Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Spring Break Part 8: Odaiba

 

On Friday the 28th Lauren and I went to Odaiba. I've been there several times, but it was Lauren's first time. First we went to Decks. There were weird signs leading to the bathroom.



We took some pictures outside before shopping.



Lauren and I both tried the Sailor Moon game in the arcade but we both lost. :(


Lauren tried Batman pinball. I hate Batman! She said that the Lord of the Rings pinball was better.


Back in fourth grade Lauren and I went to Discovery Zone and played this same crocodile game. We  played it together so that we could get a good score and get a lot of tickets. We also beat the high score which seemed like a huge accomplishment back then. So of course Lauren and I had to play it together again. Japanese machines don't give out tickets, but we did beat the high score! Later someone else had beaten our score though. I think it's reset daily or something.






I tried pachinko for the first time. It wasn't very fun because all you do is turn the wheel to control how fast the balls come out. I guess it would be more fun if you were winning money (this wasn't a gambling one) but I still don't see much appeal.

We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant called La Salsa, which had a lunchtime buffet. The picture outside also showed pasta and curry and rice, which they did have, so it looked kind of weird at first. It was good though! I made my own tacos at the taco bar which were good even though they didn't have cheese. I could buy cheese if I wanted, but I didn't need it that much. It's funny that it wasn't included in the buffet price. I also had macaroni salad, which was random with the tacos but delicious!

An exciting part of the buffet was the unlimited drinks. I mixed melon soda and ginger ale together which wasn't bad, but I prefer them both on their own.



You can't see it well in the photo, but the view out the window was super nice. If you go to Odaiba I recommend eating at a restaurant in Decks because of the great views. I've also eaten at an Italian place and an Indian place there.


We went outside to get a picture of pretty much what the view from the restaurant was like.



I was excited to find a Tuxedo Mask gachapon machine. I didn't have any hundred yen coins so I exchanged a bunch of change with Lauren. After going through that I realized that it was sold out anyways. :( But later I found one in Kiddyland at Venus Fort that wasn't sold out.


We spent some time looking at cheesy K-pop merchandise in one store. I thought that these nail decals were really funny.


Lauren tried a shooting game but wasn't able to shoot any of the prizes down.


After walking around a while we were ready for dessert. I got Easter Egg Hunt ice cream from Baskin Robbins. It was a mix of melon and cotton candy with white chocolate eggs. So delicious! I wish it wasn't just a limited time flavor. Though they always have other interesting flavors for me to try.


Lauren had some sort of chocolate and strawberry thing.


Next we went to Venus Fort. There aren't a bunch of shops there that I'm interested in, but it's very pretty!


We stopped to look at a kiosk with cute jewelry and realized that it was Rolianne Pink Made. They had a store in Shinjuku Marui Annex and we loved their jewelry. In Venus Fort it was just a kiosk but they still had a nice selection. I ended up buying some super adorable earrings.


Their jewelry is sooooo cute! Here are some pictures that I got from their website. If you click the pictures it will take you to the Rolianne Pink Made website.

I really loved these perfume bottle necklaces.


I don't remember seeing these cupcakes but they're also super cute!


I also really liked this candy jewelry.


This necklace was super pretty! And shiny!


Jellybeans!


Then we headed out to go to Hello Kitty's Kawaii Paradise and found out that it was closed. Sad! :( Though I'm not really all that surprised. The last time I went there there was hardly anyone there and it had a kind of depressing feel because of that. The gift store didn't have as much as I remembered either. So I'm not really sad that it closed, but I wanted to take pictures there. I had even worn my Hello Kitty dress that day for that reason.


The outside of Venus Fort had a cool, animated sign that I don't remember being there before.


Then Lauren and I headed to Daikanransha, a 115 meter (377 ft.) tall Ferris wheel. It was the tallest in the world when it opened it 1999.

 
we gonna take a picture. Haha.


I rode Daikanransha with Jonathan in 2010, but we just got a regular car. This time Lauren and I went in a clear car. The price is the same, but the wait is longer because there are only four clear cars on the whole Ferris wheel, which takes 16 minutes to go all the way around.

It was Friday night but there weren't that many people in line yet. It was still mostly families around there and not many couples were out on dates yet. Ferris wheels are super popular for dates. So luckily for us the wait for the clear car was only 12 minutes!


The view was amazing! I wish my camera could have captured it better.



The clear car has a clear bottom and clear seats. It's a bit dirty or old or something so it's not super clear, but it's still cool! And a bit freaky!



Then Lauren and I walked over to Diver City, another mall, because we saw a bunch of Christmas lights. I really wanted to get a nice picture of the sakura trees with lights but then all the lights were turned off because there was a Gundam show going on. Stupid Gundam.


The statue is pretty neat though. But the show isn't anything special because he just lit up a bit and maybe his head moved or something and there was a video in the background. It's the same statue that I saw in Shizuoka when I lived here before.

We briefly walked into Diver City but didn't do any shopping there. We headed back to the area with Aqua City and Decks.




What???


I was excited to see the lights on the Fuji TV building. They were still animated along with music. I had thought that it was just something special for Christmas.




The stairs of the Fuji TV Building were also lit up, but they were blocked off for some reason.


We didn't want to spend a lot of time searching for food so we just went to McDonald's. I had Shake Shake Chicken, fries, and the Sakura Cherry Fizz drink.


After Odaiba we went to Shinjuku for a bit. We didn't really do much there, but Lauren hadn't seen it at night before.




There was some crazy giant hot dog ad in front of the station. Are those doors on the hot dog??? Maybe during the day you could go inside?

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