CAREFUL ADVENTURES OF A TIMID FAMILY! 4.

In which we find Hogwarts, Minions Mayhem and I get very anxious trying to get back to our house!

None of us wanted to go to universal studios on Thursday. We were all exhausted and really, really, didn’t want to get up early; much preferring the idea of a long, long, lie beyond the start of the morning. However, we had bought the tickets and we had promised the children this treat so off we were going to go.

Wendy had searched out how to get there when we were still in Scotland but in light of the ongoing effects of the high ceiling trauma had now reconsidered. The route we would need to take would take us places where even hand holding as a gravity anchor wouldn’t work.

We decided on the extravagance of an Uber and at the appointed time were standing outside the apartment waiting for it, looking all around us to see where it was; me telling Wendy to stay in range of our wi-fi so it could find us, as she and the children could only use the house Wi-fi. Periodically she would wander off in search of it and I would grumble that she would have disappeared from the uber man’s signal.

Just as we were beginning to worry; the uber rolled down the road to stop besides us.

He asked if he could take the high road to Universal studios; not knowing anything about such things we agreed. It turned out there were fast roads above ground level that cars could take. As we drove off, the taxi man, who had more English than anyone we had met so far, nattered to us, and when we couldn’t understand would speak into his phone which would translate his message into English writing. He was a lovely person; engaging, warm and funny. He got both James and Louie laughing which was extraordinary, as James rarely even replies to strangers when they try to speak to him.

At the studios the uber man gave us his card and said to What’s app him thirty minutes before we wanted to leave when he would come and get us. We were very relieved indeed as that sounded just perfect.

I am not designed for places like this. I would like to blame my upbringing or culture or something but think it is just plain old prejudice that I had better get over with. When I am not muttering in my head about rampant capitalism, I remember not so subtle remarks of vulgarity. It is only in recent years that I have started going to McDonalds or recognising that I do indeed love Disney films or in this case Minions and Harry Potter.

I always end up enjoying places like this, having been to Disney in Paris three times now and that one in Holland and that peculiar one in Denmark with sculptures of pooing dogs and strange seagulls but despite that I remain resentful and tend to dislike the numerous shops selling merchandise at vast prices to young children desperate to have whatever it is. I also quail after a time from the music, the colours, the people, the costumed characters and the long, long, wait for rides but at least I can reserve my scowl for my own solitude and at least I can recognise that the rest of the family have a lovely time in places like this.

In reality, though I get tired in places like this; the excitement of the children, Wendy screaming with joy on even the small teacup rides makes me remember or realise that innocence is not the product of the naïve but a measure of the wise.

The vast hanger like entrance to the place was another hand holding place. Both James and I held Wendys hand to anchor her to the floor as we hurried through that area and arrived in a sort of dockland with mocked up store fronts, hotels and things like that.

We were already too late for Mario Cart land and had to go on a lottery for a waiting list but in the meantime set off to find some rides to ride on. Our first ride had hardly any wait. I can’t quite remember what it was, I think tea cups that twizzled round and round and which you could make twizzle faster by twirling the handles but now I think of it, the entrance had posters to something very well known which we liked which had nothing to do with tea cups so maybe that was a later ride. I do remember Wendy pointing out that I couldn’t stop smiling as we twirled our way round the area and I must admit I do a lot of smiling in places like this.

After that it was Minions Mayhem. Usually there is a two hour wait for these rides but this was a quiet day, deliberately chosen for that by Wendy when we were back in Scotland. More hand holding especially when there were notices saying that people frightened of heights should not go on the ride.

Eventually we found ourselves strapped into some sort of buggy, which moved out of the room and then stopped. It didn’t go anywhere else but did jiggle and wobble and tilt. Everything really happened on the screen in front of us. It really did feel like we were rising higher and higher into the sky before rushing down tunnels into outer space or along vast thousand foot slides to crash into all sorts of things. It was exhilarating, almost frightening, deeply startling and yes total mayhem. Louie lasted about thirty seconds before burying her face into my chest and covering her ears with her hands. I was really anxious about Wendy. If she couldn’t deal with high ceilings how on earth would she deal with this? But for the whole ride I could hear her shrieking and laughing with surprise and joy.

Walking out; Louie was unsteady and quiet and rueful and determined not to do anything like that ever again. Wendy was overjoyed and all of us, her included, confused about why this would be fun while an airport could take her close to collapse. She thought maybe it was because she knew she was in a buggy strapped in and so her senses reassured her but wasn’t too sure.

I have to admit that the lunch of pizza we shared was nice but it was also by far the most expensive meal we had during our stay in Japan and the bright green Fanta exceptionally strange.

Since arriving in Japan I had had the most weird bowels. In the afternoons, which, if I was in Scotland, would be about breakfast time I needed the toilet a few times in a row. A noisy smelly business that the whole family commented on when we were in the house and which they now commented on as I planned each stage of our progress around the nearest toilets. I read that the effects of jet lag are extensive and affect our digestion as well as our sleep!

