FujiQ

I am a roller coaster freak! And Japan offers some pretty awesome coasters. The best experience I had here was the Thunder Dolphin at Tokyo Dome City. I remember being sh*t scared during the drop...so much so that I couldn't even let out a tiny yelp..forget about the usual scream. However, this time, when we went to Tokyo Dome, the Thunder Dolphin was closed for maintenance. Then, it was during my welcome party that my boss suggested me to go to FujiQ Highlands - which is THE place for roller coasters. 

Last Tuesday was a holiday for us. So me and Mustafa decided to check out FujiQ. I saw some insane videos of the coasters at FujiQ on youtube and was very excited. I woke up at 7:30 am that day with a heavy hangover thanks to the previous night's pub hopping experience. Its another story that we wanted to hop pubs but ended up staying at the first one for 3 hours and thereby the pub hopping experience ended up being more of a drinking marathon. Anyways, I dragged my body to the shower in the morning and was feeling much much better after my morning cup of coffee! 

FujiQ is situated very near to Mount Fuji. So, going to FujiQ is a lengthy affair. You have to board a train to Shinjuku which takes 40 minutes from Kawasaki. Then you have 2 choices, either go via Bus to FujiQ Highlands or take the train. The bus takes 2 hours but is still faster than the train. Moreover its fun to ride in a bus in Japan and hence it was a pretty easy decision for us. But as soon as we reached the Bus station, the ticket lady told us that we have to wait for an hour since the bus was booked. We thought we would explore Shinjuku till then but as luck would have it, someone cancelled and we were pushed to an earlier slot. We reached there after 1.5 hours or so but the ride was pretty beautiful. FujiQ is very close to Mount Fuji, so the ride was full of empty fields and mountains. As soon as we reached there, we were greeted by the monstrous presence of Fujiyama - one of the awesome roller coaster this park had. Ohh boy..me and Mustafa were giggling like little girls in anticipation to ride Fujiyama. After paying a hefty 4500 Yen for an all day pass, we rushed towards Fujiyama.

Fujiyama

Fujiyama is a no nonsense roller coaster. Its a straight up scary, fast and a quite lengthy roller coaster experience! You start with a 70 m ascent. I swear after 40 m, you start thinking - its enough!..start going down already!! But it takes you to the apex and suddenly the pulley stops and there is a momentary silence when all you hear is the wind blowing. And then *WHAM*..the drop! which just keeps going on and on and on. Usually in most of the roller coasters, after the initial drop, the rest of the ride is pretty ordinary. But not this one! It just goes on and on. It would twist and turn you rather violently. I swear I was clenching my teeth most of the time. When it stops, you find your heart is pounding away, you are breathing heavily than usual and your face is flustered! Not to mention it messes up your hair-do!

Eejiyanaika

While waiting for Fujiyama, we saw this other coaster on which the riders were actually turning upside down on their seats during the ride!! It was insane. Already pretty high with the adrenaline pumping experience of Fujiyama, we rushed towards Eijiyanaika. The wait was very loong. We waited for almost 2 hours but it was sooo worth the time. You flip, you rotate, you turn on your seats while the coaster itself is doing its own thing! Man! this was scarier than Fujiyama because it was very difficult to anticipate what was about to happen. You are kind of suspended from the rails and thrown around like a toy! The best part again is the initial climb but you actually face the opposite side, so you never know how far up you will go till the descent. But when that metal clanking stops, you know the time is up. And boy when it drops, you suddenly flip on your seat and face down with nothing in between you and the earth. Jeez! was it scary. And after that you dont know whats happening. You are upside down, facing up, thrown from the sides...ohh..I had the ride of my life.

Takabisha

Next up, was Takabisha. During the wait, they show you a virtual run of the coaster explaining each segment with a mean background score. The highlight is the 90 degree ascent and the 121 degree free fall! Yes! .. a 121 degree free fall!. There is a bump in the descent which throws you out of your seats during that free fall!!! 

The ride starts with pushing the rider into darkness. Its pitch black and suddenly it drops you into the darkness! You feel as if you are falling straight down to hell! Then after a heartline roll and loads of other thrilling twists and turns, you stop momentarily before you are launched at 100 kmph. And its 0-100 in like 2 seconds! Soon, you find yourself on a vertical lift. You are facing the sky and a bit worried about falling down...but its beautiful. It does not go that high though, but the drop is a seat throwing experience. Its awesome! The total ride lasts 2 minutes and by the end of it..you couldn't have asked for more.

With the huge waiting line in all the rides, unless you go really early, you wont be able to cover everything. Sadly, we missed Dodonpa..which is another coaster worth riding. Ahh..maybe next time. I am pretty sure I would visit FujiQ Highlands every chance I get to come to Japan. 

Scribe - Mark of Teja

I had first seen Scribe in a GIR gig a few years back. Whenever I see them, they turn out to be the most entertaining band of the night, even though I am not a big fan of the genre they play. They have soo much fun on-stage and Vishwesh's quirky voices keeps everyone interested. They are truly a unique band. Mixing bollywood elements with metal is not something which a metal band typically does or something which appeals to the average "Bollywood hating" metal head . But these guys pull it off big time.

Anyways coming back to the review, Scribe hits the mark with this awesome collection of songs. Vishwesh's vocals (voices) are insane and soo are the million guitar riffs on this album. I swear Prashant and Akshay are  riff machines. They belt out one monster riff after the next.
The album starts with a slow instrumental called Seeds but then it gives way to this monstrous opening to RSVP. Vishwesh wastes no time in getting in with his crazy vocals. Each song on this album has some really tasty bits thrown in between; this one has it briefly at 0:50 and then again at 2:34 and 3:24. You have to control yourself from jumping around listening to 'em.
After RSVP comes the uniquely titled - I love you Pav Bhaji. Talk about fun song titles. This one is a rollercoaster. It has insane tight rhythm sections. The riff at 0:46 would get stuck in your head till eternity. The tasty bits are at 1:32 when Vishwesh starts chattering away on how to make Pav Bhaji. Ohh man..its soo awesome and soo damn funny esp. when he ends it with "Butter. Nimbu. Kanda. La!" The riff immediately after that, till the end with the chorus would surely make the crowds go insane!
Up next is Street Archana and Vice Versha, which for me, is the best song in the album. When I heard the insane opening riff, I couldn't help myself humming the tune for the next week. And everyone around was like - "what the f*ck are you humming!?" The chorus is a nice melodic section with very nice clean vocals. The tasty bits are right at the beginning at 0:00. That riff has soo much .. (uhh..how do I put it) ...cha-pow!! (I swear that's all I could come up with after thinking on it for 5 minutes). Oohh and did I mention it has lyrics from Street Fighter? Vishwesh throws in Hadoken and Shoryuken! in between the verses. These guys are crazy!
M Power begins where Street Archana left off. It has these awesome stop start sections, and the song structure is soo beautiful. It has nice mix of melodic as well as these face melting heavy riffs. The tasty bits are at 1:48 where the band goes insane and at 3:03 continuing till the end. Awesome guitars and kick ass drumming.
Up next is a fun, friendly Dum hai toh aage aa! The song is fast and the chorus is fun with the ta-ta-tada in the background! Most of the song is sung with clean vocals...pretty rock and roll! The tasty bit is at 1:28 when the solo starts. Awesome stuff. It also has a nice music video.
After a brief instrumental (which I found irritating) comes the title track Mark of Teja - the Andaz Apna Apna influenced instrumental! I swear when I heard that bit from Andaz Apna Apna (one of my fav movies) at 0:32, I was laughing my as* off! And suddenly the album title made sense to me. Remember those epic lines? - "Main Teja hoon...mark idhar hai!" Ohh man...anyways, this is one of the best instrumentals ever - very heavy, with an awesome, awesome structure (yes...2 awesomes!). It has a million riffs one after the other laced intricately to provide a nice, kind of a progressive "djent" sound. This is again my fav song on the album (what?...a guy cant have 2 favourite songs in an album??!). There are tons of tasty bits starting from the intro at 0:00 to the Andaz Apna Apna tune at 0:32. Further the tastiest bit is at 2:33 and its THE best part. There's another one at 3:03 where they do the extended Andaz Apna Apna thing. Awesome song!
Up next is DemonPra (the song names..I tell you!..I am smiling as I am writing this). Another neck snapping song with almost(?) rap style vocals. Vishwesh's talent of voices comes alive at 1:50. The tasty bit is the riff at 0:38. I just love that riff right there. It would make you jump whenever you listen to it.
Kamla's back starts off slowly before the heavy rhythm section takes over. This song is pretty melodic and has these quiet clean sections thrown in.
"Gunda banneke liye, danger dikhna mangta!"...I swear, thats how the next song, Dracula 1234 starts. I mean, who would not sit up and take notice with that opener. Dracula has all the elements of a Scribe song elevated to the next level...growls, clean bits, quirky voices, marathi/hindi one liners, and one tight monster riff after another (they literally go insane). Its the most fun track in the album. Tasty bits are all the lyrics that was sung by Vishwesh. He should consider dubbing for cartoons with all these awesome voices!
Dont Say  is a slow instrumental...again kinda irritating. It stops the flow and all the fun (strictly my opinion).
Judge Bread has a nice dirty riff providing background to a court hearing. It soon breaks into a groovy section before giving in to some nice meaty rhythm sections. Its a catchy song with nice grooves. A nice way to end the album.

