Prepare for the Thunderdome

Imagine a giant baseball stadium surrounded by a carnival, squashed into a city block with a space museum, a shopping centre or three, and few office blocks and you have the Tokyo Dome.

Observations: A lot of tourists complain about the apparently random operating hours of the attractions around the Tokyo Dome, but to us it appeared to be based on school hours. Which kinda makes a lot of sense - it minimises the amount of sound generated by the rides during business hours, the attractions are all open for the school kids after school.

They have a roller coaster called the Thunder Dolphin but don't be fooled by the name - it's a dolphin that weaves in and out of buildings. It's actually a pretty good ride though, fracken scary but not because you think it's going to fall apart and it's pretty smooth even though it sounds like a rattler.

Our Japanese hosts were typically friendly and crazy helpful - and we got an applause from them when we returned - and the next group of riders joined in...? Maybe they all saw our mid-ride photos and thought we needed it... :/

Some how they managed to fit some foods trucks in the middle, though I have no idea how they actually manage to drive in since it's a sunken food court with a log flume and open air stage one one side - no doubt so hidden elevators and robots or something. IKEA ain't got nothing on Tokyo in terms of creative use of space.

The guy I ordered from was a super friendly hipster-teenage-kid-living-for-the-now, who wouldn't have been out of place in a Valley market stall, only everything is in Japanese. The kebab stall next to his was manned by a gaijin who was regularly getting his photo taken by some schoolgirls as he made ice cream. No one ordered the kebabs. This place is so kooky sometimes.

https://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/en/tourists/

Kaiju Collected: One ride of the Thunder Dolphin and a round of applause.Read more