Day 8 - Adventure through Japan "Odaiba and Harajuku"

Without knowing what Anime Fair would consist of, our original schedule had us attending again this day.  However, with us pretty much covering the place the day before, we decided not to go back and instead use this day to check out a few things around Odaiba and to try catch the Cosplay/Harajuku crowd that can only be seen on Sundays.  We start out around 8 a.m. again, this time trying the breakfast buffet on the 2nd floor of the hotel.  It really wasn't very good for the high price tag, but at least we ate something.

Part I - Walking/Pallette Town:  Without my consent, we end up walking to the Museum of Emerging Sciences from our hotel.  I had no idea where this place even was, so I just followed.  It was an interesting walk, but waaaay to long to begin the day with.  We did get to walk through Pallette Town, Pokemon is what it made me think of.  A small town inside a small man-made island, yes, interesting.  We also walked past a Yamaha show and a park that was oddly located inside the concrete city.  After an hour or so of walking, we arrive at the museum.

Part II - Museum of Emerging Sciences:  We arrive just as it opened at 10 a.m. so there was a line to get through.  After weighing our ticket options and what we have planned for the day, we decide there's enough time to get the "full ticket", which included the "Science of Scare" or something like that, more on this later.  We get inside after just a few minutes, again demonstrating on how efficient things run compared to the States, it was at least 30 minutes shorter then it would have been back home.  After reviewing the program and our timing we formulate a plan to catch the ASIMO demonstration at 11:15 a.m. toward the end of our tour, heading over to the environment exhibit first and also to take a look at some applied sciences.  The first part of the environment exhibit was this huge globe you could see from outside the building, it cycles through current cloud cover (as seen above), temperatures and heat patterns. It was one huge digital display and pretty awesome all by itself.  After staring at the globe for awhile, we head into the rest of the exhibits.  I don't remember exactly what they were named, but I know we got to see demonstrations of aircrafts, space exploration, weather forcasting, cells and other cool things before heading back downstairs to the robot section and where ASIMO was going to be demonstrated.

The demonstration was actually rather long, around 20 minutes.  There were no seats, just a bunch of people standing in a circle with kids sitting down toward the front.  We were introduced to ASIMO and got to see what it/he was capable of; such as running, kicking a ball, waving to the crowd and responding to some conversation.  There was a lot of explanation being done by the announcer/sidekick person, but only in Japanese so we didn't get too much from that portion.  Even though you can see video of what ASIMO can do online, it was rather neat to see it in real life.  I was surprised by just how athletic it/he can be.  It was getting even more crowded near the end, so we walked away a few minutes early to finish looking at the robotics exhibit.  Most hands-on exhibits were geared towards children and a lot of explanation boards were in Japanese only, so that hindered us a bit.  There was a rather awesome working exhibit involving balls and a conveyer system that was actually a working replica of the internet and how packets move across the web, one of the most interesting things I saw (except for the globe, which was my top pick). 

With it starting to get late, we headed to the cafe to grab a quick bite to eat and head down to the main level to enter the special "Science of Scare" exhibit.  The line was the longest yet and actually took 30 minutes or so to get through.  Once inside, it was basically a small haunted house with like 6 rooms, however what you didn't know was at the end everything you saw inside was being controlled by people watching you from the end of the house.  They had a set of 6 buttons people could press at the right moment (the entire house was displayed on TV screens, one specificly for each button), so you could see peoples reactions.  It was a rather fun time playing with people going through the house after walking through it yourself, so we stuck around for awhile there.   After that we stopped at our first (and turned out to be only) photo-sticker booth on our way out to get a spoooky photo sticker, which turned out awesome, but I'm not sure where it is right now so no picture for you!

Part III - Harajuku:  Now somewhere around 1 p.m., we're already running late for the day, but the museum was worth it. The plan is to meet back up at MegaWeb around 4 p.m. (in Odaiba). With Brandon and Jason not very interested in Harajuku, it is now down to Matt, myself and Donnie again (against my warning, Matt came).  We were going with shopping (for clothing, duh) in mind and also to observe the cosplay/fashion of Takeshita-dōri and Yoyogi Park.  Once we got there, I realized that the maps I had were completely useless and had no idea which way to go.  We do wander into a few cool shops and eventually make our way to Takeshita-dōri, just an hour later then planned.  It was PACKED, as I had imagined it would be.  Matt would lag behind as we went in and out of various clothing shops that lined the street, looking bored to death.  Apparently many shop owners frowned upon taking pictures of or even near their shops, not to mention stopping in front of them if you weren't buying something.  So, while he would get yelled at waiting for us in front of a shop, we attempted to find some cool clothing, unaware that the bridge of cosplayers was pretty far down the road and that it was getting so late.  I think we both came out with a skirt or two and a jacket, but there was still less here in my style that I had hoped there would be.  Everything was semi-reasonably prices though, for what it was (between ¥2,000 and ¥7,000 for high fashion items) and most everything in size large would fit, which was even more surprising.  Once we were nearing, what I felt like was, the end of the street I was getting desperate for a bathroom.  Learning quickly that Harajuku on a Sunday doesn't have a female bathroom line shorter then 35 people and with it now 4:00 p.m., we were forced to give up on the venture to find cosplayers for the day and to instead head back to Odaiba.  With Matt irritated and just about ready to leave us, we get through the crowd and back on the train for Odaiba, shopping bags in hand with the few prizes we could find in the mess that was the afternoon.

