Japan Monkey Park

Japan Monkey Park is about 90 minutes away from Nagashima and about 60 minutes to get back. The difference is due to us having a clueless executive driver on the way out and a much more savvy local cabbie for the return leg. Four of us were going on this little side trip.

The park is mostly gardens with the amusement park located at the back end of it.

The park is home to a trifecture of coasters. The main one is called Highway Coaster, named this because from the top of the lift hill you can see a Highway. Why they didn't call it Refinery Coaster, or Petrol Station Coaster I don't know.

The second is called Monkey Coaster and has the most open layout of the coasters. It has a weird train.

It also has the smallest astro-turf pitch in the world. Not sure what was going on there. Somewhere to brush your feet before you boarded perhaps?

In addition to the coaster the park has a good number of different fairground rides and because they're all close to each other you can get around them fairly quick as we could have done had we not lost time getting there.

One of those flying rides that Blackpool is famous for.

The final coaster in a little separate section that looks newly built (in fact some construction behind the coaster would indicate there's still some growing going on). This coaster has the best name of the eighty or so I'd be riding on the trip; "Go Go Banana Coaster". A cute ride with a very friendly elderly ride op who seemed more than happy to keep sending us round until his retirement came through.

Another Hello Kitty presence.

As you can see it was another busy day with just us in the park, and bear in mind there were only 4 of us at this place.

Not sure what this was. You couldn't climb inside it, which I was hoping you could do.

If you do visit this park then you must do this dark ride, which was great using mirrors and candlelight to great effect. It's quite a long ride too so don't think you can squeeze it in in a few minutes.

Having nailed the park pretty quickly we asked the gate staff to call us a taxi and we made it back to the hotel and coach with half an hour to spare. Had we had the same driver bring us back who took us out we might have missed it!