Day 11: Odaiba

Today I decided to go to Odaiba, an artifical island reclaimed from the sea but also full of popular tourist destinations! Last time I was in Tokyo, I visited, but I basically only remember seeing the giant Gundam and visiting teamLab Borderless, a digital art experience that closed last December to be moved elsewhere in Tokyo. I figured it would be good to see some new things and also because I don't have the creativity, I'm basically using the guidebook given to me by the metro worker in Tsukiji as a checklist instead of a series of recommendations.

Getting to Odaiba is actually a little inconvenient, and for me, it took as long to get to Odaiba as it had to get to the very outskirts of Tokyo. This is mostly due to having to take multiple transfers but even on the way back I didn't have any transfers and it still took an hour because I had lots of walking on both ends.

When I got to Odaiba, the first thing I noticed was that it was incredibly flat. I was literally standing there thinking that you could really tell the entire island was artificial because the paved sidewalk didn't have any cracking or do that thing where on brick sidewalks individual bricks begin tilting. I actually literally just took a photo of the ground so I would be sure to remember, but honestly, how could I forget??

The next thing I noticed was that the scale of everything was really big horizontally. I had planned my walk looking at the map and thought oh it's just a few buildings NBD, but the buildings were actually mall-sized buildings so I ended up walking a lot further than expected! There were some tall buildings but overall it was much less tall than other parts of Tokyo and more spread out. There was seemingly a higher volume of car traffic as well, but that's just anecdotal.

My first stop on my schedule was Ariake Garden, a shopping mall. It was mentioned in the guidebook as a new mall (finished in 2020) with lots of stores so I went to see what the hubbub was about.

It was basically just a regular mall. Plus the observation decks weren't the best views since they faced away from the city and overlooked basically just the parking lot. The mall itself was pretty good overall and (spoiler alert) was the nicest of the 4 (!!) malls I would visit today.

It was cool to see them setting up an event that will be held next week called the "Outdoor Front". The picture above shows some of the tents that I think are being used for it. I keep going to things at the wrong time it seems. I should work on that a bit.

After using Google Maps to navigate to the next destination, I realized I should have skipped this mall since it was a 20 minute walk to the next place (I might have also been able to use the train for slightly less time). Ariake Garden was nice, but it was also separated from everything else by a decent walk. It does have a Coliseum and Tennis Complex next door, so I would maybe recommend if you are in the area for those? Otherwise maybe don't go if you are on a time budget.

I personally wanted to make it to both of my destinations that had early-ish closing times, so I decided to just grab a crepe at Ariake Garden's Natural Crepe instead of sitting down for lunch.

I got the limited edition Sakura Special and it was really good! I'd recommend it if you end up in the area in the next like 2 weeks LOL

At the end of my 20 minute walk, I found myself at the Tokyo Water Science Museum. This museum seemed pretty cool and was free, but was empty when I visited. There is only very limited English here and I'm pretty sure they thought I knew Japanese because when I walked in they gave me like a 2 minute walk through their brochure while just sat there saying "hai" over and over again. Or they just wanted to have something to do since it was so empty.

Either way, this is very clearly a children's museum. There is an 'Aqua Laboratory' that you can play with to do water experiments and a few areas that talk about how water is used in everyday life. I think it would be OK to bring kids here to play with the exhibits and have fun but if you are trying to learn, it would be hard unless you understood Japanese. There is an English brochure online that I used a bit, but it doesn't go into each specific exhibit so you can't follow along with videos or things like that. I really liked the exhibits but wish my Japanese was better!

After leaving this museum, I had another 20 minute walk to another museum, The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Also known as Miraikan (The Future Museum), I had heard that it would have a lot of cool science exhibits. Since I only had 1.5 hours until it closed, I got the ticket to see only the permanent exhibits and headed in.

A temporary exhibit opening tomorrow (drats!) caught my eye "Life on the Moon – A New Era of Space Exploration" but it was a special exhibit so I wouldn't have had access anyway. The permanent exhibits were really cool though. My personal favorites were the one about particle accelerators and one basically about sending information through the internet.

Most of the exhibits were cool or eye-catching though. The giant earth globe with clouds and everything was pretty cool and definitely one of the first things I noticed when I entered the building.

I don't want to spoil everything (or am I just being lazy about typing??), but I would for sure recommend visiting Miraikan if you are into science and/or technology. I spent the entire time there until closing and probably only saw half the exhibits in detail. There were some I would have skipped anyway but if I were to go again I'd probably allocate like 2.5 hrs or something.