Part IV - Sega Joypolis:  Skipping over the unpleasant part of dropping bags off at the hotel, losing Matt and not making it to MegaWeb per the original plan, it was now 6 p.m. or so (I don't remember the exact time) and we decide that meeting up with the rest of the group at Sega Joypolis would be best.  After researching this place for some time before deciding to go, I was really looking forward to finally getting to see it.  I love arcades and love Sega, so what better then 3 stories of Sega amusements?  It was so very cool, where do I start....  First off, right from the beginning, when you walk in, there is basically an entire floor of Sega UFO catchers.  But, before I could even make it to them, in the corner was the Initial D simulator.  Now, when we were in Phoenix a year prior to this there was a "simulator" for Initial D in a large arcade there.  It was a car you could get into, but was about the size for one person to sit and still looked like a game.  It moved and was simulated driving and all that, so this is what I thought would be here after seeing the attraction online.  But no, this is Sega and we're in Japan.  For ¥600 a play (with free passanger or all included in unlimited pass ticket) you get to drive Initial D with simulated movements in a REAL CAR.  These suckers were real down to the seat belts inside, the only difference was instead of having wheels and running they were hooked up to the arcade games (which was stage 5, btw, not even out in the States yet) and on hydrolics.  We only waited in line for about 15 minutes and then is was go time.  With Matt in the drivers seat, I got to hop in the passanger seat and have the ride of my life.  It was so much fun!  He got a real thrill out of it too and finally the stress of the afternoon was gone.  Now it was my turn, off to the UFO catchers!

I immediately change in a ¥2,000 bill for a bunch of ¥100 coins, as most machines cost just that for a play or ¥500 for six plays.  After pacing the floor for a bit and trying a machine here and there I quickly assess what sort of goods can be won.  Amonst them are about five different variation of Stitch plushies, a bunch of different Disney prizes, but sadly no real Sega merchandise.  I knew Sega was famous for having Disney prizes in their machines, but was hoping for at least one Sega themed UFO catcher at Joypolis!  I settle down on one machine and concentrate on winning a few furry Stitch plushies. 

After "wasting" ¥3,000 total (I was having fun playing them, I don't care what people say), I concentrated on one machine long enough to win both a Stitch and Angel (from the T.V. series).  They were cute, furry and made a great pair.  Once they were both in my grasp an employee showed up asking if I won them and if I wanted something... I couldn't understand what she was saying between the noise of the area, soft speaking and barely knowing the language so I was lost.  Following her anyway, over to a counter where she took both of them and put them in a balloon!  With a little heart balloon! KAWAII!

After the happiness of the 1st floor of Sega Joypolis we were ready to explore the rest of the place.  There were "rides" such as a spinning roller coaster, snow-boarding interactive ride and interactive 3-D shooters, but wait lines for all of them were kind of long at 20-30 minutes each, so we instead opt for playing some arcade and token games.  I usually have more fun playing things like that anyway.  We trade in ¥2,000 for a bunch of tokens and start playing meaningless token games.  Somehow, it was a lot of fun, even after we realized there was no way we could figure out how to trade the tokens in for prizes and such since all of the machines were in Japanese.  Even funnier is that we kept winning!  Once out of the ¥2,000 worth, I spot Slot/Pachinko machines and decide to play a really cool looking Slot machine.  Slot/Pachinko machines in Japan look awesome by the way, though I still find Pachinko incredibly boring.  After putting just ¥100 into the Slot machine, I come out with more tokens then we bought with ¥2,000, haha.  We probably stayed up here doing not much of anything for way too long, but the important part was that it was really fun for some unexplained reason.  We finally finish off the rest of our tokens and finish looking around at the arcade machines.  I just had to play the huge Tetris machine that had a joystick so large you had to control it with both hands, about 4 feet tall with little buttons on the sides to play the game with, it was awesome.  Even more awesome was the two Typing of the Dead games, both the original and Lupin style!  Had a blast playing those, you even got to play 2 player mode for ¥100!  After making it through all of the games, we became exhausted and decided to head out, with the time now nearing 10:00 p.m.

Part V - Odaiba at night:  At this point, we still had not eaten anything.  There were a few crepe places and a curry dinner place in Joypolis, but we didn't really feel like eating either of those things.  Being from the States, restaurants/food places don't close until 11 p.m. or later, so eating past 10 p.m. shouldn't be an issue, right?  Wrong, not in Japan.  We ended up pacing the walkway leading from Joypolis to the subway station, through two malls, and couldn't find a single thing to eat.  Regretting a bit about not eating inside Joypolis we decide to just return to the hotel, where the kombini located inside was thankfully open.  Getting nothing more then some Onigiri and Miso soup to eat in the room, the night was about over.  Another plan is formulated for the following morning, this time to meet up at the cheaper breakfast/cafe place in the hotel downstairs at 7:30 a.m. and to head to Disneyland after eating, hoping to get there by 8:30-9 a.m. or so, since they open at 8 a.m., that should be plenty early enough, right?

Prices:

• ¥2,400 - Breakfast (for two)
• ¥1,100 - Museum of Emerging Sciences tickets, each for full (reg + special exhibits)
• ¥9,000 - Misc. clothing
• ¥600    - Tickets into Joypolis (each, without unlimited rides)
• ¥7,500 - Stuff at Joypolis (we "wasted" a lot)
• ¥1,000 - Kombini dinners

Lesson's learned:

• Not to follow someone on a walk if you don't know how far it is. (again!!)
• Working model of the internet = awesome.
• Realtime globe = even more awesome.
• Don't take any males to Harajuku, especially on Sunday.
• Don't take pictures of shops in Harajuku (as I witnessed one guy get scolded harshly by a shopkeeper for doing so, it was funny, for me)
• Have a good map for Harajuku, it's not as simple as it looks on Google to navigate.
• If female, go to the bathroom before going to Harajuku, you will not get another chance.
• UFO catchers are awesome, Sega is even more awesome.
• Even food places, in a place like Odaiba, are not open past 10 p.m.
• Odaiba at night is very pretty, but very windy and very cold in April