After we got back to Shinjuku, we had lunch at a Japanese westernized place in MyLord tower and went back to our Airbnb after. After dropping off our stuff, we took the subway to Odaiba, and we walked across the rainbow bridge. However, it was not lit up at the time because it was daytime. And even if it had been lit up, you can’t see the lights from the inside. We were going to Odaiba because they have a fireworks show at 7pm on Saturdays during the holiday season!
To get across the bridge, we first had to go up an elevator. On the ramp to enter the elevator, we saw the most adorable group of schoolboys. They were shouting loudly in Japanese, racing their bicycles down the long ramp with one twist: their back wheels were strapped onto dinky caster dollies. They all ended up crashing into the railing at the bottom or falling sideways off the ramp, but their pure joy at doing something dumb was infectious.
It took a while to walk across the bridge, but it was quite nice. It was overcast and very grey outside, and the cold seemed to pierce right through my coat.
Then we only had 4 more hours until the fireworks so we went to the Venus fort mall which felt JUST LIKE VEGAS and then we played this game where you can win prizes but we just won tissue packs lol and honestly it was even better than the Vegas canals in Venetian or Caesar’s Palace because they had seasonal decorations too, and they also changed the color of the lights and we got there in time at 4:30 for the sunset so we watched the sky turn colors!!
At one end of the walkway, we saw a historic car museum which showed us very nice cars, such as old ferraris, fords, chevys, mercedes, and mustangs, and the like. it was so cool, and they even had a model car exhibition. They had a history of trucks in Japan too, and how the development of these trucks was impacted by wartime and agricultural needs! Very cool.
Then we passed by Mega V3, which was a toyota exhibition!!! it was MASSIVE. There were SO MANY PEOPLE THERE. how many people were even trying to buy?!?!? You could test drive the Toyota Mirai and something else, on the track outside. Then we left the area, and this MASSIVE CROWD OF PEOPLE were trying to line up for the ferris wheel… forget it lmao, it would take 3 hours. It looked as packed as the crowds get at raves. Then we walked across the empty square to see the unicorn gundam statue.
it was very very cool. Then we walked through a bunch of malls, across a bridge, and then we were able to see the rainbow bridge. it was quite overrated in my opinion becuase the lesser colors are on top: red, orange, yellow and green are on the top half and the rest of teh colors (the last 2) are muddled on the bottom. Plus the suspension cables on the bridge were not quite lit up so it wasn’t super cool. just a little cool.
We walked along the oceanfront boardwalk of the Decks Odaiba mall, and grabbed a bite to eat at lawson before staking our claim on a park bench of the oceanfront beach park. we had a bunch of chicken and a hash brown, and a lot of lit up cruise boats started parking themselves below the bridge. it was really beautiful. We got there 30 minutes before the show started to guarantee a good vantage point, and people were still milling around.
Then this girl started chasing this dog on the walkway below our sitting point, and that really ticked me off because who expects a dog to sit still during a fireworks show??? Finally it ended, and we went back to Decks Odaiba mall because it was only 7ish.
We went to a vintage arcade, where the games were very retro-style, and very fun. We played a whack a mole game, and didn’t win at all even when we cheated lol, and then we played a frog ping pong ball game, and then we played a grabbing ping pong ball game which we won and got a small baggie from lol. Then we went to a souvenir store and we bought a lucky box for $10 and it got us this little coin pouch and a small final fantasy figurine.
Then we trained to Roppongi, got some ramen from a vending machine restaurant counter (not really a vending machine, just the vending machine was the thing to take our order). then we walked home, and passed by the Roppongi night lights. It was great! But Masa covered my eyes because we were only supposed to see them on Christmas.
