can keep going, and not be a " Grumpy"...

Yeah, literally sleeping 0 hours definitely impacted my energy levels at Universal. We spent a lot more time just sitting around than we did on any of our Disney days. Getting ready in the morning was difficult as well, as we were constantly in each others way.

Our reservation is at the Port Vita, so hopefully in June I'll return with glowing reviews of that one. It's not quite right outside the gates, but it looked pretty. And I already emailed them a question and they were quick to respond. (My reservation confirmation said 1 adult and a child, but it should have shown 2 "adults" per their policy, so I'd just wanted to make sure all was okay.)

Port Vita was one of the hotels we considered. It's still pretty much right there. And the rooms definitely look much less drab than those in the Keihan Tower. And the bed can't be any worse!
 
Day 12 - Universal Studios Japan (Part 1)

Thanks to the wonderful bed, I didn't sleep at all. I laid there for a couple of hours, and finally gave in to my sad fate and got up. My back was killing me, and there was no point subjecting myself to more pain if I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep. So I spent the rest of the night in the dark, editing photos and working on my trip reports! I was very happy when Pocky finally woke up and I could turn on a light. I'm so jealous of her, she can sleep in any situation.

Due to the very small room, getting ready was a major pain. We were constantly in each others way. At some point during the morning, I made a decision. I still had tons of IHG points, and there was a Holiday Inn smack dab in the middle of Dotonbori. So I booked a room there for the next two nights. It killed me paying hundreds of dollars for a room we weren't going to use. But at this point that was a sunk cost, and there was no point ruining a major part of our dream vacation when I could book a "free" room elsewhere.

So when we finished at Universal for the day, we would check out of our dreadful hotel, and head to Dotonbori. We both felt much better after making the new reservation.

Universal was opening at 9am. So we left our room at 8am to walk to the park. It was literally less than a minute walk until we saw this.

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We were about 15th in our line. Not too bad. They opened the gates a few minutes before 9.

I should mention one thing before getting into the meat of our Universal day. We knew going in that we weren't going to be riding many rides. Unfortunately, there are lots of rides at Universal that I don't really fit in. Unlike Disney, where I fit on most of the rides (Mine Train is the only major ride I don't fit on), I'd say I don't fit on about half of Universal's attractions. Pocky doesn't like riding by herself, and isn't a huge rides person anyway. So we really only planned on doing one attraction, and the rest of the day would just be walking around, soaking up the ambiance, people watching, and of course, eating! Hmm, I wonder why I don't fit on the rides lol!

I should mention here that, beginning today, I am going to try very hard to eat much healthier, exercise, and lose some of this weight! My goal is to fit on a Harry Potter attraction by the end of the year. Sadly, I'm a huge Potter nerd, have had a Universal Orlando annual pass for years, and have never ridden Forbidden Journey, Escape from Gringotts, or Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. I'm determined to rectify that by the end of the year!

Anyway, back to the report. The one attraction we planned on doing today was kind of the whole reason we were doing a Universal Day in Japan. One of my all-time favorite movies is Jaws, and I didn't start going to Universal until Jaws had closed there. I was so excited to finally be able to experience it. Luckily, only a handful of people rope dropped Jaws, so we were among the first to get in line. We did take a couple of pictures first.

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We had a very energetic skipper, and the ride was a lot of fun. I'm very sad we don't still have it in Orlando.

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After the ride, we strolled around Amity Village, and did some shopping.

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After walking around a bit, we noticed the line was still short, so we rode it again!

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After our second ride, we made our way towards Hogsmeade. I absolutely love how well themed the Harry Potter areas are in Orlando, and we wanted to see if Japan's version was any different. There were some mostly minor differences, but it was very similar. The first difference I noticed was that you pass through the Stone Circle to enter the area. This is briefly seen in a couple of the Harry Potter films, and was a nice deep cut to start the Potter portion of our day. Of course, I completely forgot to take any pictures. Just think Stonehenge and you've got the gist.

