Odaiba

On Saturday I took the train to Odaiba after Japanese class for a day trip with a few friends. Odaiba is an artificial island originally built for defensive purposes. Now it's known for being one of two urban beaches in Tokyo, as well as for a few other attractions.

I took a few pictures on the train ride over because we were passing over water and you could see a few ships, industrial-looking things, and the Rainbow Bridge.

The first thing we did once we got off the train was head to the beach area. It was super small and you weren't allowed to swim, but there was sand and a nice grassy area where people were hanging out. It was a nice place to walk around and the weather was perfect.

Some little kids built this awesome sand castle.

Oh, and for some reason there is a fake Statue of Liberty right near the beach. Is it sad that I've never seen the real Statue of Liberty so I don't know how this compares? Someone told me it was smaller.

After we were done at the beach we walked back past the train station to an area with a huge ferris wheel and a Venice-themed mall called Venus Fort. I took this picture on the way so it's easy to see how everything is laid out.

Here is another close-up of the ferris wheel. We didn't go on it because it was like $10, which is actually cheaper than a lot of ferris wheels I've seen, but a ferris wheel is a ferris wheel.

There happened to be a Hawaii festival going on when we were at the shopping center. Dancers were performing Hawaiian dances on a stage outside, and there were some food trucks selling special Hawaiian food. I'm still not exactly sure what Hawaiian food is.

Then we went inside the mall, which was sort of weird. They decorated it like it was Italy and the roof was an electronic sky that got darker at night. We ended up eating dinner at a nabe restaurant in the mall and then we took the train home.