Japan 2016 ~Spring~ Day 7: Odaiba & Tokyo Tower
As mentioned in a previous entry, Tutu had originally came to Japan for some fan events that weren't happening anymore. However! A replacement event was on for fans like Tutu who had been let down, so we went to that on the Thursday :D
Japan 2016 ~Spring~
Day 0 & 1: THURSDAY
Day 2: Ueno Park, Skytree and Super Robot Spirits 2016
Japan 2016 Day 3, Yokohama: Chinatown, Waterfront & Cosmo World
Day 4: Tokyo Disneysea
Day 5: Nebukawa and the Hakone Disaster
Day 6: Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum & Pacifico Yokohama
Day 7: Odaiba & Tokyo Tower
Day 8: Osaka
Day 9 & 10: Universal Studios Japan & Hometime
We left early and rode the train to the nearest monorail station, then we rode it to Shin-Toyusu which is near the end of the line. Her event was here at Toyosu Pit which did kind of look like it was the only thing here, but there was some kind of outdoor BBQ vacation place there but I didn't pay it that much attention 😅
We were there early, but there was already a line around the corner as you can see! Tutu is a little bit famous among some Sae fans so I was joking that I was her bodyguard, but I was a crappy one because I left her in the line after 5 minutes XD
I headed here to the former Neo-Geo World in Palette Town, now called Tokyo Leisure Land. Neo-Geo world shut down in 2001(!) due to SNK filing for bankruptcy, but is still used as an arcade to this day (and a car park lol) The only original part of it still operating is the Ferris wheel, (which I had a pic of in my previous entry) and the Neo-Geo World sign is still on the roof but badly covered up.
Look at all the stuff that used to be there!
This is actually still a pretty great arcade! The prizes in the UFO catchers were among the best I've seen on my trips so far, not that I won anything from any of them... I just like to torture myself! The first game I played was Outrun 2, which is almost becoming a tradition, I even played it on my 2012 London trip xD I wandered over to the fighting area and found some fighting games running on the Nesca system which means it has lots of older games and you can store progress on an IC card, which I don't have. King of Fighters XIII was the only SNK game in the whole building running on this system, which is a shame considering the history of the place. All the SNK stuff was stripped out, there was even an indoor roller coaster and bowling and stuff in here, all gone! I also played the Left for Dead 2 Japanese arcade machine, it was really weird playing with a mouse and a wiimote in an arcade, plus the characters were all now Japanese, so I played as a schoolgirl haha. I ended up leaving it running because it gave me too many credits for one coin and the game was identical to the PC game I played to death. When I left this area I immediately noticed the full size (with cars that move!) versions of Outrun 2 and I had just spent an hour playing on the normal one, and they were being used so... hahaha. I also played the tsumtsum arcade machine for a while, some little kids gathered around me to watch me play as well! I think I did good, I got over a million points with just Minnie or Mickey or something, you can also play with a tsum gatcha toy that the machine gives out but I didn't want to sign up for the IC card so I just left it.
I walked across Odaiba to pass the Gundam statue again and take some pics with my new camera as it was on the way, what I didn't know (as it hadn't been announced at this point) was this statue is now GONE D:
No-head Gundam, thanks & good-bye!
ガンダム解体中。
寂しいけど、ありがとう！ pic.twitter.com/NB73AX6DaZ
- お台場リバティOdaibaLiberty (@smile_together) March 15, 2017
So, sadly I never got to see the statue at night lit up or see it moving (which from videos looked REALLY COOL) so that's pretty sad. It also shows you how long I take to write these things, as this is getting close to a year ago.
It's going to be replaced this year by the Gundam Unicorn from one of the more recent series and the opposite theme park is going to be revamped (or also demolished??) into a Gundam attraction. Maybe they'll put the old one back up in there somehow.
But it will be pretty interesting if the new statue can do this in real life:
Click to view
RIP ;____;
I headed along past Fuji-TV to Decks to visit Daiba 1-chome Shotengai, which is retro style mall and arcade near Sega Joypolis. I ended up staying for a long while and I played Outrun 1 (this is becoming a theme!) which I'm usually pretty good at, but I did terribly in this original cabinet, haha. Same goes for Chase HQ, but it was really great to play them! I also played Mario pinball which I hadn't played since I was a little kid! I did okay ^^ I also had a coke from a classic glass bottle vending machine, it was actually kind of hard to get one from this as there were so many other tourists hovering around it to finish their drinks and put them into the rack for the empty bottles, so I circled around the shops a few times until I got my chance.
