Arao, Kumamoto, Japan – Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
In many ways, Greenland is the archetypal Japanese amusement park. The somewhat odd name emphasizes the park’s original key feature as being set over a very green, grassy landscape. The pastoral setting is punctuated by a number of permanent amusement rides, mostly roller coasters and various family flat rides. This park combines the older ideal of traditional parkscapes where one could leave the city behind and enjoy being close to nature for an afternoon (although not a wild, untamed nature, as the simple manicured lawns with a lake and several trees also qualify as an equally worthy “nature” within Japanese culture) with more modern mechanical amusements (mostly added beginning around the 1980’s and 1990’s, with growth largely tapering off by the 2000’s). These style of traditional Japanese amusement parks are far tidier and with larger rides than a slapdash carnival park, although there are still plenty of eccentricities.
However, the quality that sets Arao’s Greenland apart from other parks of its style is just how large it has grown. With nine coasters, it’s tied for second place among coaster collections in Japan. This quality obviously gave it priority as a destination along my journey through Japan. The weather was overcast with occasional bouts of a light misty rain, and there were perhaps even fewer guests visiting today than at my experience yesterday at the now-defunct Space World. Somehow, Greenland has continued to hang on and is still operating with the same collection of coasters as I write these words nearly ten years later.
A little bit of disappointment to get out of the way first. Greenland’s largest coaster, a 5,500 foot long jet coaster named Gao (with one large hill resembling a stegosaurus), would not be open at all today.
This may be the largest example of “roller coaster structure as a sculptural art installation” I’ve ever seen. The ride itself appeared quite tremendous, sprawling over half the park and reported to clock in at over four minutes long. Truly disappointed I missed out on this one.
Additionally, the Ladybird kiddie powered coaster would also have to be missed, presumably due to the damp weather conditions.
Thus, my first coaster of the day ended up being the oddly named Grampus Jet, a Vekoma Swinging Turns suspended coaster with killer whale themed vehicles.
Copying Arrow Dynamic’s suspended coaster design, Vekoma built a total of three of these suspended coasters between 1987 and 1994, all with the exact same compact layout.
If Grampus Jet were to be ranked alongside the Arrow suspendeds, it would probably rate at or near the bottom of the list. The Vekoma design features no significant drops and a forgettable collection of gentle s-curves and helices stacked on top of each other. It makes for an efficient compact layout and highlights the qualities of the swinging coaster cars, but there’s no surprise or variation along the way. Once you very quickly figure out the ride’s rhythms, the whole experience blurs together into one hazy memory until eventually the brakes arrive as the biggest surprise of the entire layout.
I’m glad someone else made the effort to build a few suspended coasters before the genre went obsolete, but the lesson seems to be that a compact layout isn’t nearly as appealing for a suspended coaster experience than Arrow’s customized approach with more sprawling layouts.
One of the park’s newer coasters was Nio, a Vekoma suspended looping coaster that opened in 1997.
While the station had a slightly higher quality level of design with its bold orange Japanese pop-historical aesthetic, the rest of the ride was placed over a concrete lot in the most unattractive corner of Greenland.
The most I can remember about the ride itself was being slightly wet. While Nio was probably intended to be the signature thrill ride at Greenland, as a run-of-the-mill (but slightly rougher than average) SLC, it was perhaps the most forgettable of the day.
Working my way around the park, I next came to Ultra Twister Megaton. This would be my first time on a Togo Ultra Twister ride.
As I was walking through the station, I noticed a wall lined with hundreds of wooden sticks with marker written on them. On closer inspection I realized these were left by people who rode the coaster at least ten times consecutively. Closer to the boarding area were larger framed papers with photos of the riders who attained even higher numbers. 10 seemed like an easy enough goal.
The ride itself proved to be quite enjoyable too. For a design that came out in the mid-80’s it’s surprisingly advanced, with a vertical lift hill and near-vertical drop well before any of the European manufacturers attempted such a maneuver, as well as a reverse switch track and three heartline rolls, one taken forward and two backward. Even the most basic element, a camelback hill after the first drop, offers a solid pop of smooth negative G-forces that’s surprisingly fun. The unique “between the rails” configuration of the ride vehicle seemed to be the only way the designers could mathematically figure out how to achieve the heartline spiral effect, although it also seemed to have the effect of stabilizing the cars and producing a relatively smooth ride. (Togo would later figure out they could position the track rails at the bottom and still achieve the heartline effect on rides like Viper at Six Flags Great Adventure or Mega Coaster at Hamanako Pal Pal)
So after my first time around I asked to re-ride, which I probably would have done regardless. A little over a half hour later I had my ten rides and earned my popsicle stick on the wall. But I had all day and really liked this rare coaster I couldn’t ride anywhere else outside of Japan, so why not try to boost my rankings even more? The very highest level achievers listed were closing in near 100, probably as many as could be achieved non-stop between opening and closing on a single day. At first I figured 20 or 25, but then that crept up into 30.
Marathon riding a coaster can be surprisingly relaxing, as there are few other concerns than just being present in the moment, repeating a rhythm until it becomes completely familiar and comfortable, then finding small new ways to take in the experience, say by closing your eyes or looking left or looking right the entire time. Sometimes I rode with others, but most of the time I had the ride to myself. The ride operators didn’t speak much English but we had a friendly mutual understanding within the first few rides.
