♥怡: see-through ferris wheel

I went to Odaiba yesterday with Ivan and Ayaka! The weather was perfect and the place was bustling.

Odaiba is an artificial island built in Tokyo Bay. It was initially built for defensive purposes in the 1850s, but it has since developed into a commercial, residential, and leisure area. If you remember my post about Minato Mirai 21in Yokohama, Odaiba is the second of the two places in the Tokyo Metropolitan area where the seashore is accessible and not blocked by industry and harbor areas.
There are a bunch of things to see and do there:

Palette Town

Ferris Wheel
Megaweb, an exhibition hall of Toyota
Tokyo Leisure Land
Venus Fort, a Venice-themed shopping mall
Zepp Tokyo, one of Tokyo's largest performance halls/nightclubs.

Fuji Television headquarters
Miraikan, Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation
Rainbow Bridge
Shiokaze Park
the Statue of Liberty

Access: We got there by taking the Yurikamome monorail, which is driverless!

The walk from the train station.

The building all the way to the left is Fuji Television.
There is actually an observatory there.

The Ferris Wheel

Venus Fort

We entered Venus Fort, the shopping mall. There was a Hawaii Festival that day, so there were a lot of Hawaii-themed shops and events. The interior of the building was very unique. There was an artificial sky all throughout the mall, and the exterior of the shops had the architecture of old Italy.

water fountain

We entered a shop called Kiddyland, which is a popular toy store in Japan. Everything in there was so cute. It reminded me of the shops in Skytree.

Anyone know this character? It's pretty famous!
The name is Rilakkuma and it is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "relax" and "kuma," meaning "bear".

Hello Kittys for my friend (you know who you are). ;)

wrongly labeled merchandise

but besides that, "strange taste salt"?

Oh... that's what it meant.
From left to right: matcha (green tea) salt, Japanese pepper salt, wasabi salt, white rice salt, Peru Inca sky salt (transliteration).

Then, we wandered some more in the mall.

The lights!

Not really. At first, I was surprised. There's a Cheescake Factory in Japan? I thought. It turns out to be a cake shop specializing in cheesecake.

And a dog cafe? There were quite a number of people who came with their dogs, which i find strange. I've never seen anyone go shopping with their dog. I don't have a pet so I don't know, but tell me, do you go shopping with your dog? Or go out with it in general? (besides walking it or showing it to a friend, etc.).

And then you see a random cat sitting inside the mall. What the heck?

After a few hours, we went to search for a place to eat. There were so many restaurants and all of them had a waiting line. In the end, we decided to have Hawaiian cuisine, since there was a Hawaii Festival. It had the longest line, but it was so worth it! The food was delicious!

A glimpse of their menu.. Everything looks good!

The waitress was so nice. She offered to help us take a picture without us even asking.

We ordered taco rice, avocado hamburg, and shrimp salad.
It was my first time trying Hawaiian food and it left a good impression!
The taco rice was so delicious! There were taco pieces with taco meat, onions, cheese, and yellow rice.
I'm not a hamburg person, but this one was pretty decent. It came with fries and rice, and the avocado was really creamy.
The shrimp salad was served inside a fried tortilla bowl. It tasted just as good as it looked!

The restaurant was open (not enclosed with a wall), so we could see the mall from inside. Coincidentally, there was a performance at the time we ate, so we had a free show!

Hula and Tahitian Dance

After lunch, we went to Megaweb, the exhibition hall of Toyota. There were a lot of cars there and not only Toyota brand. There was also Lexus, Eneos, etc.

And we moved on to Tokyo Leisure Land, an arcade land. There was a lot of gaming and people dressed as anime characters--well, I don't know if it's any specific anime character, but they (both boys and girls) had crazy colored hair (aqua, pink, neon) and cartoony makeup. We didn't play any games, but we did take purikura (photo booth sticker pictures). My first time since I've come to Japan. There were so many machines, I didn't know which one to choose. They all looked the same to me, but my fellow Japanese friend, Ayaka, apparently knows the difference and chose one called "Oh My Girl."
The experience was nerve-wracking, as there is a timer for taking the pictures and decorating it, but it was fun!

We went out afterwards to Odaiba Marine Park to catch a view of Tokyo Bay as well as the statue of liberty replica.

You can see the rainbow bridge in the back, and all the ferries in Tokyo Bay.

The statue of liberty in Odaiba.
The statue was loaned to Japan in 1998 from France in commemoration of a Japan's ties with France. When it was returned a year later, the people missed it so much that they created their own replica and installed it in 2000.

The rules of the park.
Does that mean you can windsurf before sunset and after sunrise? Wait, doesn't that actually just mean the entire day? -.-

We returned to Palette Town because we wanted to ride the ferris wheel, but there was a slight wait time, so we went and bought ourselves some crepes! On the way, we passed by traditional Japanese sweets shop. The stuff there was so cheap (¥200 per 100 grams).

interesting...candy.

so rich!

The crepe shop we went to was called Gela Fru. There were so many selections and you could customize your own crepe.

I ordered a kiwi crepe with chocolate syrup and black sesame ice cream. It was soooo good. :) The kiwi is inside.

Please refrain from choosing the color of your gondola car.
:(
I wanted the orange one...

But hahaha! we didn't need that because we decided to ride the clear one! It was all see-through. You could see everything around you, above you, and beneath you.
Ivan and Ayaka were so nervous at first! LOL I think I've been to so many high places lately that I've grown used to the height.