I hooked up again with Ethan on Sunday 16th September to complete my big weekend of activities. This time it was Yomiuriland and getting from the train station to the amusement park was interesting in itself as we had to take a cable car which gave us a nice birds-eye view of the area.

We started off on the ‘Bandit’ which was a rusty coloured ride that lasted long by rollercoaster standards and whizzed around about half of the park but had a very disappointing drop at the start. After that we did a Formula Battle race where the guy asked if we had driver licenses which we said we did back home. Not sure why he asked really as there were kids going on these karts later on!

      

Next up was a standing rollercoaster with a loop which was ok but more interesting for novelty value than anything else. The white canyon followed which was great and a spaghetti-type wooden rollercoaster which really jolted us about inside of the car and had so many drops and close shaves.

Once I’d done a standard vertical drop ride I couldn’t resist the chance of doing another bungy jump to add to the three I did in New Zealand over five years ago. It was 900 yen (£4) and only 22m high with a big crash mat below which you could probably just jump on to and survive.

That didn’t stop me getting a little nervous though as it was windy at top and I was jumping rather than diving off which a lot of people may think is easier but I disagree. In fact I was probably more at ease diving off from 134 metres and six times the height of that at Yomiuriland! After the ‘3-2-1-bungy’ countdown I was jumping for joy for about a second of freefall before the bungy cord did its job and left me bouncing around for a bit. Overall it wasn’t a patch on the Kiwi ones but it was never really likely to be was it?!

  

We rounded off the afternoon in the swimming area which was pleasant but not so interesting though we did ride on a huge floating rapid water-ride and did a few lame jumps and dives off the diving board including the inevitable running bomb which entertained those who were watching.