Tokyo, Japan, Day 4

Day 4 On Day 4, we planned to walk across the Rainbow Bridge from Shiodome to Odaiba then hang out in Odaiba and take a ferry up the Sumida River. Nothing turned out as planned, though, but that's okay. :)

We were initially intending to walk across, but when we got up to the walkway and everything was shaking and cars were speeding by within arm's reach, we turned around, walked to the river, then took the subway across it.^^



Views from the elevator to the traffic level and from underneath.

On the other side, in Odaiba, is a place called DECKS Tokyo Beach. It has an outdoor mall with shops and restaurants, as well as indoor shopping, and some attractions like Legoland, Madame Tussaud's (wax museum) and a Trick Eye museum. We ate frozen yogurt from an area overlooking the bridge, then walked around the shops, and finally went into the Trick Eye museum.





There's a Trick Eye museum in Hongdae in Seoul as well. I'd gone there a couple years ago when I first came to Seoul on vacation, but the one in Tokyo had more interesting paintings, I think. Basically, the "museum" has 2D paintings (including some famous ones, like The Scream by Edvard Munch) that are painted to appear 3D, and altered in such a way that guests can somehow interact with them. The whole point is to pose and take pictures with the paintings. And that, we did.




I really like how the last one turned out. :)

After that, we went to Tokyo Tower (via subway, not ferry...). We were going to walk around there until dark, then go to the SkyTree for a night view of the city. However, we found out the SkyTree's admission fee was $30, while the Tower's was only $8 for the lower level observation deck (you can pay a bit more and go up a few more stories). Given that, plus the additional $5 in subway fare... we decided to just stay at the Tower. I'm not sure how the view from the SkyTree is, but I'm not sure it's 4x better than what we saw at the Tower.^^





There was a display on each side that pointed out various buildings. The displays
could also show a timelapse video of the view during a 24-hour period. They also
had live entertainment one story down. The actual deck showed it on video monitors.


My camera really did not want to focus on the nighttime view
of the tower, but I think the blurry one looks cooler anyway...

Onward to Day 5...!