After I passed 30 laps I had to consider at what point I would call my last and move on. I briefly considered making it to the elite class who had made it to 50, although I still had more of the park to explore and the repetition was beginning to tire, so 40 seemed more reasonable. The late thirties started getting tedious, and by this time one of the park managers came over and asked me a few questions in English, at first assuming that I had traveled specifically for the purpose of breaking their record. (Obviously if that had been my intention I would have been more strategic and not have waited over an hour after the park opening to begin.) I got to forty and, feeling a little invigorated by the achievement, went for two more just to push me ahead of the small cluster of record holders who had stopped at the even multiples of ten, and as a nod to Douglas Adams.
Finally, nearly two and a half hours after beginning, I declared to the crew I was done. I got a hearty round of congratulations, my photo taken, and then took a few minutes to draw my record sheet to add to the wall. I also used it to demonstrate some of the written Japanese I had worked so hard (and somewhat fruitlessly) to learn for this trip during my semester in Hong Kong. (Translation: “I’m from America.” Pretty basic.)
Wandering down the exit platform, it took a few minutes to re-adjust to the wide open world. That was the most I had ever consecutively ridden any coaster, and I’m doubtful I’ll ever break that personal record again. I can’t imagine what it would be like for people who try all day or even multi-day coaster marathons.
Now, which way should I go next…
Blackhole Coaster is an enclosed powered coaster by Meisho and Zamperla.
The ride began with a number of strobes and blinking light garlands, before going into a semi-enclosed section flooded with daylight. Interesting, but I’ll take the Karst Cave Coaster in Shanghai for weird enclosed Asian powered coasters.
A log flume ride seemed to mix an African safari with classical mythology.
I well and truly had Greenland all to myself this afternoon.
The Legend of Salamander was an unusual side-scrolling interactive dark ride featuring a large number of fantastical creepy-crawlies to shoot at.
And look what my score ended up as. Maybe this number really is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, at least within Greenland.
A few other haunted attractions and simulator rides help round out the non-coaster ride collection at this park.
The vertical loop from the old Atomic coaster was still standing, apparently as a piece of sculptural art, even as the rest of the ride had been torn down a few years prior.
My third and final missed coaster for the day was Spin Mouse, a Reverchon spinning mouse apparently sold by Senyo. Not a big loss. With as few people as there were in the park that day, I’m surprised there weren’t more rides closed.
Wandering around the back of the park as some light rain began to drizzle.
Sphinx was a custom family coaster located on a hillside, with a sphinx head adorning its lead car. A special effects tunnel was placed near the top, before a layout consisting of long ramps winding its way down the hill. Credit for uniqueness.
A slightly disturbing concept for a guide map to the nearest restrooms.
The final coaster(s) to check off my list was Milky Way, a dual Togo sit-down and stand-up coaster that’s been at the park since 1991.
Togo has long been derided as one of the worst coaster manufacturers by western enthusiasts, partly stemming from memories of failed rides like Windjammers at Knott’s. But in Japan, most of the remaining Togo creations are generally pretty good, with a quality of track design comparable to Arrow and other pre-laser cut manufacturers from the 80’s and early 90’s. The same was the case with Milky Way, which I found peculiar but generally quite enjoyable.
While the coaster was originally designed as twin stand-up coasters, today the pink track features sit-down cars while the blue track retains the stand-up configuration.
There are no inversions on either side of the Milky Way track. While the two sides are different, the layout for both is basically an L-shaped out-and-back with an extra helix in the middle (placed along the ‘out’ run for the stand-up side, and the ‘back’ run for the sit-down side). While the coaster predates the racing/dueling coaster trend by a few years, it’s not really appropriate to call it either. Once the tracks split up, they don’t have much interaction with the other side until they rejoin just before the brakes. Especially on this day, with so few guests the two sides were never racing. (Heck, I’d be waiting a long time just to get a photo of either side in action at all, as for the last hour of the day I was pretty much the only person riding it.)
Despite some layout similarities, there is a marked difference between the two sides. The blue stand-up side is a much more intense experience, which could be expected by default due to the more exposed riding position, but even the layout seems to be a little bit faster and more forceful than the pink sit-down side, which is much closer to a standard Jet Coaster type of experience. Both sides feature a couple surprise pops of airtime, which as always is far more pronounced when standing up. B&M never did much airtime on their stand-up coasters, so the sharp dynamic contrast with the Togo approach is appreciable.
After a few laps on both sides, the skies turned a darker shade of gloom and the park was well and truly empty. It was time to call it for the day.
While I didn’t visit the park under the best of circumstances, I was still able to appreciate what they had to offer, most especially the unique twin-tracked Milky Way and the insane amount of re-rides on Ultra Twister Megaton. Greenland is a good park to serve as an introduction to what Japanese amusements are all about if one begins their trip in the south of Japan and works their way north. I’m not certain I’ll ever be back, but if the occasion does present itself I wouldn’t mind getting to try the ridiculously oversized Gao, along with the opportunity for a simultaneous dispatch on Milky Way and maybe even break my record on the Ultra Twister. But I doubt it.
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