Blogs from Odaiba, Tokyo, Japan, Asia
July 2nd 2010
Monorail!!!! Took the monorail to Odaiba, home of Muscle Park, Sega Joypolis (biggest indoor amusement park), Toyota Showroom for new vehicles and technologies, and best of all, Lego clickbrick store!!! We got off at PaletteTown and went to Maccas for breakfast, being the only thing open at 10.45am. (After getting in trouble from wifey for making us late, then discovering the place doesn't open until 11am) We had cinnamon melts and mini pancakes with apple and cream. I had a white grape juice drink. Interesting and delicious. We wandered across the bridge, past the Tokyo Teleport station and stumbled upon what appeared to be a Baskin Robbins grand opening...there were balloons, Baskin Robbins bigwigs everywhere and a general feeling of excitement. We spent up big at the shoe shop before continuing to Muscle Park. This was ... read more
March 27th 2010
To everyone that I have been writing emails to, I would love to respond individually and I will as to details of my day but if I do that, I won't want to write here and then things won't be centralized... which is the number one thing for Japanese people. Huh... either I ate really unhealthily (just cooked beef and rice) or it's really close to my bedtime! 8:26 PM... I got Teka and her roommate Katie, Patrick who invited Al Amanda and Will, and my roommate invited Leslie who got her roommate and Teka invited Elle and her roommate Yasmine. Ok, point is, half of IES was there today though we would split up but it was fun. We met up to go to the Anime convention. The first gaijin moment was when we saw ... read more
March 27th 2010
Most of you that know me are probably not surprised to see that I made it to an Anime Fair/Convention here in Japan. With it being so close by (well a few hours close) how could I NOT go?! And this trip was definitely an adventure... that started VERY early in the morning....... I went with two friends, and we decided that it would be best to get there as early as possible on Saturday to beat as much of the crowd/lines as possible. Unfortunately, that meant leaving the house at 5:30 to catch a 6am shinkansen. From Tokyo Station we made our way to the Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba (getting there around 8). We saw about 100-200 people in line outside (the fair opened at 10) but we were so hungry we decided to ... read more
August 7th 2009
I should probably start this entry with a little explanation, I love the anime show Mobile Suit Gundam. I love the writing, the action, the message, political intrigue, characters, and the freakin awesome robots. There is nothing about that show that I don't like because it's so well thought out and put back together to tell a really good story and makes a strong statement about war. I know the primary reason why the show makes so much money is because they can sell robots to kids and make a lot of money from it, but these other parts make it a show that can be understood and played together perfectly. This year is the 30th anniversary of the original Mobile Suit Gundam and to celebrate this, there has been a giant Gundam built in Odaiba ... read more
August 4th 2009
YAY ODAIBA!!! So me and three of my friends decided to brave the train/subway system and head out to Odaiba to see the to-scale Gundam! (18 ft tall). So we left for Odaiba around 6:30 (originally intended to leave at 5:30 but things came up). We got directions from the front desk and instead of taking the subway which would take an hour to get there we took the JR which was supposed to take only 25 mins and cost just a bit more. Not surprisingly, as soon as we got into Shinjuku station we got very confused. A Japanese man was nice enough to ask if we needed help. (We actually managed to buy our ticket before he came around but then we didn't know which way to go!) So he kinda helped us.. but ... read more
July 8th 2009
Friday we spent in Odaiba, the man made island in Tokyo which as we found up you could easily spend a couple days here. After screwing up and taking the completely wrong train, we finally made it to the central part of the island. First place we stumbled on was the Fuji TV Station, a MASSIVE and amazingly cool building we went up and bought a few knickknacks from the store and some shots of the surrounding area. From there we explored the water front area and ran into some cool wildlife like birds, Jelly Fish, and even a snake which paid us no mind, thankfully. For some reason they have a relatively small Statue of Liberty there.. guess it goes with the Eiffel Tower reconstruction they have in Roppongi. From there we hit up our ... read more
January 27th 2009
Tokyo is full of people and has extremely busy spots. We rented an apartment in Nishi-Shinjuku just 10 minutes walk to Shinjuku station. This station is a maze of underground shops, several department shops, open terraces, highway bus stations and of course many train lines. It is the busiest train station with around 1.6 million people passing by per day. Germany’s busiest station is the new central station in Berlin with around 30000 people per day. But Tokyo has surprisingly quiet areas with narrow lanes perfect to ride bicycle. One of this leisurable spots is Tokyo beach on Odaiba with a bay view towards Tokyo tower. We decided to walk to Odaiba using the land mark rainbow bridge. It takes 30 minutes to cross with the highest point being 53 meters over the sea. The view ... read more
November 15th 2008
Wer sich jetzt fragt, wer Mino ist, der/die sollte erst erfahren, dass es sich um eine analoge Spiegelreflex handelt, mein liebes altes Schaetzchen, die ich nur mitnehme, wenn ich besonders schoene Fotos machen will :) Also, heute war ich allein unterwegs in Odaiba, einer kuenstlich aufgeschuetteten Insel in der Bucht von Tokyo. Dort befindet sich unter anderem auch Fuji-TV. Nach Odaiba faehrt man am besten von Shimbashi aus mit der Yurikamome Linie. Die Bahn ist unbemannt, so dass man (falls nicht gerade besetzt) ganz vorne sitzen und die Aussicht geniessen kann. Mit dieser Bahn ich, nachdem wir die Rainbow Bridge ueberquert haben, die kleine Runde ueber die Insel gefahren, um einen Ueberblick zu bekommen. Man faehrt an den wichtigsten Sehenswuerdigkeit vorbei und mit einbisschen Glueck kann man von der Bahn aus bestimmt schoene Fotos machen. Ausgestiegen ... read more
September 29th 2008
Today we went to the futuristic district of Odaiba. We caught the train to Tokyo Teleport Station and looked around Palette Town. We checked out Megaweb, a fun Toyota exhibition hall, and looked at the colourful Ferris Wheel. Afterwards we walked through Venice Fort, a shopping mall, and had a fantastic meal at one of their restaurants. When we'd finished we walked in the rain to Miraikan, Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and things got very nerdy. We then walked towards the Rainbow Bridge that leads to the heart of Tokyo, and looked at their replica of the Statue of Liberty (we got a better view than I've had of the real one!). After that we went to a huge electronics store and got lost on the escalators, and ended the night in ... read more
August 12th 2008
We stood on the boardwalk, sipping on our drinks and gazing at the Statue of Liberty. It was definately smaller than I imagined, but nontheless I was thrilled, just as I was when I saw the smaller-than-I-imagined Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Lucy let out a wistful "I'd really love to go to New York one day" and with that we were snapped out of our American dream world and back to the Daiba Boardwalk in Odaiba, Tokyo, Japan. Turning our backs on Lady Liberty we continued on our way and asked a group of young foreign (I think they were Indonesian?) men to take a photo of us in front of Rainbow Bridge, they obliged and in turn I had to pose individually for lots of photos with each of the boys. As I've mentioned ... read more
