Mark had an early morning work appointment for a couple of hours, so Kami and I left the hotel to go to a couple of souvenir shops and agreed to meet Mark back at the hotel at 12:30.
Taxi door opening itself in the video below
We took the train, shopped for half an hour and then took the train back.
Push the button! Picture on a lamp post. Rare sighting of a litter fairy!
We got back within minutes of Mark arriving and decided to take the monorail out to the island in Tokyo Harbour, a place called Odaiba.
We got a great view of many of the buildings we saw from the top of Tokyo Tower. A lot of the buildings over here are very futuristic and wouldn't look out of place in a lot of Sci Fi films. There are two tower blocks of apartments that, when seen from a distance, look like they are old and decaying at the top corners. They look like they've been hit by a couple of bombs on the top floors, and no one’s rebuilt them. As we got close to the building, it was clear that this is a very cool effect created by painting those floors and apartments different colours and shades.
There are about a dozen stations on the monorail, and it goes all around the island. It also goes over the famous Rainbow Bridge, which stretches form the mainland to the island. Mark and Beth walked over this when they came to Tokyo in 2005, and I would have loved to have done the same, but Kami wasn't too keen because of limited time. It would have been nice walking over it at night to see the Tokyo skyline, but we took the monorail back later on. There’s a replica of the Statue of Liberty out there—I believe there are four Statues of Liberty around the world, and Tokyo’s completed me seeing all four—the rest are in Las Vegas, Paris and, of course, New York. We stopped for lunch at a burger place and sat with a great view of the whole bay and the Tokyo skyline in front of us.
Rainbow Bridge and the Statue of Liberty Lunch, sweet potato fries & maple syrup! View at lunch
We had a walk around one of the shopping centres there, and Kami found one of the Purikura picture booths, so once again Kami and I had our pictures done. You can see the results below.
Purikura photo booth Inside the booth, photo selection screen The words and pictures adding screen
The huge Ferris wheel we had seen upon our arrival into Tokyo was there on the island, so we took the monorail a few more stations along and got off at the station nearest to it.
There were normal carriages in every colour of the rainbow on the Ferris wheel, but there were also 4 totally see-through glass carriages! We choose to go in the glass carriage and had a 10-minute wait till one came around on the wheel.
The view of not only the island but also the view stretching as far as the Disney complex was fantastic from the top. It was a gorgeous day and couldn't have been clearer!
The three of us then rode to the end of the line of the Monorail just to see all the cool buildings. From there, Mark headed back to the hotel while Kami and I took a wander around one of the shopping malls on the island.
Hello Kitty cookies being made:
Hello Kitty is HUGE out here. They will put the name on virtually anything—including octopus!
Gundam robot outside the shopping mall
Animals around the shopping mall Octopus! Just another wall! $8 big mac!
We then took the monorail back to the train station and the train back to the hotel.
Full album of pictures at the link below.
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