City Lights

We spent this past weekend in Odaiba.  Odaiba is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay with incredible views of the Tokyo skyline.  We had some pretty big plans for the weekend, and while some of them worked out, others didn't.  We first tried to take the local (cheap & hard) trains into the city but realized midway there that Chad had forgotten his glasses (he was wearing his prescription sunglasses) so we had to turn around (which means hopping off the train and onto the one going the other way) and go back for them.  Easier said than done.  We ended up going around and around in circles on the trains between Ota and Tokyo for awhile.  Eventually we regrouped, switched to the express train (expensive & easy) and made it into the city.  After a quick trip to Ginza to visit the Apple store (yes, again...don't ask), we caught the express train out to Odaiba.

 We got to go over the famous Rainbow Bridge on the train.  Once there it was easy to see why Odaiba is referred to as "futuristic".  There are a lot of space-agey buildings, unique shopping malls, a giant ferris wheel and museums.  By the time we got there on Friday it was pretty dark so we just ate dinner (at Hooters, no less, but I was lured by American-style wings and the entertainment of watching drunk Japanese guys doing the YMCA with the waitresses) and then crashed.

On Saturday I stayed in Odaiba and shopped all the malls saw the sights.  Chad went elsewhere---more on that later.  That night we ate dinner (a Hawaiian burger joint in Aqua City) with a jaw-dropping view....

the Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower and the Yakatabune dinner cruise boats

Daikanransha, which was the tallest
Ferris Wheel in the world in 1999

our hotel, the Grand Pacific Le Daiba

the Rainbow Bridge right
before we crossed

the Tokyo Teleport, a crazy space-age
train station

Aqua City, a giant shopping mall

buildings and monuments

the famous Fuji building

inside the Venus Fort, which is this wild shopping mall
 designed to look like an Italian piazza...complete
with a fake color-changing sky and "moving" clouds

it was like being in Hogwarts