11/9 - USJ Shows and Parades

We got off Hollywood Dream, The Ride and realized we had hit all the major ride attractions in the park, with the exception of Spider Man.  Wow.  I don't think I've ever gone through an amusement park so quickly.

N has a thing for parades at theme parks.  The afternoon parade was supposed to pass by soon (soon as is in 30 minutes soon), so we found a spot along the curb side in front of the "Beverly Hills" shop.  Pretty soon, you could hear the music of the parade making its way to our location.  One by one, the floats passed by us with all the trademark characters at this park.  Snoopy was one of the first.  There was Woody Woodpecker.  Hello Kitty??  How did USJ steal her from Sanrio?  Hm...Pink Panther.  Elmo of Sesame Street and "tickle me" fame.  I guess when you're in Japan, you are in a totally different realm of copyright. Peanuts, Sesame Street, and Hello Kitty.  How does that all work together?

Once the parade was done, we went for a second loop around the park.  This time we went into to see the show attractions.  The first one along the way was Shrek 4-D.  Hmm.. 4-D.  So vibrating chairs, right?  Well not just that.  When you get to a scene with Donkey sneezing, he literally sneezes on you as water is sprayed onto your face.  That creates a lot of "ughs" in the audience.  Ugh must be a universal sound of disgust.  Also when a the wind is blowing, you feel the wind blowing.  And when spiders or rats run past your legs, you feel them run past your legs.  Now I just need a universal translator to figure out what Shrek just said to Donkey.

Just down the road from Shrek 4-D was Terminator 2 3-D.  Admittedly, after the 4-D experience, 3-D is not as cool, but we were treated to live actors running on stage pretending to be a young John Connor escaping all the machines.

Because we were doing a second loop of the park, we had to pass by the Spider Man ride again.  This time, though, we saw that people were lining up for the ride.  We were in luck, the ride was open again.  So obviously got in line.  In this ride, you sit in a car that moves from room to room and is similar to Indiana Jones in a way, but you also get the 3D aspect where Spidey sometimes lands on your car to protect you from all his unfriendly Spidey villains.  I'd definitely ride it again if I went to Universal Studios stateside.

Okay, now we had truly exhausted all the ride attractions that we wanted to ride.  We continued on our loop around the park and started snacking.  I found a place with this neat little waffle treats.  I felt a little peckish, so it was all good timing.

When we passed Jurassic Park, we noticed a few people having "Jurassic Legs" in and around the area.  Basically Jurassic Legs are giant turkey legs that you're supposed to eat like a neanderthal.  N couldn't resist and wanted one.  I had one too.  Look at the size of that thing!

With the night beginning to fall, that meant one more big show in the park and the Magical Starlight Parade. The show was a romantic Christmas stage show.  In Japan, Christmas is not so much of a family event as it is a romantic event.  It's almost on par with Valentine's Day for it's romantic value in Japan.  So the whole story of the show centred and two star-crossed lovers who fall in love, but are sometimes separated by circumstances.  But low and behold on Christmas Day, they find love with the help of Christmas angels.  It ain't no Nativity story, I tell you.

The show ended with the lighting of the giant Christmas tree overlooking the plaza and stage.  Plenty of photo-ops for star-crossed lovers here.  Man, that's a gigantic tree.  Nowhere in Vancouver have I ever seen such a huge Christmas tree.  I guess we too poor in Vancity.  We're busy paying our mortgages :P

We then made our way over to the "Main Street USA" section to grab a seat for the night's magical light parade.  Again, we arrived about half an hour or so before the show.  We tried to entertain our selves by watching people scream nearby on the Hollywood Dream ride.  Finally, the show was making its way to our section.  The parade kicked off with a giant Elmo in the lead.  Snoopy and Hello Kitty were in direct tow right behind Elmo.  Elmo's so big he covers up Snoopy in the photo.

After the initial trademark characters floated on by, different floats based on different stories came by.  First there were a whole set of Alice in Wonderland floats.  Then there were the Aladdin and Arabian Nights themed floats.  Lastly, there were the Cinderella floats.

All right, we were, at least I was, pretty "floated" out by this point.  It was time for one more ride on the Hollywood Dream.  We raced into the queue for the ride right after the parade passed us by.  This time I figured out how to choose my Beatles song.  "Get back!  Get back to where you once belonged!"