A Day in Odaiba

In 1853, the last Shogun of the Tokugawa era was distressed by the arrival of the "Black Ships," a group of American ships under Commodore Matthew Perry. To protect Tokyo from this fleet, he had a series of forts built on reclaimed land out in the bay. These cannon batteries ("daiba") made little difference in the long run, because Perry simply landed a little way down the coast at Yokohama, and the days of Japan's isolation were soon ended.

Over the years, the island forts were neglegted and deteriorated. One was made into a park in the 1920s, but it wasn't until the success of Expo '85 World's Fair in Tsukuba that things began to change in a big way.

Tsukuba, about 40 miles from Tokyo, was built specifically to host the Expo. The plan was that after the fair closed, it would be turned into a new city dedicated to science. This plan actually worked, and the late 80s saw Tsukuba thrive.

Those were flush years in Japan, and the government began to look around for opportunities repeat the success of the Tsukuba experiment. They decided to build another planned city, and decided on Odaiba as the location. According to Wikipedia, it would have self-sufficient population of 100,000 and would focus on the world of the future.

Unfortunately, before the city was completed, the economic "bubble" burst. Amazing buildings with striking features soon stood empty, next to vacant lots and construction projects halted in process. The future looked bleak. But re-zoning in the latter part of the 90s brought businesses in, and with them came renewed economic activity. Today, while Odiaba is noticeably less crowded than most parts of Tokyo I've been to, there are some interesting attractions. So Cindy and I took a Saturday to have a look.

To get to Odaiba, you have to cross the water. You can walk, drive, or take the bus across Rainbow Bridge. You can also take the Yurikamome line, a sort of elevated tram-train, which also uses the bridge. There are also a couple of ferries, and the Rinkai subway line (which would have to be the most boring way to get there). We bought day pass tickets that gave us unlimited use the ferries or the train. Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, we decided to cross on the ferry. Here is the view from the boat, looking back toward Tokyo.

After crossing the bay, we entered a large canal, and made our way into the heart of Odaiba. Other boats passed by. We went under low bridges. We saw some of the high-tech buildings and attractions of the city, some of them still (or once again) under construction. The needle-looking thing is the support for a footbridge; the ferris wheel is the second-largest in the world (behind the Eye of London).

My favorite buiding was the place our ferry docked: "Tokyo Big Sight." It's a convention center; it reminds me of something out of Star Wars.

Tokyo is really hoping for the chance to host the 2016 Olympics; however, it's not close to being a front-runner (since the Beijing games in 2008 give Asia recent representation) hosting. But optimism runs high here, because if the games did come, Odaiba would play a strong role. This banner at Big Sight boldy predicts the XXXI Olympics will be here.

Big Sight also contains restaurants; we ate lunch at a cafeteria (we had A Especially Nice Taste).

After we ate, we walked over to the station to pick up the Yurikamome line. The train isn't really a train. There are no tracks, and the cars run on rubber wheels on an elevated concrete path with side barriers. The line runs through Odaiba, and you can use it to get from place to place.

We stopped at Toyota MegaWeb, next to Venus Fort shopping mall. MegaWeb is like nothing we'd seen before. It's a big, multi-story complex that combines self-serve showroom (you can explore all the new model Toyotas and Lexuses with no salespeople "helping"), concept cars, car museum, and even an experimental track with cars (tiny Toyota E-Coms) that drive themselves, using sensors build into the road. We took a "drive"--twice around the track with the car operating itself.

Also right next to the Toyota place is the ferris wheel. Unfortunately, it was closed due to high winds. We took the Yurikamome line home, crossing rainbow bridge. We'll be back another day for more.