Day 56: Universal Studies Japan

My day started off much earlier than I expected. At 5:30 I was woken up by the fire alarm, probably one of the most terrifying ways to be woken up. Even thinking about waking up to it right now makes me feel a little panicked. I had absolutely no idea what to do and I was on the top floor. I threw on a hoodie and grabbed my passport and phone before I ran as fast as I could down the stairs to the first floor. There were several people gathered on the main floor with the host, but they didn't seem to be doing much. I put on my shoes and sat on the bench freaking out about what could happen. I left all my money in my room but there was no way I was running back up to grab it now. Would my parents have to book me a flight home? I wasn't ready to go back to Canada yet! Was I going to be stuck in Japan with no money? Was I going to lose all my stuff? I was freaking out so much! I think one of the guys was asking the landlord what the problem was and then translating to his friend. I was able to overhear that someone had stupidly been smoking in the elevator and set off the fire alarm. At this point I was like are you freaking kidding me... I'm glad I'm not losing my stuff but I was woken up at 5 am by someone who decided it would be smart to smoke in an enclosed space in a no smoking building. The first thing that came out of my mouth was "wait, so the building isn't going to burn down?". The guy was nice enough to confirm that there wasn't actually a fire and everyone slowly started to head back to their rooms. The top floor where I was staying was still a little smokey when I got there though so I was a little freaked out about going to bed and being burned alive, even after the front desk had said there was no fire. I phoned my dad and so I could freak out to both my dad and brother but there wasn't much else that I could do. I eventually fell back asleep.

My alarm woke me up at 9 am but I decided there was no way I was getting up this early after the adventures at 5 am so I turned my alarm off and slept another hour.

When I woke up again I grabbed a steamed bun with red bean paste and hopped on a train to Universal Studios! I had originally planned on not going to Universal because I had already been to the one in Florida, but just thinking about being able to see Hogwarts and drink butter beer again changed my mind. I booked my ticket a couple nights before today through a site called Trazy. This site has been awesome! I have used it to book all my SIM cards, my ticket for Everland, and my concert tickets. They give discounts to foreigners so I have been able to purchase all of these things for a lower price.

Universal was amazing!

The first thing I did when I went in was walk to Hogwarts and the second I heard the music I was flooded with happy feelings and memories. I went on both rides and, even though they were the same as the ones in Florida, they were still awesome. I also bought warm butter beer and it was just as good as I remembered.

For lunch I stopped by a Jaws themed restaurant and had fried chicken and fries.

Then I went to the Jurassic Park ride. The wait was long but I got to go in the singles line so it was a little bit shorter than the regular one. I don't remember there being a ride like this in Florida but maybe we just didn't go on it. The roller coaster was probably one of the best I have ever been on. It went upside down so many times and did tons of crazy spins!

After Jurassic Park I bought some popcorn and went to the Minion-themed area.

I had seen so many tourists dressed up in Minion costumes around the park and it seemed to be one of the main attractions. This area was really well decorated and had a ton of different games that people could play. I tried the 3D roller coaster but it wasn't particularly amazing, especially right after the Jurassic Park one.

When I left the minion area I saw a huge crowd of people sitting on the ground near a stage, probably waiting for a performance.

I went on a few more rides and wandered around the park but eventually ended up back at Hogwarts.

There was a fancy light show for Christmas and I thought it could be pretty. I bought some dried mangoes and walked to the castle to watch the show. It was so cool! The way that they made the lights on the castle was amazing. They would move around with the music and it looked incredibly magical. I think I got a 5 second clip of it because I spent the majority of the performance totally entranced by the lights.

I was super tired after the show and it was dark out so I hopped on the train back home. It was really fun to go to the park and I am glad I did it but I think it would have been much better if I could share it with someone.

I didn't feel like finding a place for dinner so I grabbed some cheap ramen on the way home. I set up the kettle in my room to boil water for it and then the power suddenly went out. I had a moment of panic where I was like omygosh someone is trying to kill me... this is how I die. Then I realized I had blown a fuse and I just sat on my bed thinking about how unlucky I seemed to be today. I contacted the host for the hostel but she lives somewhere else and takes quite awhile to reply.

I went downstairs to the second floor where there is a small kitchen to try and make my ramen again. They have two fancy kettles there that I had no idea how to use so I spent the next 10 minutes watching Japanese kettle tutorial videos. I still managed to screw it up and I had to dump out the first batch of water because I didn't wait long enough for it to boil. Half an hour later I finally had hot water in my cup of noodles.

Another guy came downstairs after I had finally figured the kettle out and he seemed confused with it to so I helped him boil water for coffee. Then I went back upstairs to eat in my pitch black room. I used my laptop as light for awhile until that died and then I tried to use the flashlight on one of my phones. I had seen a fuse box outside my room and asked the host if I could flick the switch for my room. She wasn't replying for hours so I called my dad and asked him a bunch of questions before trying the switch. Nothing happened. I tried again and still nothing.

As I am standing in the hall with my room in complete darkness my dad jokingly goes "is there someone sleeping in your bed, I think I see feet?". Not a nice thing to say when I am stuck in the dark haha. After that I made sure not to stand with my back to my bedroom door just in case there was someone hiding in my room. I never got the power fixed so I went to bed with no way to charge my phone or laptop for tomorrow.

So today started off crappy and ended crappy, but at least the middle part was fun!

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

P.S. Another interesting thing about Japan... many of the toilets here have a button you can press that will play some kind of white noise music in the stall.

(November 20, 2018)