We decided to split up for this day, you hang out with someone for 6 days straight and it'll drive you insane too! Anyway, we both headed towards Odaiba, but we made our own way there and our own plans. I decided to partake in a little shopping and sightseeing.
Odaiba is a man made island built to protect Tokyo from sea attacks in the Edo period, (Daiba means fort) The island nowadays is more of a shopping district with some rather amazing sights and sounds
I got off the train at Odaiba Kahinkoen and headed towards the docks, the docks is a small shopping mall with various brand name shops with stalls, mainly beach clothing shops like Billabong, Adidas and Vans. I strolled around there looking at the western brands before heading to the next mall which is called Aquacity, which has more of a flea-market feel, and it really did feel quite quaint, there were various bric and brac stores which felt quite refreshing, considering that most of the stores/stalls I've seen in Japan thus far are of western brands. I found various nostalgic shops within this mall and a retro arcade which was fun to walk around on (and obviously play on!)
Grabbed some lunch at the Kua 'aina burger branch, which was brilliant, I had a draft beer, avocado burger and some chips for 1,400yen (about £12) whilst sitting looking out over the pier... and at a statue of liberty replica... Damn you, you damn dirty apes!
Once I finished faffing about with the shops I started ticking off some things on my sightseeing list, I checked out the Fuji TV station (home of a popular TV station in Japan) which was very busy, I was going to pay the 500 yen fee to get to the top, but I was already cutting my schedule a bit fine already, so I just walked around their amazing visual museum and took in the sights.
From there I set a course to the giant ferris wheel, on the way I spotted a giant arcade, and managed to win myself a giant Pokemon plush, maybe it's the present for the dog?! Got to the ferris wheel and saw a massive queue and a sign saying something like "estimated time 3 hours" so I took some pictures and went on my merry way.
Next up was the Panasonic building, in here they show off the latest technologies that they are working on, and they have some spectacular stuff in there to mess about with, like a HD waterproof camera, a 100% electric Tesla sports car! and some other neat gubbings, it was quite a trek from the ferris wheel to here, and I thought I was lost so I asked a guy watching over a construction site for directions, (in Japan they usually hire someone to stand outside of a construction site, I believe this is to inform and aide the public and organise and potential deliveries.) Anyway, instead of pointing where I needed to go, Hiro just walked me there, it was like another 1.5k out, that was some pretty good service. He seemed to speak English really well, and I was trying my best to throw some basic Japanese at him.
I left the Panasonic building and saw "Tokyo Big Sight" which was built in 1996, is mainly used for conventions, it's quite an obscure piece of architecture, to describe it I'd say that it looks like 4 upside down pyramids! I got some good shots and headed back to the station.
Met up with Dan at half 6 and went to get some Sushi at our local Sushi place, which is fantastic! I was pretty hungry and had 10 plates and a couple of beers, and it still cost less than £20! We traded stories and eventually went for a beer at the one cafe/pub we found in Asakusa, a good day all round I'd say.
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