After breakfast of pancakes we set out for Odaiba, which is a newly-developed area on an island in the bay. The subway took us to Shimbashi station where we transferred to the Yukiramome driver-less train which runs out to and around Odaiba. The "Venus Fort" shopping centre was strangely deserted, except for lonely desperate looking shop owners, but we later found another centre nearer the beach was crowded. We had a ride on the giant ferris wheel (115 metres up, 16 minutes to go round once), then took advantage of our day passes to ride to the end of the (driverless) train track and back again.
 |
| The giant wheel |
We spent some time in the Miraikan museum ( of "emerging science and innovation" ) which was quite interesting. It is manned by middle aged Japanese men (volunteers) who speak good english and are interesting to talk to. We left when it was closing time and walked on towards "Tokyo Beach", which is an artificial one created on Odaiba island. On the way we passed the giant robot and the (scaled down) replica of the Statue of Liberty.
 |
| Giant robot |
 |
| Dog clothing store |
 |
| Dogs must be kept INSIDE the bag |
 |
| Museum of innovation |
Inside the museum is a large suspended globe covered in (10,000) LCD displays, displaying a Google Earth-like animated view of Earth. There are couches below to lie back on and watch it from, and its quite hypnotic. At least one person was fast asleep (not me). It displays real satellite photos, day and night views, tsunami waves, and all sorts of other geographical data. (Here's a link to a video.. youtube )
We sat on the edge of the boardwalk and dined on traditional Japanese takeaways (MacDonalds) and waited for the sun to go down. The bridge there (The Rainbow Bridge) is illuminated in colours after dark. We waited and waited...
Eventually Sue searched online using her phone, and discovered that the coloured lighting has been discontinued as a power-saving measure! Since the big earthquake all nuclear power stations have been shut down, and it is now necessary to conserve power as much as possible. Still, it was very pleasant sitting on the beach as the sun went down.
