We had a late start, but never expected the crowd to be this many today. From the moment we stepped off the train, throngs of people were walking up the stairs headed towards USJ (Universal Studios Japan). I only found out what USJ meant yesterday after pondering on it for awhile. Blur me.
All ride queues had long wait times averaging 1 hour 30 mins; even to enter Harry Potter world. But in Japan they’ve got an excellent system for us to enter the Harry Potter attraction.
What you do is take your tickets to be scanned and they’ll issue you another ticket with an estimated time to enter. Ours said 12.30PM, however, we were able to enter 15 minutes earlier. When we did, the crowd was nuts.
At the sweets shop, there was a queue. At the restaurant, there was a queue. At the ButterBeer kiosk, there was a queue. At the Hogwarts castle tour, there was a longer queue. And although the merchandise store which sold the capes for around MYR 400+ didn’t have a queue, it was filled very tightly with bodies coming in and out. This was the same even at the wands shop.
Then you know what I noticed, we could actually have bought some of the Harry Potter merchandise from the store nearer to the USJ entrance. #facepalm
It was quite unfortunate due to the crowd, we only managed to go on Harry Potter’s Hogwarts tour and a Terminator show. But it was really fascinating to see many Japanese cosplaying because it was the Halloween month. I was too shy to ask for a photo, otherwise I’d have some for you here. T_T
After our USJ trip, we detoured somewhere then headed to Nipponbashi wanting to walk around Kotobukiya. However, we ended a little lost around what’s known as Den Den Town and couldn’t find the store we wanted.
We ended up in 2 other major stores (I think) called; Joshin, and Jungle Entertainment. While on the hunt for the Nendoroid Hakase, I realized prices for Nendoroid in Joshin was higher than the normal place I get my stuff online. In the end, I ended only buying a chibi Gundam at Joshin because prices were lower here than Malaysia.
Over at Jungle I managed to find Hakase, however, it was going to cost me almost 2-3 times what a normal nendoroid would cost. I couldn’t bring myself to buy it in the end. Not until I pay a visit to Kotobukiya or stores in Akihabra and see if they’ve got it there.
Nonetheless, I’m still rather happy with my purchases for today.
Got some magic wands and a chibi Gundam. The rest of the other figures belong to my bro-in-law.
As for Hakase, i will continue hunting you down!
P.S.: Almost forgot about my old friend. It so happened she was in Osaka with her bf as well, so we decided to meet up because last we did, it was like 10 years ago. ( O.O ) What were the odds. Thank you Japan!
