Universal Studios Japan

We went to Universal Studios Japan while in Osaka, which was fantastic, but the waiting times reached up to two hours! The biggest rides had several buildings of multi-level mazes for the crowds to shuffle through. Apparently 2 hours is about normal, and it can get a lot worse! The actual rides themselves were brilliant, especially Spiderman, which used 3D visuals mixed with amazing mechanics that really made the experience feel real, such as 3D sound and a jerk when spiderman lands on the front bonnet of the car we're in, or a blast of heat hitting us from a grenade exploding nearby, or the vertigo from falling from the top of a skyscraper and being caught just in time by one of spiderman's webs!

Although the whole place was extremely commercial, they did a good job of accurately recreating the feel of the movies. One thing I really enjoyed was the "Shrek's 4D adventure" cinema. It was a 10 minute short movie, but was done extremely well, with all the humour of the original (mostly visual, luckily for me). We had 3D glasses, and they made great use of it, but also several times during the movie we'd receive a blast of cool air from behind us, or steam from below our seats, or a bump as the characters jolted to a stop.

Homie ET - just some of the widely available merchandise, cunningly placed at the exits of the relevant rides.