The next adventure that we went on in Japan was shorter, albeit exciting. It was a trip back to Kannonzaki, where we had previously seen the lighthouse. This time, however, we were going to another part of this fairly massive park. On this side of the park, my sister and the kids told me there was a slide that we all just had to experience. Not really knowing what to think I followed along. Really, I was expecting something completely different than what the reality of this slide was.
The description of this slide was fairly decent. They said it was a slide with rollers. Since I hadn’t seen anything like what this slide REALLY was, I equated their description to the new slides found in Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland. This was sort of correct, but very much an understated understanding of this slide.
My first clue at how different should have come from the hike up the hill to find this slide. This came after the kids played in the playground are of the park first, which included a zip line. Then it was time to make the hike up the hill. As is often the case in Japan, it wasn’t just a short jaunt up a small hill. It was quite the hike that sound through the woods and went fairly high. Thankfully, this time there weren’t stairs. There definitely could have been. Finally, we reached the area where the slide was at. There was a building there, it almost reminded me of like a clubhouse for scouts or something. There was also another play set that looked like a big pirate ship. The kids loved climbing on and around it after we went on the slide a few times. Down the way from the ship was the entrance to the slide.
In the United States, generally a slide is something you climb up on and then slide down. This wasn’t the case here. Instead, it was just a metal entrance to a roller slide. You’d ride this slide on a small plastic sled-looking thing. There was a small platform to get ready and then you sat down to slide down into the jungle. From the top of the slide, you could not see the bottom. You also couldn’t see the middle. In fact, you could really only see the beginning as it turned to the right almost immediately and disappeared into the jungle.
Not knowing what to expect, I sat down on the sled and prepared to descend into the jungle. I pushed off and felt myself sliding down into the jungle. The slide was a LOT longer than I expected. First it went to the right and continued on for awhile, then it looped back to the left to go further down the hill… before again going right…. and going further down… and finally I reached a small clearing where the slide threw me off as I half jumped and half stumbled onto the grass below. Thankfully, I didn’t fall into the mud.
I couldn’t tell you if the ride was faster or slower than I expected. At one point, I definitely got some air during one of the bumps on the roller slide. I will say that the experience was unlike any other experience I ever had on a slide before. It was a lot of fun. What wasn’t so fun… the stairs climbing back up to the top of the slide again… that was probably multiple stories tall. Thankfully, the walk back to the car was all downhill! It made for a fun adventure before we dashed back so I could host GEEKS CORNER. All in all, it was a fun day and a grand adventure that I’d definitely do again!
Have you been on a roller slide before? What did you think? What do you think of this one? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
