Tokyo - Day 2 - November 1st

Waking up at the crack of 8 AM, we began our day eating cinnamon rolls (well Chris ate candy and leftover steak from the previous night) and playing Wii. After much digression, my friend drove us to our train station around 11 AM. We booked back toward the hotel, freshened up, then set out for our destination of the day: Odaiba.

Odaiba started as a number of island cannon batteries constructed in the 1800s to protect Tokyo (then Edo) from sea assault. The current island of Odaiba consists of one of those batteries (#3) plus some islands built out of trash and then relabled 'reclaimed land' and covered in business and entertainment.

A suspension bridge called the 'Rainbow Bridge' connects Odaiba to the mainland and
has a pedestrian walkway. So we took a train to the base of the bridge, and then walked across. When dressing for the day I didn't expect the crosswinds we encountered on the bridge. I spent much time on the bridge clutching my skirt to my legs and shuffling along.

After we snapped some awesome pictures of Tokyo, we arrived on the island of Odaiba and checked out the parks. Walking through the parks, something like 70% of the people had their dogs with them. We found the old battery #3 and due to the lack of English signage and my total failure at reading the Japanese, thought it dated from WW2 rather than the 1850s. After that, we headed towards the 'Statue of Liberty', the second piece of fake-America we ended up finding in Tokyo.

Our stomachs growing weary and starving, we searched for some food and landed on a festival in progress in front of 'Aqua City', a huge high-class shopping mall. There was fun dancing to watch, and cheap food to eat. We ate lunch for under 500 yen a person and also got entertainment for free. Sitting down and watching the dancers was a nice change from walking kilometer after kilometer.

Following our brief rest, we headed back into Aqua City and neighboring mall Decks Tokyo Beach and looked around at all the cool things to buy. We searched in vain for the 'Comme Ca Ism' branded candy, finding only Comme Ca Ism clothing, and Comme Ca Ism lunchboxes.

From there we wandered through the malls, figuring out where to head next. After we had decided to go to Palette Town, a conceptual mall/entertainment district nearby, we had one more stop - this cat store/amusement park. We passed on the 'attraction' (over $20 a person to pet adorable cats and watch them) but the store was hilariously overstocked in all things ridiculous for your cat.

At Palette Town, we wandered through Venus Fort, stumbled in on the Car Museum, and took a ride high above the skyline on a giant ferris wheel. The views from the top were terrific, even if my camera largely failed me.

After that, we hoofed back to Asakusa. Once in our hotel, I was lulled to sleep by the warmth and comfort of the bed, and promptly crashed, sleeping through dinner entirely.

See also: Day 1, Day 3, Day 4