Festival Gate

The first evening in Osaka was spent taking a little mini trip to the Namba district and the first port of call would be the Festival Gate shopping complex. As well as containing several shops and eating places, which we weren't interested in, it also housed a custom built coaster, which we were!

The econonmy in Japan had been taking a bit of a hit in recent years and the theme parks had taken a serious bruising, perhaps this explained the low attendances we had seen to date. Prior to our departure we'd heard that the future of Festival Gate had been shaky to say the least and there was a chance that it would be closed, but we headed out all the same.

When we got there we were pleased to discover that the Delphis coaster was running so this evening would be a nice bonus. The place looked dead too so it would be great to have the coaster to ourselves. The reason why it wasn't in the shot was because it was waiting in the station for us to ride it.

When we got there the train wasn't as empty as we'd thought. Another group of people from the club had beaten us to it. We thought we'd left these guys at the train station but they'd clearly found a quicker way to get to here than us, and the first ride of the night would be their's. Jammy gits!

An upside to this however was that the next ride was our's and only our's and so I could also guarantee myself a front row seat.

The ride itself was alright but I think the experience had been enhanced by it's location as the idea of shooting through a mall was an interesting one. If the same ride had been standing out in the open it wouldn't have been as exciting.

The ride did benefit from some nice theming though. In fact the entire complex had a really nice sea-faring theme to it, even though it was deserted. Subsequent investigation has shown that the reason why Festival Gate was no longer turning in a profit was because the recently opened Universal Studios had stolen its public.

Delphis 1997-2006 RIP

Namba