Japan - Fuji-Q Highland

I when to the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park in Fujiyoshida Japan near the base of Mount Fuji with three Japanese friends, Ayako, Taka, and Kumiko. Taka and I took the bus from Shinjuku while Ayako and Kumiko meet us at Fuji-Q. Becasue the Shinjuku station is such a huge crazy maze of buildings and train platforms Taka and I couldn't find each other and ended up missing the bus we had planned to take. Fortunately there was another bus, but we had to wait an hour.

The Entrance to Fuji-Q.

Eejanaika is a super gnarly 4D roller-coaster similar to X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles except Eejanaika is higher and faster. What make it a 4D coaster is that the seats can roatate forward or backward 360 degrees independently of the track. The track makes three loops, but your seat flips many times. This makes it super disorientating, you're never sure which way you or the track is going.

Eejanaika Roller-Coster.

The first drop of Eejanaika, straight down!

Scary!

Fujiyama is more of a standard steel roller-coaster, but it's huge and fast. It's the world's eight tallest and fifth longest roller-coaster, and hits a speed of 80mph.

Huge first hill of Fujiyama

If you were feeling scared, you could always take the chicken way.

Riding Fujiyama with Ayako, Taka, and Kumiko.

Dodonpa is is a pretty simple roller-coaster, but that doesn't stop it from being a pretty wild ride. What makes it wild is that it's all about accelerating 'til blood comes out of your ears and going fast, Dodonpa goes from 0 to 107 mph (172 km/h) in less then 2 seconds. During take-off I thought my eyeballs were going to get squeezed out the back of my head. After the launch it goes down a long straight, around a huge banked turn then up a hill that goes straight up then down the hill going straight down and that's pretty much it.

Dodonpa in front of Mt. Fuji.

The hill of Dodnopa.

The park actually seemed pretty empty until you got in line for one of the roller-coasters. Each of the three main roller-coasters had a little over an hour wait.

Long Lines.

A little bit tamer part of the park.