Harry Potter World!
Okay so maybe this post will be a little bit hard to relate with for some people but today I went to Harry Potter World at the Japan Universal Studios and I feel like I've been waiting for this moment since I first picked up a Harry Potter book back around the age of 7 or 8. At that time the entire series hadn't come out and I can vividly remember in my childhood waiting for the books, reading them as they came out, they always came as gifts, I remember the mad dash of everyone in the world to get their hands on the new books as they came out. I remember waiting for the movies, thinking how absolutely perfect Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were to play the parts (still feel that way) and I just feel like it was such a huge part of my childhood. I didn't even realize it until I really was able to draw together that I'd be able to go and then when I was walking down the path to Hogsmeade that this meant so incredibly much to me.
I was so overzealous that I even bought a two day ticket pass to Universal Studios thinking I could actually spend two whole days in Harry Potter World. Nope, maybe in the huge one they have in Florida but even after taking forever to buy a wand, finding every magical station, and eating lunch at the Three Broomsticks I was only really able to make my stay last 4 hours. That's fine though, I didn't know and if I had needed two days and only bought a one day ticket that would've been so much worse.
These are some external pictures of the castle, the entrance to Hogsmeade, my butterbeer, some shops, and the Three Broomsticks.
I ran around and had such a good time. Some of the shops are just decorated store fronts but others are actual shops that you can enter and buy things. At Honeydukes (candy) you can buy Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, and a few other candies from the book. At Ollivander's Wand Shop you can purchase wands (several are remakes from the movie's and are specific character's wands but some are just ash or oak or maple and are made for people to choose their own). The studio also has these sensors around that you can pay for a "magical wand" versus an "original wand" and then go to the stations and wave your wand a certain way and make things happen. I of course did this and bought Serious Black's wand (I originally wanted Ginny Weasley's but her's wasn't "magical"). I also own a Hermione Granger wand at home that I know I was reasonably young when I got from a catalog and I have serious questions as to why my mom let me buy it at all haha.
The magical wand let me run around to 8 stations around the park and make magic happen like making a big door unlock, make a chimney spit fire, levitate a Quidditch ball, and a few other fun things. They have these sensors and if you wave your wand the right way they really do make magic happen! It was so cool. Definitely worth the $5 I spent on it.
Here's some of the photos I took inside the shops of Chocolate Frogs and Pumpkin Juice, my lunch at the Three Broomsticks and the Ford Angelina that Ron and Harry crashed in the second book. I smiled so big. It was on the wooded pathway that is just like the one in the movies that leads you to Hogsmeade. And they have Harry Potter music blasting and you can't help but feel the anticipation and excitement and then you turn the corner and I felt like it was so magical haha.
This is the entrance to Universal Studios, the Hogwarts Express, and the wand that I bought. The dark photo if you click and enlarge it is the Ollivander's reenactment scene I got to see. There was this older white guy who played Ollivander and it kind of struck me funny because he would say the lines in English and Japanese every time and actually almost everything was in Japanese and that threw me off.
I rode the like 3D experience thing that they had and I actually must say that I was completely blown away at both the technology and my complete inability to understand what was happening. I'm used to 3D being the shitty 3D glasses and some what popping scenes in movies but this was on an entire nother level. The 3D glasses were a bit more expensive looking and we were in this chair contraption where 4 people could sit and it was suspended from the ceiling. Then we went through this course, track, I don't even know how big it was and my serious opinion was that I could sometimes not even tell what was real and what wasn't. Maybe I haven't been on enough rides in my life or technology really has advanced so far but there were times where we were clearly staring at some kind of screen and following Harry on a broomstick or something but I swear to god it felt like we were really moving forward or side to side to follow him. And the other thing was that I really couldn't tell when they started or ended. When we were in them they were so completely encompassing for me it was so real, there was no "edge of the screen" you were there 100%. And the other thing was that there were parts that were not as 3D but I felt like had to be enhanced by the 3D some how? It was incredible really the technology and I had absolutely no clue how much time we spent, how long the track actually was, how much actual movement occurred, or anything. Really I thought it was amazing. The only thing was that that ride gave me some pretty severe motion sickness so while it was cool by the end of it I felt like I might die haha.
Anyway the entire experience was something I've been waiting for for so long and I'm so glad I got to go. I talked to my friend who lives in Florida though and apparently their's is bigger and I talked to some British guys and they said the one in London is also cooler because it's closer to where things were actually filmed so it has a lot of original props and is also bigger so I'm definitely going to those two some day!