The rest of the day? Wandering into Hello Kitty shops, Harry Potter wand shops, platform nine and three quarter train stops and butter beer stalls, past huge models of great white sharks hung from a pulley. Into scraps of shade to cool down and drink and relax. Into Jurassic park where hand holding had to happen again as the terrifying and screaming children shrieked by overhead and where James bought a fluffy toy dragon.

Finally as the day moved on and it got hotter and  the children got tired, we wandered into a succession of gift shops where Louie couldn’t find what she wanted and dithered and I told Wendy off each time she asked Louie if she was sure of her choice when she had almost chosen something which invariably meant that she changed her mind! In the end she bought a Snoopy dog and James a square green fluffy thing with dark green teeth.

When we got to the taxi area, we tried to enter the taxi mans details into my What’s App to call him but I couldn’t do it, nor Wendy and after half an hour of trying, neither could the children. Feeling guilty we abandoned him and approached another taxi.

The driver was very attentive and the taxi very, very, plush with individual seats for all of us. However most of the drive was anxiety ridden because, although the driver had indicated he knew where he was taking us, it quickly became clear he hadn’t understood a word we had said and he was driving optimistically into Osaka in the hope that all would eventually become clear.

Finally James managed to translate Kishinosato-Tamade, our local station, into Japanese on google translate on my ailing phone but it was another twenty minutes before the driver realised we really wanted to go to the station and managed to enter our destination into the sat nav. In my anxious way I was now tracking our route on my phone, fairly convinced we were going the wrong way and that the whole trip would be extortionate. We did arrive where we wanted and it was only slightly more expensive than our earlier uber and we did have individual comfy seats to recline in.

It is always strange to realise how incapable of navigation Wendy and Louie are. Walking to the house from the station entrance; as usual, both of them had no idea where to go or where the one turn we needed to make was. At one point Louie was wandering along in more or less the wrong direction and when one of us pointed out the right route she did a slight jump in the air with surprise, smiled in slight astonishment and resumed her new direction. It made me worry what would happen if they ventured out on their own but it also made me smile. They smile about it too! I like that we can laugh at our own failings if such small things can be seen as failings.

Tea time; we made our tea this time. A different meal for each person. I cooked pizza for James in the strange toaster oven we had; Wendy; tomato and cheese on toast on the thick white Japanese bread I had thought  I would hate but which we all loved and for Louie bacon and cheese on white bread too.

While they ate their food, I made my meal; delighted to finally get some food I liked. A scallion, soya and toasted sesame oil broth with prawns, tofu, greens and noodles. I loved it. Wendy took some too and admitted she liked it but by then we had eaten more than would leave over for the next day so I ate the remainder and enjoyed it even more.

I had bought Choya which is Japanese plum wine which I drank with fizzy water and ice. I also had Japanese whisky. Not at all a good country for me as alcohol sold at a fraction of the Scottish price with three litre plastic bottles of whisky selling for about ten pounds. Luckily, I didn’t buy those ones!

Our evenings usually consisted of our dinner, a shower for me, drinks for me, coffee or coke for Wendy and snacks, crisps or chocolate or hoola hoops and usually one of the different flavoured kit kats. There were dozens of different flavour of kit kat and we were determined to try as many as possible except the apple flavoured one which was meant to be horrible.

I loved it when I was fresh and clean from my shower and could go to bed but the routine of that evening was delayed a bit as I couldn’t work the induction hob and so couldn’t make my tea. Trying to trouble shoot a Japanese cooker where most of the online instructions were in Japanese was difficult and for a time I had worried I would never get any food and I wouldn’t be able to cook the family meals through the week but Wendy solved the day in a small eureka moment; we just needed to turn the cooker on with the pot still on it.  

The kitchen sink also blocked itself which explained itself when I found out that in each sink was a cloth filter which you had to replace when it got filled, not before plunging my hand into the remains of the detritus of a few days of cooking and washing!

We were beginning to really enjoy ourselves with Wendy and me racing to place our posts on face book at the end of the day and to read through all the comments these inspired. It was a funny feeling, everything felt like a wonderful but weird adventure. We were loving meeting people even if we couldn’t talk to them.

At Universal Studios people were so welcoming and kind to the children. I loved it when young women complimented Louie on her dress sense but also loved seeing the outfits and hair styles some of the young Japanese adults wore. It was like being in a street smart fashion show. I think just as I said the children are sometimes wide eyed in their life, so were we. Even going into a supermarket was an adventure, knowing to place money in the right place not direct into the cashiers hands. Remembering to bow in thanks, to take the shopping away to a counter, wandering aisles where all the foods were new and different.

I was really loving it. It is nice when you sit in the evening and really are almost like the advert of ‘I am so excited I can’t go to sleep!’

Having said that I was always desperate for sleep!!

And my next post? Well Join us as we visit the Sumiyoshi Shrine and find terrapins sunning themselves. I eat octopus balls which Wendy refuses to even taste. I wish I had too. We see fir trees being pruned with hand held scissors and remark on the absence of rubbish bins!