Day 11 – Odaiba

I’ve developed a bit of a habit that instead of just making a break for the nearest station as soon as I leave the hotel, I wander towards a station a couple of stops away.  Not only is this good exercise, but I also get to see a lot of things I’d otherwise miss.  Today I decided to head for Akihabara station from my hotel.  I noticed a few interesting locations on my way there.

A large... I hesitate to call it a river since it has more in common with a stormwater drain or flood mitigation measure. Whatever it is, there is plenty of extra height on those walls in the event of a tsunami or flood.

I'm not sure whether it's advertising that there is a 1:1 scale mecha somewhere, or if that picture itself is 1:1 scale.

It's a cafe called Gundam Cafe. I reckon that's awesome enough to stand on its own without a witty (or witless) caption.

Akihabara Station. The Gundam Cafe is directly to my left.

Since there was no rain forecast to fall from the ominous clouds sitting overhead, I decided to take a chance and visit Odaiba, a set of man-made islands in Tokyo bay, joined together by road bridges and a raised automated train system.  It’s an area with very futuristic architecture and many manufacturers have museums and showrooms there.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many photos inside them, but there was still plenty going on and the outdoor architecture was interesting enough!

I decided to ride the elevated driverless train to the end of the line to see where everything was, and then station hop back between the interesting locations.  That way I had an idea of the lay of the land.  I’ll skip the trip to the end of the line here and just work my way backwards.

There's a nicely landscaped park right at the end of the line. There were a lot of kids out today though, so in order to avoid getting in trouble with the authorities, I settled for a shot of the foreshore.

Looking the other way.

It’s important to note that the man-made islands were constructed during the 80s boom, and then the economic bubble burst in the 90s.  There are some fairly sobering reminders of that sudden decline which remain in Odaiba today.

This temporary fencing is all over the place, fencing off vacant lots and footpaths that have deteriorated over time. Some of it has been here for years.

A vacant lot with fencing overgrown from years of neglect.

Near the next station along, which is surrounded by empty plots of land, stands this grand bridge. It appears to be a recent construction, giving some hope for new life in this long-dormant area.

It stands in stark contrast to this overpass, which without an accompanying road looks like someone just left it there, discarded when no use was found for it.

This is a photo of the underside of one of the supports for the raised train track. The cylinders appear to be shock absorbers of a kind, presumably to dampen movement of the train tracks above in the event of an earthquake.

It was around this point I found a nice traffic jam, allowing me to fill one of the photo requests I had. Here you go Greg.

The next stop of interest was near the Tokyo Big Sight - their international convention centre.

I snuck up to the International Conference Rooms right at the top in the hopes of getting some good photos, but the reinforced windows put an end to that idea.  I also ran into a few Japanese men in suits who asked me what I thought I was doing there.  I decided now was the time to take advantage of the Japanese perception of foreigners not being able to speak any Japanese at all, and said a few random sentences in English (fortunately none of them had any idea what I was saying), and noticing a toilet nearby, took refuge in there.  They were gone by the time I got out, and I high-tailed it down to the ground floor and escaped.

The Panasonic centre - if I was a bit younger the interactive science and maths section would have been awesome. As it is, the most interesting stuff I saw was the 3DS - my first time seeing one in the flesh - and the next generation of 3D TVs.

I walked over to a nearby shopping complex, where I discovered that there is some kind of Hawaiian theme week/month happening in Odaiba at the moment.

I wasn't going to complain.

From here, I ducked into the Toyota Design Showcase, expecting it to be fairly boring, but it was on the way to the ferris wheel, so why not?  Inside, as well as all the cars on display, they had a motion simulator powered by Gran Turismo 4.  There was a bit of a wait to get in though (I got there just as the doors closed for another group) so I settled down in front of a stage that was set up for the Hawaiian celebration.  Nothing particularly amazing happened, but they got a few kids up on stage and taught them to do a Hawaiian dance.  One girl was old enough to be self-conscious about doing it, and was finding it very difficult not to laugh at herself and everyone else while up there.

I finally got into the simulator – it had a 10 metre screen, about 6 seating sections and had the typical pneumatics to simulate motion.  It goes to show the detail put into the game engine that it was able to reproduce the effects of racing so well, or at least it appeared that way.  Never having been in a proper racecar on a track, I can only imagine it reflected reality to some degree, but either way it was fun, and interesting.  Not a whole lot more to be said.

From there I moved on to the ferris wheel.  A bit of a note here – being on the waterfront, it was rather windy.  So windy in fact that when I was over half way up, the gondala I was in was rocking quite a bit from the wind, and there was an ominous whistling sound coming from the gaps around the door.  The wind was gusting too, so every now and again a shudder would go through it.  The pre-recorded message informing me that we were approaching the peak of 115m off the ground didn’t do anything to improve my feelings about the situation.  I dealt with it by concentrating on taking photos.

A highway interchange built over the water. Looks like it'd be fun to drive on on that day everyone else in the world disappears.

A massive bridge, built when they were expecting thousands of people to live and work here. You see that black speck on the middle section? That's a full-grown man.

Only in Japan would a sign in an amusement ride warning against eating feature a kid eating broccoli of all things.

The wheel from below.

I have a few other photos, but they’re horribly desaturated and nasty-looking thanks to the same haze that plagued my photos last time I was in Tokyo.  I’ll post them up after some post-processing.

After going on the wheel I checked out the Toyota Universal Design exhibition – UD is a very big consideration in Japan, it basically means designing in such a way that things are accessible to as many people as possible, everyone being the ideal outcome.  It showed how the car interior had developed, as well as how UD is integrating itself in everyday life in Japan.  It was a very interesting place  to explore.

By that time it was time to head back to my hotel.  I got off at Akihabara station again and walked back to my hotel.  On the way back I noticed this guy, and decided to snap a photo.  Unfortunately there was a drizzle, so I didn’t get to take any other photos on the walk.

Samurai Colonel Says: Eat moar chicken!

I’ve developed a bit of a habit that instead of just making a break for the nearest station as soon as I leave the hotel, I wander towards a station...