After nearly a week of big city living, we left Tokyo to visit the majestic Mount Fuji. While feeling eager to see someplace new, I was a little bit sad that we were leaving the most exciting place that I had ever been in my life. I was a lot sad that we had to drag all of our luggage with us as we left. I began to wonder if I really needed 25 different tops, five dresses, ten skirts, six pairs of pants and four pairs of shoes for our two week trip. Apparently I thought I might put on a concert one night that needed 30 different outfit changes. (Shout out to Jessica, who was in my head chastising me the whole time that I huffed and puffed to the bus station with my three bags, "Nooooo, what did I tell you?! You're going to regret it!")
We finally dragged our luggage army onto the multiple subways and trains that got us to Mount Fuji. As we got outside of the big city, Jeffrey commented, "Oh, look. We're in Pennsylvania." It was hard to argue with him.
After a few hours of traveling, we finally made it to the famous mountain. We strapped on our climbing gear and prepared for our ascent.
I'm kidding! We checked into our luxury resort hotel and headed to Fuji-Q Highland, the coolest amusement park ever in life.
The pricing structure here was a little bit strange. We could either pay roughly $40 each for an all-day pass, or pay between $10 and $20 for each attraction. Obviously we chose the $40 option because we are roller coaster junkies. We bought the tickets and rushed over to the first roller coaster, the world record-breaking king of coasters, Fujiyama (it's the big one with the inverted drop in the picture up there). Except the line was like three hours long. We quietly backed away and headed to see what the rest of the park had to offer.
And then it started raining. And one by one, all of the attractions began to shut down. Our $40 ticket was pretty useless at this point. We headed towards the cafeteria to find something to eat, and Jeffrey reminded everyone that we were from AMURICA by getting the most ridiculous hamburger on the menu.
With our stomachs full, we headed over to see one of the main reasons that we traveled to the other side of the world, the most terrifying haunted house attraction that I had ever seen. What makes it so scary, you ask? The fact that it is one of the largest haunted houses in the world? Or maybe that your group gets isolated from the others in this hour-long, mile-length, multi-story labyrinth set inside a maniacal hospital? More than likely, it's probably just the fact that it's weird Japanese horror.
As with many of our experiences, we couldn't take any pictures once we were inside. But let me try to put it into words for you. We got our tickets from a small machine outside the attraction (there was also the option to pay $5 for a protective amulet that you could use as a ward against evil in the house. No clue what that was, but Jeffrey said we didn't need it). We were led with four other groups into a large, creepy room full of seats surrounding a movie screen. A bloody nurse walked in and started explaining the rules to us, including "For safety reasons, you may not be alone for this attraction." After her speech, the lights dimmed and a short movie played on the screen, showing a young woman wandering through a hospital and meeting its ghastly doctors and nurses, who apparently enjoy hacking their patients into pieces and ripping out their organs. At the end, she finds herself strapped to one of their tables, surrounded by the gruesome staff, as her intestines are being ripped out of her stomach. Nice way to set the tone. I was excited to start exploring this place with the large group of people that I was seated with.
Except that's not how this place worked. As noted in The Terror of Yurei, Japanese horror houses are a bit different, more immersive experiences. In the haunted houses that I have been to before, you get in a line that snakes through the attraction, with people popping out and making faces at you every few steps, until you reach the exit. The "monsters" are not trying to scare you to the point that you freeze, jump backwards, or physically lash out. They try to scare you forward until you find your way out.
The nurse began to call each group into a room, shutting a large metal door behind them. You heard a loud bang, a scream or two, and then a moment later, the nurse opened the door to invite Jeffrey and me to enter the room by ourselves. We were led to large and dilapidated x-ray machine, which took our x-rays with a loud bang (did I just get radiation poisoning?), and then we were handed a small flashlight and shuffled out of the room. They were separating us so that we weren't with the rest of the group. Next began our long trip to escape the hospital and its maze of terror.
The level of detail in the place was astounding. Especially for how large the hospital was. I thought that it was going to waste a little bit, since we could only see what our three-inch circle of light could illuminate at one time. I braced myself for the ghouls that were going to jump out at us, but it didn't happy. Right away at least. We began hearing screams elsewhere near us, which let us know that it was going to happen, though.
We entered a room that looked like an operation ward, with beds scattered across the floor, with makeshift curtains throughout. As we explored the room with our tiny flashlight, trying to appreciate all of the details, we found a pale nurse gnashing at us near the exit. When our light found him, he charged at us, causing me to trip backwards. He was between us at the room's exit doors, and wasn't going away (as I had grown to expect in haunted houses - jump and scare, then go back into the shadows)! We had to actually make our way past the ghost nurse to get out of the room.
