On Sunday we boarded the train. We had to stand, as usual. Sunday is a busy travel day and Yokosuka is one of the busier stations. Grant held on to the hand bar. I hung on to Grant. The train played its little song and we were off.
We stopped in Kanazawa. A charming little city with a giant gorilla watching over everything from the rooftop of what appeared to be a Pachinko parlor. We crossed the street, looking for the Seaside line and finally found it, two stories above our heads. The entire train track was suspended on pillars above the ocean.
We were at the beginning of the line, which is always comforting because it means the only direction to go is the right direction. The wonderful thing about trains in Japan is they will take you anywhere. The bad thing is sometimes anywhere isn't where you meant to end up.
From the platform we could see a cable stayed bridge, like the one in Boston, and a glass pyramid, like the one at the Louvre only not transparent. I pointed it out to Grant. It was both beautiful with the sun glancing of the glass angles and architecturally surprising. People don't normally go around building pyramids out of glass.
A couple of train stops later I saw the coils of a roller coaster. "That's where we're going." I told Grant. "See the roller coaster."
We planned to spend the day at Sea Paradise, an aquarium and ocean themed park on a small island in the great, and I was beginning to think endless, city of Yokohama.
The train dropped us off at the footbridge that led to the entrance. The sun was warm enough to be almost hot. The ocean sparkled on either side of us. We held hands across the bridge. Our first sight upon entering the park was an old fashioned merry-go-round playing tinkly merry-go-round music.
I looked at the map the information booth girl had given us. The pyramid was labeled "Aqua Museum." There, about $90 bought us unlimited rides and access to all the aquarium shows and exhibits. Much cheaper than Sea World.
The aquarium had the usual assortment of fish, penguins and crabs. But it also had some unusual animals. Have you ever stood a foot from a fully grown male Walrus? You might think you understand how big these creatures are but trust me you don't. He was at least seven or eight feet long and as big around as four average size people. They also had my favorite underwater animal - sea horses. I got down on the floor like a little kid to peer into the low tank and watch them drift around. "See that pregnant one," I told Grant. "That's a boy sea horse." Sea horses are awesome.
After the aquarium we headed for the rides. Grant was really excited about one in particular called Blue Fall. It was a tall tower with four seats on each of its four sides. We watched as one set of seats was pulled to the top then dropped, stopped, and dropped again.
Grant and I got on, we pulled the seat harnesses down over our heads. The seats rose 107 meters in the air, that's a little over 351 feet or about 36 stories. A sound system played this ridiculous heart pounding music. We had a beautiful view of the bridge and the city. Then a Japanese man's voice counted in English 3-2-1-bye-bye. We dropped. We stopped my heart pounded. I knew it wasn't over. We dropped again. At the bottom I was staggering and laughing. So was Grant.
It took almost ten minutes for us to relax, long enough to walk across the park to the surf coaster, a roller coaster that actually looped out over the ocean. I figured this would be nothing after the Blue Fall. But my stomach still did that fluttery butterfly thing. It was fun.
Lunch and some shopping later Grant convinced me to go on the Blue Fall again. I didn't really want to. For some reason I was scared this time. But we had unlimited tickets and lines were almost non-existent, so I didn't have any good excuse not to.
We harnessed ourselves in. The seats climbed. We had a full view of the park. The voice counted 3-2-1-bye-bye. We dropped, but not in increments. They dropped us the entire 350 feet all at once. I screamed between clenched teeth. This time when we touched ground I was staggering, but not laughing.
We headed for the Viking - you know the ship that rocks you up into the air - which quickly put a smile back on my face. It's my all time favorite ride.
While we were waiting for it to start I heard a little Japanese girl behind me say. "Hello, how are you. This is my dog spot." I turned around and looked at her. She, her two friends, and I, all burst out laughing. They giggled through the entire ride.
We rode the drunken barrels - like the tea cups only the whole platform tilts. Grant spun us so hard I couldn't stop laughing while I begged him to slow us down.
Finally, we rode the merry-go-round.
We crossed the bridge. We got on the train. We went home.
It was a good day.
I leave you today with a quote from my all time favorite author Terry Pratchett in his book A Hat Full of Sky, "Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all. She could walk past tall trees without batting an eyelid ... What she was afraid of, although she hadn't realized it up until this point, was depths."
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