Shizuoka and the Giant Gundam
I woke up suprisingly early today, 6.30am. I was confused to be waking up in a setting I can’t remember sleeping and next to people I forgot I was with, that sounds really bad.. but thankfully it was my friends, Cas and Lee. They were fast asleep but I was feeling refreshed and awake, slight hangover but that’s to be expected after a BBQ night.
I decided to go for a little walk around the area. It was actually quite cold outside and raining slightly, makes a huge difference to the blistering heat of Tokyo. I’m going to assume it’s cold and rainy because we’re surrounded by mountains and lakes. I only took a short walk before going back to the cottage and waiting for the others to wake up.
Genta was the first to wake up, he rose like a zombie from his sleeping mat and soon spung to life. Cas was second to wake and after walking around in a zombie like state for a bit, he quickly woke up and began constructing an Uno tower of cards. He’s damn good at building these, sadly, Genta had the window open and the unexpected wing blew Cas’ final attempt at a giant tower down.
It wasn’t long before the rest of us were awake. We had to be out by 10am and only had one bathroom but we had no trouble all getting ready in time. When we left it was raining quite a bit, so a mad dash into the car and off on our way to our first destination, Shizuoka.
I’ll admit, I don’t know anything about Shizuoka apart from the fact that the giant Gundam statue has recently been moved here, we were planning to go see that. The car journey was about an hour and a half, it went quite quickly and to a play list Cas created on my iPod. It was a good play list, it had the Polysics cover of My Sharona.
The drive around Kawaguchigo was really nice, it was a sleepy mountain town and reminded me so much of the setting for the first Rambo movie. We drove around a large lake and up quite high, the sky off the side of the moutain we were driving was white, no sky to be seen.
While driving around I fell asleep on the way to Shizuoka, it took a lot longer than we assumed. When I woke up it was raining still. We drove around looking for the parking lot near the Gundam Statue, we could see it in the distance and eventually found a place to park up, outside two big shops.
When me and Penny left the store it was raining quite hard, we joined up with the others (who thankfully brought umbrellas) and then it was a short walk around the corner to the Gundam Statue.
The statue was originally in Odaiba but moved to Shizuoka. They made a wise choice not putting this in an area surrounded by grass like in Odaiba as the grass was completly destroyed by the huge crowds that came to see the Gundam. The Gundam is now in a sort of make shift mini festival area, it’s the Hobby Fair.
There are lots of snack stands here and the Hobby Museum which we didn’t check out. We walked around the path getting photos of the Gundam on the way, we eventually made our way to a photo point, you go up some stairs and a photographer takes your picture. I decided to get the picture, i’ve mentioned my dislike for digital photos before and this was a nice one so I decided to get it despite costing £7, memories attached are worth more than that.
We then went to queue up to stand under the statue to see it in close detail. Because of the rain, there was hardly anyone here but I imagine this place could get very crowded in nicer weather. We didn’t have to wait long at all before we were up close with the Gundam, the detail on this thing is incredible.
You only get a few minutes here but that’s all you really need. We continued around the path towards the exit.
Back in the car and out of the rain we went to go some lunch. We eneded up in a place which looked like a Jungle / Shack themed TGI Fridays. There was 60’s music playing to give it a bit of a hippy vibe.
One thing that really impressed me about this place aside from the interesting decor was the waiting system. Rather than standing around waiting for someone to come seat you or tell you there are no tables, there is a machine to cut out that person. It shows you how long the wait is and you press the button for your party (guests, smoking preference) and a ticket is printed, the staff then know and you’re in the queue. It’s really efficent.
Our table had a massive menu waiting on it, another good idea, a giant menu for everyone to see rather than pass around something smaller. The place sold hamburg and rice, curry and a few other things, it was a mix of Western fried foods and Japanese.
I decided to get the Japanese Curry Hamburg with Rice, the others all got something similar, take a took for yourself, there’s 8 of us and I forgot the names of everything to list or bore you with.
The food was alright, the portions were quite small but it wasn’t too expensive. We decided to skip desert and head back to the cars to head back to Shinagawa, Tokyo. A quick passenger swap (Hiroe left our car to go with the other girls) and Lee joined us in the party mobile. Me and Cas created an awesome playlist and we set off on our 3 hour journey.
Randomly, Genta had loads of chewing gum in his car, including Hawaian Blue flavour (Kakikori Blue Juice)
The drive was mostly on a standard motorway after leaving the city. We pulled up at a service station midway to catch up with the others.
This service station had a lane of food stalls, a food court and a large food shop selling regional snacks and sweets. I really like the service stations here, they’re full of interesting things and lots of food.
The snack is called Brave Chicken, it’s a long chicken nugget but tastes like the old Burger King Chicken Strips, these are SO good!
Walking around, still hungry, I came across a Baskin Robins, nice to see one of these so far out in a service station.
I decided to try the Mango and Banana Flavour with the Popping one again, it was a great mix. The Mango and Banana flavour was lovely.
Randomly, Penny went off for a wander and came back with some mini game gashapons. There was a bowling one and a sort of robot fighting one, interesting for a few minutes.
Randomly, I noticed a funny sign, it read, “Because it is easy to glide at the time of rainy weather, please be careful”, Ok, not as amusing second time around.
An hour or so later, we arrived back in Shinagawa. It was a long car ride back but most of it was spent sleeping or playing DS. Big thanks to Genta for the ride.
We waited for the others to catch up and then had a bit of a chat and a goodbye, as it would be the last time to see ‘The Others’, Genta, Takako, Lee and Mayu. It was really nice meeting them, a very fun and friendly bunch.
Back to the station and we parted with Hiroe, making our way back to Ningyocho and then a slow and sluggish walk back to our hotel.
The trip was amazing, from start to finish it was a lot of fun, I can’t even properly describe how much of a great time I had, it was legend… wait for it… dary!
It was all possible thanks to one person, Hiroe. She planned the whole thing and organised everything for us, it was stress free and fun filled the whole time.
The company on the trip was great, it was a really cool group, everyone was friendly and fun to be around. So Genta, Takako, Mayu and Lee, it was great meeting you and I hope we’ll meet again soon.
Another big thanks goes out to Hiroe, thank you so much for organising this trip, it’s pretty much all down to you. Also another thanks to Genta for driving us there and back, it was a long ride and we’re all very greatful.
Thanks Hiroe, you’re awesome.
