Odaiba

---

Yesterday afternoon/evening I went to Odaiba with Carrie and Zvi and we later met Becca, Tiana, and Katherine there. Odaiba is a very commercial and entertainment district that was built within the last thirty years or so. The area is built entirely on reclaimed land which is pretty amazing... it looks incredibly futuristic. There is infrastructure (highways, monorail tracks, etc. etc.) winding in and out of the enromous skyrise buildings, there are buildings that look as though they belong in outerspace or something. It is really quite incredible and almost inhuman. We took the monorail there which gave us an amazing perspective of the city. The monorail is basically what is sounds like - a train that runs on one track. It is like those trains that they have in Disney Land. And I think it is more fun that the ones in Disney Land! It took us around and above all of these amazing skyscrapers and we had an excellent view of the elevated gardens and skywalks that twist around the city. We went over Tokyo bay and saw all of the shipping yards and the huge boats that are docked in the many ports. The monorail runs above and next to all of these enromous 12-lane highways and so we had a great view of the huge infrastructure. And then it took us across the Rainbow Bridge which is quite an amazing thing. I have no idea how it was built, blows my mind that something so huge could be conceived and then constructed!
When we got to Odaiba it was drizzling a tiny bit, but we walked around outside for a long time. There was a replica of the Statue of Liberty so we took pictures of us trying to grab her boobs. I've actually never seen the real Statue of Liberty even though I've been to NYC dozens of times. The closest I've come to seeing it was when I stayed in that fancy apartment with my roommate Lisa last winter. There are a bunch of really big shopping malls in Odaiba that we went into and one of them was made to look like we were outside in a European city. There were fake building facades with columns and greek-looking statues and inside each of these "buildings" was a store. And the ceiling of this mall was bright blue as if we were really outside. There was even a big fountain the center of the mall. A girl dressed up as an elf was walking around taking pictures of people so we got her to take one of Zvi, Carrie, and I next to the water fountain. Carrie and I each found coats that we wanted to buy, but fotunately for our wallets by the time we decided to go back and buy them the store was closed.
So most of Odaiba is like a piece of the future, but there was a little entertainment area which was like a bubble of the past... it reminded me a lot of the New Jersey Boardwalk that Annie's family took me to the past couple of summers. While we were waiting for the others to meet us, Zvy, Carrie, and I went into a bowling alley that boasted all you can bowl all night long for 1600Y. We decided not to bowl though and instead went into this huge arcade where there were pachinko and other casino machines, and tons of other Japanese arcade games. I remember the first time I saw one of these entertainment buildings I was so overwhelmed by all of the noise and light, but it seems as though I have become acclimated (maybe addicted?) to all of this Japanese stimuli. We went into this corner of the arcade that had dozens of "picura" machines. I might have the name wrong... but these machines are little booths where you get your pictures taken lots of times and then you go to this other little booth where you can edit and draw on the pictures and then they print them out for you. As simple as the concept is, it entertained us for SUCH a long time. We made faces and fooled around in the booth and drew on the pictures for like an hour. The pictures are printed on sticker paper, so most Japanese teenagers have these little photographs all over their mobile phones. Such a cool thing.
After getting pictures we went into the Toyota showroom. There were hundreds of models of new cars that we could sit in. We also went on this "ride" which was basically a demonstration of a new technology for automatic driving. We got into a tiny two passanger car (Zvy had to ride by himself) and the car would automatically drive... we didn't have to steer or anything, it somehow knew when to turn and when to stop or speed up. The track that the car went on drove around the inside of the building and then outside to the highway. We didn't go on the real highway, but a little road adjacent to the highway. The radio was tuned to a very mellow french jazz station. When we got out of the car, there were three employees of Toyota there to greet us and give us little Hershey's kisses (I think the research for this kind of car might be sponsored in part by Hershey). It was funny to have so many people there waiting for us, but it seems to be common in Japan for there to be many employees each doing little jobs that perhaps in the US would be done by a single person. We are learning in my social organization class that Japan is a process based society while the US is a task based society. Basically what this means is that Japan goes through the steps and the process while the US is focused only on the end product.
Anyway, after our little joy ride we met up with the other girls. Everyone was in a really good mood and kind of excited to be in such a cool place. We went on a HUGE ferris wheel which had a 150 foot diameter and was apparently in the Guiness Book of World Records in the late 1990s for being the biggest ferris wheel in the world. I think there might be a bigger one somewhere else now. It was only 500Y for each of the six of us and we all got to go into the same little capsul together. It went very slowly, took 16 minutes to complete the circle. We took a million pictures of the view from the top which was incredible. I was a little bit afraid of heights, but it was definitely worth it to see all of Tokyo from way up high. While on the ferris wheel we spotted this other ride where they take you like 100 feet into the air and then drop you! (Annie: it was just like the one that we did with John and Jill at the boardwalk this summer). I didn't really want to go on it at first, but finally everyone made me. Becca and I sat together and held hands as they hoisted us ever so slowly to the top. We stayed up there for a really long time and just as our adrenaline was settling down they dropped us! WHOOOOOOOO hoooo it was so scary but everyone LOVED it. We were all so giddy after we got off.
Then we went to this fast food restaurant and had amazing french fries for dinner. We sat in the restaurant for a really long time just laughing and joking around. Tiana had somehow messed up her order while she was speaking in Japanese and got an extra piece of fried chicken when she thought she was getting a hamburger. Oops.
After dinner we walked around for a little longer, but things were starting to close down, and then we caught the monorail back into the main part of the city. Tiana and I got to sit at the very front of the train and the view was even more incredible. I could sit on the monorail for hours and be entertained. If they let me I think I would move onto the monorail and just live there next semester.
Anyway, I hope that everyone is having a good time with their last classes and that no one is too stressed out. Can't wait to come home and see everyone!

---