Our last day in Japan! I feel sad that despite spending almost two weeks here, we have just barely covered a tiny fraction of all the things to see in this country, and even in one city. But at the same time, I am itching to get back to the comforts our home, and stop living out of a suitcase.
We checked out of the hotel in the morning, but the flight is not till late at night, so we basically have a whole day to spend in Tokyo.
We decided not to do any shopping since we have already packed out bags (well, we ended up buying quite a few items from Venus Fort – but more about that later).
So we wanted to visit a location where we can essentially spend the whole day, and leave whenever we wanted.
After doing some research, we decided to visit Odaiba (お台場). This is a huge artificial island built out of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay. I thought the island was built using post war technology, but it turned out it was actually reclaimed in the mid 19th century for use by the the shogunate (as a fortress to protect Japan from an attack from the sea).
These days, Odaiba is a powerful symbol of modern Tokyo – with lots of ultra-modern buildings looking like they could be sets from a science fiction film. The area is full of museums, theme parks, shopping centres, hotels and luxury apartment buildings (interestingly enough called “mansions” in Japan).
We went back to Shimbashi Station (which we visited on Day 1) but this time our objective was to catch the “Yurikamome” (ゆりかもめ, named after a black headed seagull common in Tokyo Bay) – this is a popular name for the Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Waterfront Line (東京臨海新交通臨海線) – a completely automated (driver-less) elevated transit system. According to Wikipedia, the Yurikamome is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a monorail, but the trains run with “rubber-tired wheels on elevated concrete track guided by the side walls.”
Inside the Yurikamome.
Leaving Shinbashi Station (新橋駅) and arriving at Shiodome Station (汐留駅).
Our first sight of the Rainbow Bridge – it was completed in the mid-90s and nearly 800m long. The train will go across the Rainbow Bridge underneath the Daiba route of the Shuto Expressway.
This ship is docked right next to the Metropolitan expressway.
This is the station for 船の科学館 公式 (Museum of Maritime Science).
The museum building itself is shaped like a ship.
We passed through a large shopping centre called DECKS with a Sega Joypolis – supposedly the largest indoor amusement centre in Japan.
Next building is the Miraikan (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) (日本科学未来館). “Miraikan” means “Future Hall” and the full Japanese name for the museum translates to “Japan Future Science Hall”.
This large imposing inverted U shaped building is Telecom Center – it has a good observation deck.
This long L-shaped park (called the Symbol Promenade Park) is on the other side of the tracks from Telecom Center.
I really like the futuristic Fuji Television building.
We stopped at Palette Town at Aomi station (青海駅) – “Aomi” means “blue sea” and appropriately enough there is a good view of Tokyo Bay from the station. This is a shopping mall and entertainment complex containing the Daikanransha (大観覧車) – a giant red ferris wheel that was the world’s largest when it was built in 1999. It also contains Toyota’s showcase centre called Mega Web, and a huge shopping centre called Venus Fort designed to look like a European medieval walled town. Please refer to additional posts in this blog documenting our experiences there.
After Palette Town, we traveled on the Yurikamome all the way to the end of the line – Toyosu station (豊洲駅). There are some interesting architectural landmarks here, including the Hotel Trusty Bayside – twin towers connected by a bridge section at the top, the massive TFT building, the Panasonic Center (Risupia), the future site of the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market (also known as the Tsukiji Fish Market), and the Shionome river.
On the way back, we passed through the Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center), the Partire Tokyo Bay Wedding Village (a wedding centre full of mock grand buildings a la Disney), the Dream Bridge, Aqua City, the Odaiba Seaside water park, and some huge apartment buildings around Odaibakaihinkoen (お台場海浜公園) -literally “Odaiba beach park”. Soon we went across the Rainbow Bridge again, and then back to Shinbashi.
Full set of photos:
