Traveling and Teaching in Rural Japan: Winter Break Part 6: Odaiba

(continued from part 5)

After arriving back in Tokyo, we boarded the expensive and fancy Yurikamome monorail into Odaiba Island. Odaiba is a manmade island constructed in the mid 19th century for the purpose of port defense. It was heavily expanded in the economic boom from the 1970's to the early 90s, but the bubble burst caused development to come to a grinding halt. Now, after a resurrection, Odaiba has become an upper-middle class weekend shopping haven and date destination. We stayed at one of the swankier hotels, called Hotel Nikko, because I managed to get a stunning weekday deal on a hotel room.

Hotel Nikko: convex to provide the best views of the bay.

The moment I got off the monorail, I knew I was a little out of place. I've never been a fan of high-class luxuries, so I felt uncomfortable in this artificial tourist destination made for the sole purpose of sucking money into capitalist hands. Indeed, I had to tread carefully, making sure to refuse room service, avoid using the pool (which had a 3600 yen charge), and keep my hands off the minibar.

50 mL of Jack for 1575 yen? That's an expensive toothbrush, Ke$ha...

During the day, we explored the various shopping centers, such as Diver City and Palette Town. Diver city sports a "life-size" Gundam statue in the courtyard and an accompanying Gundam cafe for fans to swoon over. There's also several maid cafes for the rest of us.

My sister grudgingly posing for my photo in her tomato pants.

Palette Town has one of the largest ferris wheels in the world, which gives you a great view of Tokyo and Mt. Fuji (if the weather permits). They even offer fully clear cabins fitted entirely with transparent plexiglass paneling! We opted for the clear cabins to squeeze as much vertigo into the experience as we could. Near the top, my sister and I stood up and started rocking the cabin, but she eventually got scared and made me stop.

Daiba ferris wheel. The cage-like cabin at the top right of the photo is one of the clear cabins.

The view at the top.

In Palette Town, I also found my favorite place in Odaiba: Toyota MEGAWEB. This place is like a Toyota showroom, with all cars in the Toyota fleet for you to play with. They had off-road simulators and a station running Gran Turismo, all for free! There were also some cool displays of handicapped-friendly cars (one had an automatic wheelchair loader that stowed it in a compartment on the roof), electric bicycles, and my favorite, the iReal futuristic mobility vehicle. We were lucky to be there on a relatively empty day, so we all got a chance to give the iReal a test ride.

MEGAWEB also has a test track winding through the Palette Town premises, and they offer 20 minute test drives of any fleet vehicle for 300 yen. Of course, I wasn't going to pay to test drive any normal car that I could drive at any dealership. I chose to drive a little electric one-seater on my first run, and after I had my fun, I went a second round with the sexy 86 sports car. The track was pretty narrow, so I was stressed during the sports car run. However, the electric car was tiny and maneuverable, so I kept the pedal to the metal all the way with it. To bad it has a max speed of only 40 kph and a stiff, crunchy suspension.

Toyota COMS: a cute electric one-seater with a golf cart suspension.

Stock photo of Toyota 86

Despite the all the fake, Odaiba is a beautiful place. Many of the buildings are built with futuristic architecture, so the skyline is unique and intriguing.