Tokyo - Fujikyu

A snow capped mountain glowers down on you as ash rises from a pit of flames and falls on you like snow. There’s a smell of burning meat in the air and your toes are frozen, your face is frozen, your hands are frozen as you shuffle along in the crowd. A booming sound of rushing wind rends the air above your head, there are scraping noises and clacking sounds all around you coming as loud and fast as machine guns, people are jostling each other and you can smell their fear as keenly as you can feel your own. Everyone is jittery with round, frightened eyes and as the next boom sails above you, the whole crowd reacts as one. Above all there are the screams; a constant burble of terror running under and over all of the other sights, smells and sounds that assail you on this dark and grey morning.

You are at Fujikyu Theme Park, standing in the shadow of Mount Fuji amongst four of the world’s most terrifying rollercoasters, and you are running on a mixture of pure adrenaline and soba noodles. 

Fujikyu (or Fuji-Q) is host to many rides and chief among them are the “Big Four Rollercoasters”. 

• Do-Dodonpa, the fastest accelerating rollercoaster in the world, from 0-180km/h in 1.56 seconds, and responsible for the loud booming/rushing/screaming sound that you hear every ten or so minutes
• Eejanaika, has the (equal) most inversions/rotations in the world, at fourteen
• Takabisha, the world’s steepest rollercoaster at 121 degrees
• and Fujiyama, which when built in 1996 was the world’s tallest, steepest AND fastest rollercoaster!

Each rollercoaster has its own theme song which makes the long queue - for us around half an hour each - a bit more fun as everyone joins in on the singing.

The theme park was high on the boys’ list but low on mine, but of course I didn’t want to miss out so I joined them on each of the four. We decided to start off nice and easy with the fast one because while fast, it’s also fairly straight with only one loop, and quite short. So we stood in line for 40 or so minutes and then when we popped out at the top we realised…we had made a wrong turn and were in fact about to jump on Takabisha, the world’s steepest rollercoaster. This was the one I had flatly refused to go on first and was not even sure I’d go on at all. But after 40 minutes in line I was too invested to back down so we held our breath and jumped on. And held our breath some more…and some more…first we were twisted and turned in pitch blackness before emerging into daylight and finding ourselves being pulled up and up and up and UP almost to the very clouds. It takes a lot of lung to scream as loud as I was intending to so by the time we finally reached the top of the 90 degree climb I was just about to burst. We were looking directly at the sky AND we were in the front of the carriage! At the top there is a pause, just long enough for the panic to really set in, and then the carriage rotates and drops, zooms, flies to the ground the twists, picks up and circles around and around. My stomach caught up with me somewhere around the third loop-the-loop and instead of screaming I was laughing, Travis and Sterling laughing beside me, and the people behind us screaming for all they were worth.

One down - three to go!

Do-Dodonpa was next. The sound as you stand beside the tracks and watch the people before you head into the tunnel and then burst into hyperdrive is incredibly loud. I had to make a tough choice; hold on for dear life or stick my fingers in my ears. I chose the latter and chose well - no need to hold on when the g-forces alone are enough to keep you pinned to your seat. We rode into the pitch dark of the tunnel (again) and then sat, fingers in ears, to the tune of the Japanese countdown from three to one. There was a burst of sound and a burst of light and we were shot like a bullet through the tunnel, along the track and into another tunnel of brightly coloured lights that flashed past like something out of Star Wars. Then a simple, single loop and back around to the end of the very quick, very short ride. Exhilarating!

Fujiyama was after that. At four minutes it’s quite a long ride and about halfway through I started to think “geez, this is a bit much”. There were a lot of warnings about high blood pressure, low blood pressure and old age and at that point in the ride, I could see why. My heart rate was certainly up! 

After that we took a break and had some lunch (brave or stupid to eat at this point?) and then I took a nice leisurely ride on the Ferris Wheel to catch some snaps of Mt Fuji while the boys went on to Eejanaika, the one with all the spins. This one I had firmly put on my “will not ride list” but when we met up the boys were so wide-eyed with laughter and excitement that they were keen to go on again, and they begged me to come with them. Oh well, I suppose if you’re going to die you might as well be with the people you love, right? So I joined them. 

At the end of the queue we were asked to take off our shoes - things can fly off this one so you ride barefoot. We were strapped into the chairs which were a little like plane seats with lots of seatbelts, lots of checking of the seat belts, and a big solid bar to hold on to like your life depends on it…because it does. Once strapped in to the seat with feet hanging in the air, we watched the floor fall away beneath us and the ride slowly began. On our way out we were cheered and clapped and waved to by the attendants, whose job is not only to see to the safety of the ride but also to add to the entertainment. They sent us off like warriors going to battle. The long incline at the start of the ride is slow, high, and backwards. There’s the customary pause for terror at the top and then the screams start as the ride twists, plummets and spins all at once. Facing up, facing down, facing sideways, thrown to one side as the ride pulls to the other, feet waving in the cold nothingness, Sterling’s screams and yells and laughter beside me. No time to feel sick or even afraid, while the ride is fairly long it’s so action packed that you have no idea whether you’re coming or going, up or down, and then you of course realise that the answer is “all of the above”.

After that one the day was wearing on and we were cold and exhausted. We wandered around, took some photos, posed in front of Mt Fuji, the boys did a couple of smaller rides and as the lights began to twinkle we made our way back through the park to the bus stop. It had been a very satisfying, very action packed day and honestly I loved every single minute of it!