A Photo Canvas

The next morning, it was time for Universal Studios!!

Having done a bit of exploring near the gate the night before, we were definitely excited to kick start our adrenaline-pumping day in the morning. But first up, some pictures from the night before...

The Boy actually wanted to take pictures with his tripod, so we made a trip back to our hotel to grab it. Little did we know that in that short time span, when we came back, all the lights of USJ was off! Guess luck is not on his side…

The next morning, after a nice breakfast, we made our way to enjoy the rides. But guess what happened? It was raining!!! It seems like luck was really not on our side, as we decided to brave the rain nonetheless, especially when we have travelled all the way to Japan to enjoy the amusement park...

Unlike my previous tour, our tour guide did not accompany us into the theme park, though she did was give us a map and indicated on it what were the scary ones, and what were the mild rides. Thankfully, I have had ‘experience’, as we quickly made our way to our first ride, Spiderman!


Despite the rain, there was still a long queue to beat! Nevertheless, the Boy enjoyed the ride thoroughly!

Our next ride was Back to the Future. As expected, I felt sick, again… The Boy on the other hand was still alive and kicking, very wildly too! He’s such an adrenaline junkie…



While rides were of importance given the craziness of some queues, we still pause occasionally to snap a few pictures, of which, I find the above attempted snarl hilarious! =)



I had my Jurassic Park ride again. This time, instead of a 90-minute wait, we had to wait for only 5 min? Why?

Because it started to rain!! And it had to pour even more when it was our turn to get onto the non-sheltered boat…


Thankfully, we survived the trip even though we did not purchase any ponchos like the rest of the people did, as can be seen by our appearance at the gift shop, and the attempted devouring of me by the t-rex... -_-


Because of the rain, it somehow kept the crowd out, thereby allowing us to enjoy most of the rides.



As such, we managed to catch Jaws and kill it, to the constant chattering of the Japanese tour ride (which none of us could understand). The above couple picture however was taken by a friendly Japanese who freely volunteered his service to help us capture a picture. Bingrong says that the soft toy is held by me like it was my baby. Hmm…

So apart from the above mentioned four rides, we also caught Waterworld, Shrek’s 4D Adventure (nice!) and Universal Monsters Live Rock and Roll Show (boring…). The only thing we missed was Peppermint Patty’s Stunt Slide (very much like our Fantasy Island water slide rides), and the Hollywood Dream rollar coaster ride, much to our disappointment. Why we missed it was because of the rain, and it would have been too darn cold to get even wetter, or to have really cold wind blowing at your face…Bummer...


Our loss however was made up with our many chances to capture photo opportunities with the mascots =)


Midway into our walkabout, we chanced upon a dozen santarinas. Suddenly, there was a swarm of photographers (mainly male), standing in front of them, going shutter crazy! Reminded me very much of the SIN times… =S


Then, from this crazy scene, I spotted a lonely snowman… He just looked so cute (even though I wanted to kick them earlier on, oops)!! Maybe I had a change of heart, but given his really cute exterior, I just had to grab a picture of him together with us =)



After conquering most mascots and rides, you would think that our photo opportunities would have ended. But I guess not with the above 2 pictures, ahahaha... =) Anyway, with the rides more or less ‘completed’, we decided to head to the stores and start looking at souvenirs.


In all our excitement of rides and buying of souvenirs, we actually skipped lunch, partly also because we refused to spent money on their exorbitant meals. That was when I decided to snack, and chance upon extremely cute buns! The Hello Kitty bun had savoury strawberry flavour, and after much scouring, the Snoopy bun had custard (my fav) in it! Aahh… When you bite into them, they taste like heaven…

At the end of the day, after a whole day spent in USJ running from the rain, enjoying the rides, checking out all the stores, we ended up buying more foodie souvenirs than any other things! The Boy claimed that theme park food are a definite must-try, as they always taste very good! Plus, with their extremely lovely packaging, one cannot help but indulge! Besides, the night parade was cancelled due to the rain, and that gave us more excuses to shop around =)


Done with our shopping, we also indulged in challenging night photography, minus the tripod…


Dinner was spent at a restaurant, enjoying some omelette rice… Our happy faces are a sign of good food =) But as much as the food was great, that did not stop us from having some supper…


Snoopy cup noodles!! Check out their cute woodstock and snoopy fishcake-like-things! Yes, piggies we were =P