Odaiba and Venus Fort!

Yesterday we headed to Tokyo Bay! To the area of Odaiba to be exact. It's quite a drive from the Fuchu area where we are staying but it's always fun to drive through the various neighborhoods and get a feel for the city. Atsuko made us onigiri to get us through the drive and we snacked and visited our way to Odaiba.
Odaiba is a popular shopping and entertainment district on a man made island in Tokyo Bay. It originated as a set of small man made fort islands (daiba literally means "fort"), which were built towards the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868) to protect Tokyo against possible attacks from the sea and specifically in response to the gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry.
More than a century later, the small islands were joined into larger islands by massive landfills, and Tokyo began a spectacular development project aimed to turn the islands into a futuristic residential and business district.

 

There are many places to explore in Odaiba which I hope to get around to doing at some point during the warmer months, but for yesterday we drove around a bit seeing the sights, like the Gi-normous Ferris Wheel that I am NEVER riding because ferris wheels terrify me, but it is amazing to look at!                 



We also saw the futuristic space station like Fuji Tv Building.

We did stop at one place though that was unbelievable...it was the mall. Not just any mall, the Venus Fort mall! I have seen countless malls in 4 different countries now and I have never seen a mall as impressive as this one. (Sorry, Mall of America, Sorry, Albrook Mall or Multi Plaza) This mall is actually a recreation of an Italian city from the eighteenth century! It is completely life sized with columns and colonades, fountains and amazing architecture! It's roof looks like the sky and the lighting changes from dawn to day to evening throughout the day..so cool!!! I told Atsuko that if we were animals in a zoo we would be totally fooled by this mall! We were able to see the winter light show and it just made the whole experience surreal!

 

 

Fountain at Venus Fort

 

 



Gary and I 

 

 

 

They also had a very nice food court and I was able to get some delicious Indian Food and a GIANT Nan! 



Another pleasant surprise was that there were many outlet stores in the mall and the prices were affordable!  Here are a couple of short videos for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

 

 

That's it from Japan for now! Tomorrow we head back Stateside for about a month while we finish up our immigration paperwork, then it's back here and time to rent our own apartment and church building and get to work!