Odaiba

※ This article discusses our fifth day in Tokyo, the 21st of March 2017.

This day, we were unmotivated to leave the hostel early. It was raining and this did not help us to get started. So it was not until 13:45 that we started our journey. Our goal was Odaiba, an artificial island

From Asakusabashi with an intermediate stop in Shinbashi, we reached Odaiba by train. The first thing, you will recognize at Odaiba is that there are also multiple levels. You will have to pass a lot of stairs, there are a lot of elevated areas and the buildings always have multiple floors. The most famous building in Odaiba is the DiverCity Tokyo Plaza. We entered the building and a map gives you an overview. However, I immediately left the building again. In front of the south-east side of the building, a Gundam sculpture is on display. Gundam is an anime series starting in 1979 and still going on. Gundam anime centers around mechas, mobile suit enhancing human bodies by robotic suits. However, the display is currently under construction. I think it is another example for renovation efforts before Tokyo 2020.

We entered the DiverCity building and ate a Pretzel. Bavaria, a Southern part of Germany, is famous for its Pretzel and Austria’s culture is based on Bavaria’s culture. So you can often buy a Pretzel at festivals or as a snack in Austria. We bought one for 250 Yen at a shop called "Anne & Aunties", but it was not anything special. On the outside it was a little bit more greasy than I was used to.

Next, we looked for an opportunity for lunch. In Odaiba, self-deep-frying is popular, but we went to eat sushi instead. There are various forms of Sushi in the world. In Europe, you can find "Running Sushi" which means a conveyor belt is carrying sushi dishes and you just pick the dishes you want to eat. Unlike a buffet, you don’t need to stand up, because the conveyor belt is operated next to the table. In Japan, I haven’t seen this so far. In our case, we had a mobile tablet device and ordered the food, we want to consume. Instead of a conveyor belt, you have a train which arrives to bring you the dish, you are interested in. As usual, you can get free water and optionally put matcha powder (Japanese green tea powder) in beforehand. Of course, soysauce is provided as well. The color of the plate distinguishes the dishes in terms of price. So just like in Europe, the waiter/waitress counts the number of plates in groups multiplied by their price. In Sushi restaurants, you will find many tricks to keep consuming. Life Where I’m From points out that a small gambling game can be played after finishing 5 dishes making the kids to eat always 5 more dishes. In our case, you couldn’t find the total price on the tablet. So you only knew the items, but had to look up the prices yourself to determine the intermediate total price. I didn’t like that, but it was nice to eat sushi once in Japan.

We traversed the building, because it had many interesting shops. WABI×SABI was one of them. I bought a body towel and bento towels. Though they are meant to be used for bento, I plan to use them for decoration. We also tried nana’s green tea shop. We got an iceshake with matcha flavor and flakes topping. It had the unique taste of matcha (which I neither love nor hate), but was very cold. So it took us some time to drink it.

In the meanwhile, it turned dark outside. So we planned to return soon. We dropped by at the Fuji TV building, but expectedly everything was shut down already. We just took a look at the distinctive architecture and returned towards the train station. We planned to have a tighter schedule tomorrow, on our last day in Tokyo.