With a population of over 10 million people (that’s about one third of the population of Canada!) Tokyo has quite a few nice places to hang out and get away from all of the concrete.  One such place is Odaiba and on a sunny Saturday in May (the 25th exactly) Yuki and I headed there to check it out (Yuki had never been there before).

Odaiba is one of Tokyo’s newest districts and big money was spent to make the place look good.  You get there by crossing Rainbow Bridge (above picture) which with 2 layers of traffic and a monorail system in between, is a pretty cool piece of architecture itself.  Its name is comes from the fact that the colors of the lights used to illuminate the bridge at night change depending on the season.

Odaiba is built on reclaimed land (as are most of the newer areas in Japan) in the middle of Tokyo Bay.  There are a few nice parks in Odaiba and a small beach which offers access for windsurfing but not for swimming because of the large amounts of poisonous jellyfish in the bay.  The area itself has met mixed reviews from the foreign crowd (any park at home would put the place to shame) but on Japanese standards it is pretty nice.  The vast amounts of vacant weed filled land in between architecturally amazing buildings does make the area seem half finished from a development perspective though (probably due in part to the arrival of the current recession). 

The area has become one of the trendy places to hang out and is a popular spot for young couples.  Japanese culture tends to frown upon public displays of affection but the rules seem to change once you cross the bridge into Odaiba.  Host to the world’s biggest Ferris wheel, Odaiba is known as one of the hottest spots to take your date.

From Odaiba you have a beautiful view of the Tokyo skyline and of Tokyo Tower.  Completed in 1958, Tokyo Tower in the world’s tallest freestanding steel tower at 333 meters tall.  As every tower in the world seems to have, Tokyo Tower has an observatory floor which can be accessed for some ridiculous amount of money. 

One of the coolest looking buildings I have ever seen is also located at Odaiba.  The Fuji Television Building, designed by Kenzo Tange, took three years to build and is claimed to be totally earthquake proof.  The 1200 ton, 32 meter diameter ball in the middle houses an observatory (again costing ridiculous amounts of money to access).  You can go inside the building and watch Japanese TV shows being filmed live but after having done so, I think that looking at building itself from outside is more interesting.

Just before I left Japan in 1999 there was a big friendship promotion going on between the French and Japanese governments.  Many government and commercial efforts were made to strengthen the relationship between France and Japan.  One such program was the loan of the French Statue of Liberty to Japan for one year.  The statue was placed at Odaiba and although the original has returned to France, a replica is still on display today (as you can see in the picture).