[TRAVELS] Best Rides So Far: #1

I first rode Eejanaika without any idea what it was. Until last year, I had not been on any kind of roller coaster since a winter 2001 trip to Yomiuriland, whose offerings are not exactly heart-pumping. Still, it was more than the wife (I suppose girlfriend at the time) could handle, and in the interest of maximizing the share of our diversions that we could enjoy in common, I honored her preferences thereafter. In fact, mechanical amusements almost never crossed my mind, and I found ample adrenaline fixes through other activities.

I broke my thrill machine fast with a January 2007 visit to Fujikyu Highland, a maneuver that the wife labeled a mid-life crisis. Once I was through the gates, I did what most Fujikyu virgins do: I headed straight for Fujiyama, the park's most famous attraction. I had picked out Dodonpa's name through ambient buzz at some point in the prior few years, so I headed for that one next. Only after exiting Dodonpa did I notice that there was a third big mass of steel. Still, I hadn't heard about any major attraction besides the two I just de-planed, so how important could this third one possibly be?

My thoughts were on the order of, "That red one looks kind of cool. And it's big." Moreover, I selected the left side when I came to the fork in the queue, relying on the Harrods principle of right-side bias in crowd flow. That meant that nearly all of the track was obscured from my view, including the lift hill and elements of the first portion of the ride and all the nice twisty, inversionary bits.

I had no idea that I would be strapped to a massive harness that could have come straight out of “Universal Soldier,” which left my arms and legs free to dangle. I had no idea that the train would leave the station by moving backwards, then flip my seat 120 degrees or so to the rear to point my toes skyward, then right the seat up just in time to climb the lift hill -- again backwards. I had no idea when the lift hill would end, and that when it reached the top, it would crest into an anticipation-filled faux drop, only to rise toward another hump as it rotated my seat until my spine was parallel to, and my eyes were staring straight at, the ground 76 meters (250 feet) below.

The train fell off the ledge into the 90 degree drop with my eyes wide open, and the earth rushed straight up at me. After that point, I really didn’t know what was going on.



To figure out what Eejanaika did on the rest of its course, it took me a ride or two more and some level-headed research and maginations in the bathtub a few days later.

Halfway into the face-first drop, the seats rotate, in the direction of your heels, so that it is now the apex of the rider’s head that points at the earth. The track then bowls and re-ascends into a full, gargantuan loop. At the same time, however, the seats also spin the rider in a complete circle around the axis passing through your hipbones, subjecting you to a few serious forces. Eejanaika rights you upside just as the track races toward the end of the large drop coming out of the loop, and just in time to snap a picture of your face. (After roughly a dozen tries, I have concluded that you will always lose to the wind and the Gs in the war for control over your facial muscles, no matter how cool the customer.)

The cars then hurtle skyward again and enter the ride’s most unique verse, the 360-360. While this is best explained as the spine of the train moving 360 degrees around the hill-shaped track while at the same time the seats rotate in a full circle, in truth the rider is never actually suspended upside down. The combined motion instead results in the rider moving in a large circle with some undulation and moderate variation in the tilt of the vertical axis. But if you can manage to forget the physics and completely relax, the 360-360 is simply a few glorious seconds of weightless, satori-al relaxation.

Coming out of the 360-360, though, the rider would be well-advised to hold on tight for the most rickety part of the track, especially if dangling from the 2nd row, left side, outside seat of the green train. Eejanaika takes on altitude again and makes a large boomerang around the outbound end of the ride station, during which the riders themselves mostly held in a wonderfully ajar angle – legs afloat in front of you, your body aiming somewhat downward in a diagonal, vulture-like way, but with the vector of the train’s progress almost pulling you along by your right shoulder.

The train then screams past the queue made up of those persons who, as I did on my first ride, chose left at the fork. A 180-180 is timed to the next hump, effectively a half-inversion that turns you around in the opposite direction and gives you a view of the track from whence you came. With the cars now on the outside of the track, Eejanaika pulls out its last major trick and momentarily whips the rider around one more loop and straight toward nothing but gravel, unobstructed by track. The rider is saved by the track regaining height to close the circle, but not before you are convinced that your feet are about to be dismembered from you by the ground speeding by just below you. At the conclusion of the loop, Eejanaika pops you violently and painfully into a final half-inversion and slams on the squeaky brakes, and the remainder of the ride’s intense G forces flattening your asscheeks into your seat.



Eejanaika is still my favorite coaster ever, fourteen* rides later. It is certainly not getting any smoother with age, so those who bruise easily – feelings included – are advised to add to the crowds at Disneyland instead. But for the undaunted, you must experience it yourself before this thing kills somebody.

And the rotation of the rider into the face-down first drop is the most “Oh Shit!” moment that tubular steel can offer.

Important resource:
http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~coasters/eejanaika/eejanaika.html

[TRAVELS] Best Rides So Far

I am just about one year into my personal coaster renaissance -- actually, five quarters is more accurate -- and have done more benign thrillseeking in that time than I would have imagined possible for someone in my lines of work over that period. The park-hopping has come with some regrettable expenses, such as time with children, activities actually enjoyable to the wife, and jiu-jitsu practice time.

Needless to say, the thoughts that follow are mine, and I would like to think that there is much that separates me from a large number of those overactive coaster enthusiasts. For one thing, I am not overly sensitive to the pain that can come from riding coasters. People talk of all manner of headaches, stiff necks, bruises, snapped tendons and broken cartilage from this or that ride, but I frankly can't remember ever suffering any of those ills. We all know I get beat much worse in sparring at the dojo, especially when I'm short on practice and sleep. (The asswhuppings are all the more painful because -- let us not forget -- I still suck, even after all these years.) In fact, I don't really insist on smoothness in a roller coaster. You might say I even enjoy a little roughness on a ride, perhaps if no more than to know that I'm there.

Second, I am not easily impressed by packaging. I guess this is what the connoisseurs call "theming." I admit that well-coordinated packaging can magically transform a mediocre roller coaster into a good one. Space Mountain remains a sentimental favorite of mine, even if it is no longer the same ride I first enjoyed at Tokyo Disneyland about 25 years ago. But let's face it: Space Mountain is basically one part Wild Mouse to two parts other kiddie coaster with a big dark box and Christmas lights thrown over it. Most other attempts to put rides in a nice package meet with far less success, and instead tend to come off about as contrived as Counting Crows. Meanwhile, for a ride that is already fantastic on its own, good packaging may carry negligible marginal value.

Third, I may not covet airtime quite to the extent that other frequent riders do. I certainly enjoy negative G forces, weightlessness, etc. but haven't really thought enough to make distinctions among "floater" or other varieties of airtime. In my view, there are plenty of other things that a ride can be designed for besides airtime and yet be thoroughly entertaining. Speed for its own sake, for example, is fine with me.

And so I submit my simple opinions as to the best thrill rides that I’ve experienced so far.