Stuff outside Tokyo

After leaving Tokyo... the Kyoto International Manga Museum is good for multi linguists but the section for English manga is small. Unless you are also getting your portraits drawn by the local artists (a cool service) it's not worth the entry fee.  

Onto Awaji Island - on the Western side is Hello Kitty Smile, a smallish building dedicated to Hello Kitty which we enjoyed much more than Sanrio Puroland. The smaller scale let them really decorate their rooms much better and somehow the gift shops are bigger!? The food here was also better in comparison. Nearby (in a car anyway) is the Hello Kitty Apple House whose main space is used for a stage show with dining. Live dancers and instrumentalists always are great, and getting the opportunity to "meet" Hello Kitty fulfilled one of my wife's life long dreams (as an aside, I'm officially taller than Hello Kitty lol). :D

The last theme park was my pick and still on Awaji: Nijigen no Mori. There's lots of attractions in this mountainous park including Naruto and Godzilla but the ones we did were Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter: The Field, and the Bleach: Night Walk, which is literally a mostly uphill walk through the forest lit by some cool lighting and screens playing scenes from a Bleach episode. It's a bit of a workout!

Dragon Quest was my favorite: a live action RPG where you help people in the town (by interacting with digital screens) to find stuff (physically in town, which includes opening chests and looking for secret doors) and fighting monsters which comes in 2 varieties: doing the correct pose to do more damage and furiously button mashing to beat bosses. It was super fun and has an ok story to boot! We even stopped by the Dragon Quest bar for a decent lunch (Awaji is known for onions, so expect that everywhere here).

Monster Hunter: The Field is more relaxed on the RPG side, letting you just wander the full grounds to find items / allies via digitally picking them up (you get a nice bracelet with a chip to interact with stuff in all the attractions I think) then returning to battle the creature you are hunting. The fight tech here is more involved as your team (of up to 3 only) gear up with a digitized gauntlet and belt and are set into a room with a 3x3 mat. Swing or shoot your weapon to do damage at the screen but also don't stand in the red (physically) and you'll actively have to duck and jump a few attacks to evade them. Pretty fun!

Definitely want to go back here, and back to the nearby glamping site of Grand Chariot which is spectacular in both accommodation and service, driving us up and down the mountain to the nearby Nijigen no Mori themepark and even providing a phone so to call for pickup. The heated floor yurt was amazing and so were the 7 course dinner and breakfast provided. Yes, it was really pricey but I'm willing to pay that again! If you need a cheaper alternative we also stayed at the Fairfield by Marriott Hyogo Awaji Higashiura which was pretty nice, but expect to walk around to find food. :)