Edo-Tokyo museum, sweet factory and Odaiba

Yesterday we headed out to the Edo Tokyo museum, that the guide in the Shitamachi museum had recommended to us. It was in this really weird building, on the top 2 floors, but was really good. They had a full-size recreation of an Edo period Kabuki theatre, and lots of detailed models of buildings from that era. It was amazing how developed they were 400 years ago; every street had plumbing, police, and fire guards, and books and libraries were a big part of life.

We ended up going for pizza in the museum, which was quite nice. There was the sumo museum too but we were tired and I have been feeling quite ill with a bad head cold, so we just headed home.

A couple of days ago there was a poster at our hotel, asking for foreign volunteers to be guided round a sweet shop in Tokyo for a TV station, Fuji TV. After speaking to the woman via email, we met up in the lobby and got a taxi to nearby a local tube station, where there was a large sweetshop which made it's own sweets upstairs. They specialise in a type that our guide though was only found in Tokyo, but it's very much like seaside-type rock, but not flavoured. We did a short question session in the shop, then went upstairs to watch them making it, which was really cool, because they have to start off making it massive to get the detail, before rolling it down to normal size. Then they cut it into small chunks and sell it in bags. They made us try cutting some up; James was quite good, they even put the stuff he made with the rest to be sold, but either I was a bit rubbish. The factory owner made the excuse that it had became brittle for me though. It was probably a good thing, since I was acutely aware of my cold and was trying not to sniff or touch anything.

We didn't take any pictures, but here is the wikipedia article on the character who appears in the rock they sell. Apparently someone puts the segment on Youtube too, so it should be online in about a week. We'll let you know. The best part of it all is that after dropping us off at the station on our request, they paid us 3000 yen each (about £24), so we actually got paid for an awesome day making candy.

Since we still had most of the day left, we decided to head to something called "Shiodome" near Tokyo bay, not really knowing what to expect. It turned out to be a sort of futuristic mini-city, with big tall skyscrapers. There wasn't really too much to do though, so on the advice of the guidebook we took the monorail across the water to an island of reclaimed land called Odaiba. This turned out to be more really massive buildings; the view going across the water was great, but this time there were lots of shops, restaurants and arcades too. The whole thing was really quiet though, so it felt quite surreal. Both me and James felt like we were in a futuristic-type city in the Sims.

We took lots of photos, so I'll break them up. Below are skyscrapers near Shiodome, and the view from the monorail.

Below are pictures of the Venus mall, which was really cool and had food places that actually looked really nice.

The sun had set by the time we came out (it sets really early here), so we took some pictures of the buildings at night. A lot of them weren't lit up though.

After that we walked to the other end of the island, where there was another mall, a little dated looking but with nice shops. And at one side of the mall, there was a "Sega virtual park", which cost £15 each to get into after 8pm, so we ended up going in there and going on some of the rides, including one bob-sleigh one that actually turned out upside down. There were other see-saw type rides etc, but I have still been feeling full of the cold all day so we gave them a miss. We were getting tired anyway so just headed back to the hotel, and got in around midnight.

We're thinking of heading to Ueno museum tomorrow, but we say that every time. We did try to go on Monday, but everything on the park closes on Monday, so it was unlucky. We made up for out luck today though from that TV show, we still can't believe we actually got paid for it.

Anyway, we might just be taking it easy tomorrow if I don't feel up to much still, since we had a busy day today. Hope everything back home is going well. Cheers.