The one other thing I wanted to see before it closed was the the Fuji TV Hachitama Observation Deck. It closed an hour later so I booked it over. Luckily I didn't need directions because the Fuji TV building is very easy to distinguish:

The observation deck is in the giant spherical part on the 25th floor. After paying the ¥700 (I could have got an anime figure!), I was ushering into an elevator and sent to the top. Now let me start off by saying, it's definitely not worth paying the ¥700 but the views were pretty good. I could see both Tokyo Tower and Skytree pretty clearly, as well as a few other landmarks. (Skytree is not in the below photo, don't spend time looking for it haha)

Other than the view, I found the rest of the experience to be subpar. Since it was indoors, it felt a little stuffy and the hot, even though it was a rather pleasant day outside. There was a little shop area with crane games and stuff but I felt they were both overpriced and stocked with toys that were kind of dated. There was also construction going on (for an event that starts tomorrow!!!) that was kind of loud. The exhibit appears to be for an artist that I don't know anything about and the viewing price will be ¥1,200 in that period though, so maybe it's good that I came today. I found some info about the exhibit on this site called portalfield, which I'm only mentioning because it's so similar to my own last name. LOL

I also found out that modern day phones have really good zooming and stabilization. For reference I had taken this photo from the observation deck facing the airport.

When the plane was closer to landing, I couldn't really see it at all with my naked eye but my phone was able to capture it and compensate for my shaking hands and keep the plane relatively steady even at such a high level of zoom. I basically never take photos outside of this blog I've been doing, so I hadn't realized! Even though it's pretty blurry, I still think that's really incredible on a phone I just carry around with me everywhere.

All-in-all, I'd probably say skip this observation deck since I don't personally think it's worth it for the price. It's really close to the other attractions in Odaiba though, so maybe go to just take pictures of the cool looking Fuji TV building itself? If you do end up going, don't go so close to sundown or the sun will be blinding and ruin any potential you have of seeing Mount Fuji.

After actually making it to all of the places that would possibly close before I left Odaiba, I decided to take a look at the three malls in the area. The first, DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, required just a small bit of back-tracking. Inside were the regular stores you'd usually find but also Round1, an entertainment venue containing various fun things to do such as bowling, karaoke, arcade games, and crane games. I played crane games for a bit, but stopped after only spending a small amount and not getting any closer to winning anything.

There is also a giant Gundam store in this mall, but it was closing by the time I got there and I'm not super interested in Gundam so I didn't go in. Related to the giant Gundam store is the actual giant Gundam outside the mall. This dude is massive.

After leaving, I headed to Aqua City, a mall on the opposite side of the street. I don't know if it's intended to be a competition but Aqua City also had it's own giant statue outside, something that some of you in the crowd may recognize.

Overall the interior of the mall felt dated and uncool. I didn't take any pictures but if you've ever been to a dying mall, it felt like that to me. It was much less busy than DiverCity and even though it was dinner time, none of the (not many) restaurants seemed very busy. There were also a few of those eye-rolly photo-spots that people love, like the giant LOVE letters and one that was KISS with a bunch of those love locks or whatever. IDK that's at least a point off for me. lol

Right next door to Aqua City is DECKS Tokyo Beach, the final mall I planned to look at today. While DECKS also felt a bit dated, it seemed a bit more intentional and retro (LOL so unfair isn't it).

On the higher levels, it is actually intentional since one floor is basically a recreation of a 1960s Japanese shopping street.

This floor also has the Odaiba Takoyaki Museum, which contrary to its name is actually a bunch of Osaka-style takoyaki restaurants. I wasn't in the mood for takoyaki this time but it did seem pretty cool.

I didn't find anything I wanted to eat in any of the three malls so I took one last look at the sunset and headed to the station.

It was rush hour and the trains were packed but I was able to find a seat, which I was thankful to have for my 45 minute train ride after such a long day. Rather, such a full day!

When I got off at my stop, I saw a CoCo Curry and stopped in since I had wanted to try it previously. It was a little weird since I was unsure how to order and you're supposed to see yourself here (which is abnormal in a lot of sit down places, even causal ones here). Ordering turned out to be a QR code at the table so I got the regular curry with pork katsu. CoCo Curry apparently has 10 spice levels but I wanted to try the regular first to see if it was spicy at all. It wasn't, so if I go again next time I will consider jumping straight to 4 or 5. It couldn't be that bad right?

The curry and pork was actually really good and the pork katsu was incredibly fresh. In fact, I saw them stop the cooking timer for my katsu and I had it in front of me like 15 seconds later!

One thing I've been thinking about lately is actually related to food. In Japan, as far as I can tell, there is no correlation between quality of food and it's cost. Or even the location you get the food in. Some of the nicer restaurants in nice malls in nice parts have town have cost less than far worse meals for much more money at family restaurants just on random streets. I got some delicious dango the other day on the street for ¥150, I got another set of 3 delicious dango at 7/11 for ¥168. How is that even possible? That's like $1.25 for a very filling dessert? Or desert for 3 people!

IDK. I'm sure there is some rhyme or reason but I don't know the parameters to this mysterious formula. Food in restaurants is definitely cheaper here than Seattle, and probably even Columbus. I think overall the baseline for quality is higher as well. I wouldn't really be afraid to eat somewhere with 2 or 3 stars here like I would be in the states.

Anyway regardless of all that, I plan on continuing to eat good food while I'm here so whatever.