After the Stone Circle, there is a fairly long walk before you get to the Hogsmeade gate. Along the way you pass the Ford Anglia from Chamber of Secrets.

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Eventually, you reach the Hogsmeade Gate.

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And of course, tucked away just behind the gate is the beautiful Hogwarts Express.

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We had pressing business to tend to once we reached Hogsmeade. We had to acquire Butterbeer, and fast! Pocky was thrilled to see they had the hot version available, while I went with the old standby, regular cold Butterbeer.

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Next we tried our first USJ churro! I won't lie, it wasn't particularly great.

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What's that behind the churro? Oh right, Hogwarts Castle!

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One other awesome thing that Japan has that Orlando doesn't is the Black Lake.

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We did a walkthrough of the castle. It was hilarious hearing the portraits shout Japanese at each other. One odd thing about their Forbidden Journey is that much of their queue is outdoors in the greenhouse.

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I took a few pictures in the castle. Most turned out terribly because it was so dark. Here are the few that turned out okay.

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After the walkthrough we did some shopping in the Harry Potter giftshops. We bought lots of stuff. Pocky bought another headband... this one is by far the silliest one she has ever bought! She wore it to Mardi Gras at Universal Orlando this past weekend and got LOTS of remarks (and beads), lol!

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After we finished in Hogsmeade we decided to beat the crowds and grab an early lunch. We decided to head back to Amity Village to eat at Amity Landing restaurant.

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I forgot to make note of what we ordered. I think I had a shrimp cutlet sandwich, and Pocky had a chicken sandwich. And we shared a Cream Soda Swiss Roll. The dessert was okay, the rest was... not good Bob!

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After our disappointing lunch, we just strolled around a bit, taking pictures.

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Next we would be heading to Minion Park. But I'll save that for Part 2!
 
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Day 12 - Universal Studios Japan (Part 2)

We made our way to Minion Park. My wife loves Minions. I could take or leave them. But this area of the park is very cute. We didn't really do anything but walk around, take pictures, and try a couple of snacks. Our first snack was by far the best popcorn we had during our time in Japan. Disney has nothing on the Banana Caramel Popcorn we got in Minion Park

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This popcorn was amazing. Pocky originally wanted to get a popcorn bucket, but quickly changed her mind when she saw the price. Almost $35 for a King Bob popcorn bucket!?!?!?

The other snack we got here was a pork bun. It looked adorable, but didn't taste very good.

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Here are a few more pictures from the area.

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I do fit on Minion Mayhem. We just don't like this ride, lol. So we skipped it. When we finished walking around Minion Park, we continued on towards Spider-Man. This is one of my all-time favorite rides. It had just a 10 minute wait, so we jumped in line. It was pretty much the same ride, just in Japanese.

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We walked around the gift shops in this area, enjoying the theming.

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We made our way towards the Attack on Titan attraction. I doubted that I would fit on this ride, but I was going to attempt to ask an employee. Then we saw that the wait time was over 2 hours. So I took a picture of the awesome entrance, and we moved on.

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In this area, we saw a sign advertising a snack with a strange name. We didn't get one, but I had to take a picture, or else nobody would believe me that there was a snack called "Kid With a Death Wish".

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At this point I needed a break. We grabbed a bench on Hollywood Blvd. Lots of Sesame Street characters came out. I had to get a quick selfie with my childhood favorite, Cookie Monster.

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I returned to the bench to relax. After a few minutes, I noticed this strange little furry pink thing eyeing me.

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Apparently this thing is called "Moppy", and it's a character that is exclusive to USJ. Moppy couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall in costume. At first I thought it was cute. But then it decided to torment me. At first, it kept pointing at me, and then pointing at itself. Then it got closer and closer. At this point, it became apparent that it was pointing at my stomach, and then pointing at it's own stomach. Haha, I have a gut, haha. Then it came right up to me. And then... it started to jiggle my belly.

