Teine Olympia

Saying goodbye to Tokyo we took our wonderful J-Class flight to the northern island of Hokkaido for the final leg of the trip. Being able to check in early at our hotel in Sapporo we immediately headed out to the North-West to visit Teine Olympia park.

Situated in Teine, a small town north-west of Sapporo and former Winter Olympics location, the park is a difficult one to visit because it has some strange opening hours. Today was actually the last day of the season which is why we headed straight to it upon arriving on the island.

Located in the mountains the park is beautifully picturesque. The park is split in two parts with the wheel and toboggan ride in one section and the other rides in another area close by.

Recently added to the park, an aerial assault course, which some of the kids seemed to be enjoying.

The first coaster was a little flitzer type ride. Quite fun but the throughput wasn't that great.

The other coaster is much larger but gentler ride that features the shortest waist belt ever. It was so short that even at its full extension you were just able to fasten it...when the seat was empty. So imagine the mirth when two of us got in and could barely get the buckles out over our legs, let alone fastened together. The ride op laughed too and told us to just hold on. We had a flashback to a ride we'd done in Guadalajara where we were in a similar position and were launched out of the train.

Fortunately the hills on the ride were gentle enough that we weren't launched out. A small blessing. It's another coaster where it looks better than it rides and boy is it noisy!

Considering its remoteness the park was quite busy. If you've ever wondered where the old red phone boxes went from the streets of London, here's one of them accounted for.

The majority of the rides are tailored for young kids.

But there are other rides that are slightly more intense.

and they even have an attraction for those of a more violent temperament.

and the park has some wonderful looking go-kart tracks that go out into the woods and even feature single lane bridges like this, something I hadn't seen before.

There are also these skidding go-karts that don't face forward so you can emulate a powerslide around the bends. They take a little getting used to but are fun once you get the hang of them.

A view from the big wheel looking at the other part of the park and the Northern coastline in the background.

The final ride of the day was the Superslide toboggan ride, which we used to get back down the mountain. It was quite a good ride but not as terrifying as the one in Mitsui Greenland.

Leaving the park we made our way back into Sapporo to try to squeeze in another park, which we'd planned for a few days later. Maruyama Kidland. On the way we figured out how to turn the seats around on the train. Quite ingenious really.

Teine is a nice little park, but doesn't offer much to the enthusiast other than the two credits. I can see it being a nice play to bring the family for a picnic. The view is great.

We got to the park by train from Sapporo, taking the S-line towards Futamata. Teine is stop S-07 (the 7th stop). From there there are taxis waiting outside the station that can take you up the mountain to the park. Getting back you can ask the girl in the ticket booth to call you a taxi back. I don't know if "Takushi wa onegai shimasu ka" is technically the right line (Can you give me a taxi please) but it worked. There are buses that run to and from the station but they only run frequently at the start and end of the day and hardly ever during the middle.