As we exited, we saw a young couple near one of the multiple "give up" exits, with the terrified girl catching her breath and pleading with her boyfriend to leave with her. I invited them to stick together with us, but she was not having it. They dropped their flashlight into the box (which contained dozens of them from the others who had given up at this point), and dashed out the door.
We made it through the entire labyrinth, climbing up four stories of the hospital, all the way down to its creepy basement, facing a multitude of fiendish creatures throughout our journey. It was really freaking scary. And it had an atmosphere that was different than anything I had experienced. There was no blaring music or cheap sound effects, just a haunting silence that was only broken by the piercing screams of others as they tried to navigate the maze.
In the most horrifying portion of the hospital, we found ourselves at the top of a corridor filled with a dozen doors on either side of the hallway. Obviously, our goal was to make it to the other side to continue on. As we walked through, the groaning zombie-like creatures would come out the doors, and chase us (yes, literally run after us) down the hallway. I ran like a scream queen down the hallway, falling onto the ground and curling up into a ball, wailing for Jeffrey to hurry up because they were going to kill him. And they still kept coming at me. Oh. My. God. In that moment, I would have coughed up $100 for that damn amulet.
After that... unique... experience, the rain still had not let up, and we strolled around the park before heading back to our hotel for the night.
Except that's not how this place worked. As noted in The Terror of Yurei, Japanese horror houses are a bit different, more immersive experiences. In the haunted houses that I have been to before, you get in a line that snakes through the attraction, with people popping out and making faces at you every few steps, until you reach the exit. The "monsters" are not trying to scare you to the point that you freeze, jump backwards, or physically lash out. They try to scare you forward until you find your way out.
The nurse began to call each group into a room, shutting a large metal door behind them. You heard a loud bang, a scream or two, and then a moment later, the nurse opened the door to invite Jeffrey and me to enter the room by ourselves. We were led to large and dilapidated x-ray machine, which took our x-rays with a loud bang (did I just get radiation poisoning?), and then we were handed a small flashlight and shuffled out of the room. They were separating us so that we weren't with the rest of the group. Next began our long trip to escape the hospital and its maze of terror.
The level of detail in the place was astounding. Especially for how large the hospital was. I thought that it was going to waste a little bit, since we could only see what our three-inch circle of light could illuminate at one time. I braced myself for the ghouls that were going to jump out at us, but it didn't happy. Right away at least. We began hearing screams elsewhere near us, which let us know that it was going to happen, though.
We entered a room that looked like an operation ward, with beds scattered across the floor, with makeshift curtains throughout. As we explored the room with our tiny flashlight, trying to appreciate all of the details, we found a pale nurse gnashing at us near the exit. When our light found him, he charged at us, causing me to trip backwards. He was between us at the room's exit doors, and wasn't going away (as I had grown to expect in haunted houses - jump and scare, then go back into the shadows)! We had to actually make our way past the ghost nurse to get out of the room.
As we exited, we saw a young couple near one of the multiple "give up" exits, with the terrified girl catching her breath and pleading with her boyfriend to leave with her. I invited them to stick together with us, but she was not having it. They dropped their flashlight into the box (which contained dozens of them from the others who had given up at this point), and dashed out the door.
We made it through the entire labyrinth, climbing up four stories of the hospital, all the way down to its creepy basement, facing a multitude of fiendish creatures throughout our journey. It was really freaking scary. And it had an atmosphere that was different than anything I had experienced. There was no blaring music or cheap sound effects, just a haunting silence that was only broken by the piercing screams of others as they tried to navigate the maze.
In the most horrifying portion of the hospital, we found ourselves at the top of a corridor filled with a dozen doors on either side of the hallway. Obviously, our goal was to make it to the other side to continue on. As we walked through, the groaning zombie-like creatures would come out the doors, and chase us (yes, literally run after us) down the hallway. I ran like a scream queen down the hallway, falling onto the ground and curling up into a ball, wailing for Jeffrey to hurry up because they were going to kill him. And they still kept coming at me. Oh. My. God. In that moment, I would have coughed up $100 for that damn amulet.
After that... unique... experience, the rain still had not let up, and we strolled around the park before heading back to our hotel for the night.
The next morning, we watched the local news and enjoyed our room's fantastic view of Fuji before heading off to our next locale.