No freaking joke, it was jiggling my belly, and then jiggling it's own belly. Then it would gesture broadly, indicating it was amazing that we both had big bellies. It did this several times. It went on so long, that a large crowd of people gathered around and were laughing. I tried to be a good sport about it, but I won't lie. I was pretty humiliated. As if a big fat white guy didn't stand out enough already.

Eventually, it asked me to jiggle it's belly, and I continued to play along. My wife recorded most of this exchange with her phone, but I will not be sharing that video here, lol. She thought it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever seen. It was probably her favorite moment of the entire trip.

Eventually, Moppy moved around behind me and messed with me a bit more. Then it indicated that I should take a selfie. I obliged.

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^^^ That face is the stuff of nightmares for me now ^^^

Finally, it moved on. And the 100 or so people that had gathered to delight in my embarrassment dispersed.

I decided we should move on before any more Sesame Street characters set their sights on me. So we headed over to Wonderland to walk around.

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My wife loves Hello Kitty, so we had to get a snack at Hello Kitty's Corner Cafe.

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She went with the Hello Kitty Chocolate & Apple Custard Donuts. These were pretty good, especially the apple custard variety.

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We also got a chocolate almond churro (they call them churritos), though I don't remember exactly where.

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Our next snack was a winner. Once again, I don't remember exactly where we got this. I think it was near Amity Village. It was some kind of beef pie, and it was really good.

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Next we saw a sign for a Winter Special Pizza at Boardwalk Snacks. Pocky had to have it.

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I was surprised to find out that this was really good! So good, that somebody else wanted some.

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The bird and my wife had a staring contest.

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The bird won, so Pocky had to give it some of her pizza.

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We decided to call it a day. We did get one last snack on the way out. I was beat by this point, and remember almost nothing about this one. I think it may have been ribs of some kind?

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And with that, we departed USJ. I had to get a picture of the globe on the way out.

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We said our goodbyes to Citywalk...

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And went back to the hotel. We finished packing our stuff, and headed down to the front desk to check out. We got an employee that spoke pretty good English. We explained how unhappy we were, how ridiculously terrible the bed was, etc. We said we wouldn't spend another minute here, let alone two more nights. She clearly couldn't have cared less. She checked us out and we left and got a cab to Dotonbori.

I can't emphasize enough how much I hated this hotel. I will definitely be staying somewhere else when we return.

Universal Studios Japan, on the other hand, was awesome. Pocky isn't a big fan of Universal Orlando. She only goes there because I want to go. But she LOVED USJ. She said she actually enjoyed it more than Disney... and she loved Disney.

One thing that surprised me (it probably shouldn't have) was how awesome the USJ employees were. They were every bit as good as the cast members at Tokyo Disney. They all just seemed so happy. And happiness is contagious!

Other than the extreme exhaustion, and the "Moppy Incident", I loved it as well. The food wasn't great, but the ambiance certainly was.

I'll cover our first night in Dotonbori in part 3.

***EDITED TO ADD*** I forgot to mention, Pocky bought another silly (in the best way) headband. I don't have any pictures of her wearing it, but I found a picture on eBay. I love it so much! I can't decide if I like this or the Hedwig one more.

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I so love Minions...so I would have had to spring for the pop-corn buckets.. I would have had to have both... One for me and one for our grandson... Our grandson call them BaBa Min's...when he was little... so that's what we call them still... We had gotten a pop corn bucket from Star Wars land, I don't excatly what it is called... Batuu Droid MSE ... I think.. and he has decided that it's his and he put all in crayons in it... so it has a purpose, not just taking up space...

My brother in law works for Universal here in Orlando... so I am going to ask him if they have the pop corn buckets...

Great trip report... glad you move hotels to something more comfortable...
 
I so love Minions...so I would have had to spring for the pop-corn buckets.. I would have had to have both... One for me and one for our grandson... Our grandson call them BaBa Min's...when he was little... so that's what we call them still... We had gotten a pop corn bucket from Star Wars land, I don't excatly what it is called... Batuu Droid MSE ... I think.. and he has decided that it's his and he put all in crayons in it... so it has a purpose, not just taking up space...