I didn't take any pictures when I was there because I thought I wasn't allowed to, but my friend did! so please take a look at her site :)
http://nagatopyon.com/odaiba-daiba-1-chome-shotengai/
I rode the Monorail on the way back and managed to sit near the front \o/
I passed the Ghibli clock again at the TV station for the 2nd or 3rd time. Again this is something I had no idea about but if you get there on the hour (but not all of them) the clock decorations all begin to move and various stuff happens. Who knows if I'll be back on time to ever see this though ^^;
I then headed to Hamamatsucho station to meet up with twissie & bie! They wanted to go to Tokyo Tower as there was some kind of Persona 5 live event happening later on, so we decided to hang around the area. I had thought this would be my day for going to hang out in Akihabara but I had taken much too long in the arcades in Odaiba and tofubie wasn't too far away, so I decided to stay put. I even started writing out the first entry, but didn't finish because I take forever and here we are 1 year later and I'm not even finished the first trip yet XDD
Tokyo Tower had up 333 Children's Day fish for Golden Week, even if it didn't really look like that many, it really is! (the tower is 333ft tall, larger than the Eiffel Tower) Also happening at the time was a highball garden, so we went!!! I really love highballs thanks to tofubie on the last trip so this was a must visit XD
Tokyo Tower Highball Garden, checking out the Children's Day decorations~~ pic.twitter.com/jj2tkk0RKk
- Tove ・ とうふ (@twiss) May 5, 2016
Unfortunately (or fortunately? XD) I had only had that Coke earlier and no food at all until this point so I got buzzed really quickly from the massive highball we had with the food. Speaking of, while they were a bit stingy with the meat for the price, but the fries were SO GOOD so I concentrated on those... probably why I look so fat in twiss' picture XDD (or I just am fat, which is completely true)
I took a few more pics of the tower while we were next to it and we explored the area a bit while I kept giggling because I was still buzzed off the beer (I'm such a lightweight on an empty stomach). The event wasn't due to begin for hours and hours yet so we took a fun look around.
I also tried to recreate the photo I took 3 years previously, how did I do?
(2013 is the first image)
Sailor Moon is set in the Tokyo suburb Azabu-Juuban (麻布十番), which we didn't actually walk through but we were about 2 streets away from it. We ended up in Shiba Park.
Rei-Chan's family shine (Sailor Mars) doesn't actually exist in real life, but this Buddhist temple in Shiba Park is supposed to be what Hikawa Shrine is loosely based on, so we visited and took a few pics there too \o/
We sat down for a while and slowly the tower's lights started becoming more visible as it got darker, this wasn't the special event, but there seems to be a special colour scheme anyway?? It looked really cool XD
Time was up for me though as it was time to head back and meet up with Tutu as her event was about to finish, I said goodbye to tofubie since we didn't know if we could make it back and me and Tutu were leaving in the morning for Osaka.
I caught these on the way out, I wasn't in the park for very long at all so I couldn't explore it, and the last time I was there I just wanted to go to to the tower mostly. Maybe one day I'll visit again but I might be all TT'd out after this XD
I waited at the station for Tutu for a while and started seeing people coming out in the distance, I tried to spot her using the zoom of my camera but eventually she just appeared on the escalator haha. Apparently her friends weren't expecting a massive white dude when Tutu had told them her friend was waiting for them at the station XD they seemed a little bit surprised/unsettled.
We headed to Shimibashi station to collect our stuff from the locker we left our stuff in earlier, Tutu didn't know about the TT event kinda wanted to go home to the hotel but I convinced her to come back with me.
We ended up having to phone twiss with a payphone to see if they were still there, and they were! so we headed back to the tower.
Unfortunately, the event was a live stream happening *inside* the tower so we had no idea what was going to actually happen. Bie did check the event on his phone from time to time but we ended up waiting around for a long time clueless as to what was going to happen. The wifi died as well eventually so tutu was really tired from her event and bored and wanted to write about her fun times, so I felt bad for dragging her there >.< so sorry!
As you can see above, I spent most of my time trying to get a decent picture of the tower at night, which was really hard for some reason, I even tried with the flash on for a joke... the phone pic turned out the best in the end!
Also some bad selfies happened during the wait.
EVENTUALLY the tower's lights went off and then changed to bright red for Persona 5....that's it... hahaha
I've never played persona and I haven't read about the new game (which is actually out now) so I don't know WHY it changed to red, but it did! we kind of suspected something would happen since we were right next to a set of lights for most of the time we were waiting.
Tutu and me said goodbye to bie and twiss as we were leaving in the morning and wouldn't see them again ;__;
We headed back to our hotel to get ready for the bullet train journey in the morning.
The next entry is.... OSAKA