Whew! Mark of Teja has to be one of the best album I heard this year. I cant wait for their next one. It would be a tough task to top this one..that's for sure!                

Promoted

Ohh boy..talk about mixed feelings! Work's in a crisis. Its a full on race to the deadline. And I get this mail about my unexepected midterm promotion! From now on, I am an Associate Project Manager. Sounds fancy but the job more or less remains the same - रगड़ते रहो! 

Damp Week

Oh boy! It never stopped raining since the last weekend! There was a brief sunny afternoon on Wednesday but other than that, the rain has been a major damper. And the cold winds are making it worse. Its 2:00 pm now and its like 5 degrees outside! The worst part is that the forecast for the next week is no different. 

Anyways, I had my welcome party here on Thursday night. We went to this tempura place in Musashi Mizonokuchi called Tempura Tsunahachi. It was fun. We hung out, had a couple of beers and tried various tempuras..including an unbelievable Ice cream Tempura! How did they manage to deep fry something which had ice cream inside it, is a mystery. I also tried raw squid...something which is surprisingly not as bad as it sounds. People who like fish..I mean like who *really* like that fishy smell would be able to handle it. And hey!..it goes very well with beer! Anyways, it was a different experience but real fun!

Well apart from that, the week was a dull one. The weekend would also most probably be an uneventful one with the rain messing up all our plans! :'(

Randomizing

Its Saturday morning again. We had thought of going to Odaiba but decided against it. Both me and Mustafa have to catch up with work. Its been a difficult week. Shifting release deadlines is a b*tch! Worst of all, its embarrassing. Bah!..lets not talk about work! 

It snowed on Wednesday! It was soo cool. I got up on Wednesday morning and it was very dark and cloudy. By the time I finished making breakfast and was enjoying my morning coffee (the one good thing during weekdays!), I saw an update on Facebook about "heavy snowfall in Tokyo". I rushed to my window just to find ...."heavy snowfall in Tokyo" indeed!!! It was really awesome. The train ride to office in the snow was soo beautiful and magical! It snowed for 5 hours straight ... almost till the evening. But to our surprise, by the time we reached Kawasaki, it was spic and span again! There was no sign of snow on the streets or the roads. In fact the snow was neatly wrapped around the base of the trees and lined along with the flowers on the street landscaping! I swear, Japanese are awesome in this. I love the integrity with which they do things! If a receipt gets torn off abruptly at one end, these guys take a scissor and cut the edges to make it symmetrical! 

Anyways,  its bright and sunny now. Probably I will go around for a walk in the evening. Nothing much to do over the weekend. Mustafa is going off with his mysterious friends tomorrow. I bet its his girlfriend...he's not telling me clearly who, what, where, why he's going! So that just leaves me here. But I'd also rather venture out on my own rather than spend time locked in the apartment. I just hope the weather is fine. 

Lastly, check this out. I was there...and right now I'm feeling soooo nostalgic *sigh*!