My brother in law works for Universal here in Orlando... so I am going to ask him if they have the pop corn buckets...

Great trip report... glad you move hotels to something more comfortable...

Ah, you got the Mouse Droid popcorn bucket. I love that one! I almost bought one of those myself. I've never bought myself a popcorn bucket. I've only come close twice. That Mouse Droid, and the AT-AT. Now, if they ever come out with a cool Harry Potter or Captain America bucket, I don't think I'd be able to resist.
 
Ah, you got the Mouse Droid popcorn bucket. I love that one! I almost bought one of those myself. I've never bought myself a popcorn bucket. I've only come close twice. That Mouse Droid, and the AT-AT. Now, if they ever come out with a cool Harry Potter or Captain America bucket, I don't think I'd be able to resist.
The only popcorn I’ve bought that’s themed is the Oogie Boogie one. We have a normal popcorn bucket and we actually use that one more because the Oogie Boogie one is awkwardly shaped. We still take our normal one to the parks with us at wdw
 
The only popcorn I’ve bought that’s themed is the Oogie Boogie one. We have a normal popcorn bucket and we actually use that one more because the Oogie Boogie one is awkwardly shaped. We still take our normal one to the parks with us at wdw
That is one (of many) that my wife has bought. It is one of the better ones for sure!

My problem is that I have an obsessive personality when it comes to collecting things. If I even dip my toe into something that can be collected, I ultimately spend WAAAAAAY too much money collecting all available versions of that thing. So if I bought one popcorn bucket, I'd end up buying every single one they ever released. I'd end up on eBay buying every single popcorn bucket from years past. Then I'd move on to every one ever released at the foreign parks. And before you know it, I'd be building a shelter out of popcorn buckets because I spent the mortgage money buying them all.

It isn't pretty!
 
That is one (of many) that my wife has bought. It is one of the better ones for sure!

My problem is that I have an obsessive personality when it comes to collecting things. If I even dip my toe into something that can be collected, I ultimately spend WAAAAAAY too much money collecting all available versions of that thing. So if I bought one popcorn bucket, I'd end up buying every single one they ever released. I'd end up on eBay buying every single popcorn bucket from years past. Then I'd move on to every one ever released at the foreign parks. And before you know it, I'd be building a shelter out of popcorn buckets because I spent the mortgage money buying them all.

It isn't pretty!
Probably a good idea you don’t buy any then lol
 
Oh "Day 12 - Universal Studios Japan (Part 2)" had me laughing. So funny, even though I'm in serious danger of becoming a Moppy victim myself. I've never been to Universal Orlando. I went to Universal in LA as a teen, and I don't remember much of the park, except being confused because I think I truly was expecting more of a movie studio tour and not a theme park? That was pre-internet, so if the parents drove you and your siblings across the country and took you into a park without any warning, that could happen. These days I wouldn't have been so clueless. Anyhow, even then I was more of a Disney girl, so I wasn't impressed by much but I do remember the Jaws ride!
Your TR makes USJ look like a lot of fun though. What is it about USJ that Pocky likes more than the Orlando one? Cast members? Food? Rides? Crowds? Weather?
 
Your TR makes USJ look like a lot of fun though. What is it about USJ that Pocky likes more than the Orlando one? Cast members? Food? Rides? Crowds? Weather?

I would say cast members and weather were the biggest factors. Every single employee was amazing. They all seemed like they were having the time of their lives. And the temperature topped out at about 55⁰, which is perfect theme park weather for us. Also, surprisingly we had far fewer issues with rude guests at USJ than we did at Disney.

One other factor was probably the lack of agenda. At Tokyo Disney, and at our home parks, we are constantly on the move, always having a Fastpass or DAS or reservation, etc. At USJ we just strolled around without a care in the world.

I have never fully understood why Pocky hates Universal Orlando so much. Halloween Horror Nights is my favorite theme park thing ever, and Pocky absolutely loves horror movies, and yet she even hates HHN.

Maybe she'll like it more when I can ride all of the rides there.
 
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