Travel Post: Our Japan Trip - Day 6 (Odaiba, Takoyaki Museum, Aqua City, Rainbow Bridge, Palette Town, Premium Kaio Diver City Sushi Train)

Odaiba! The man made island full of shops for women. Wait a minute...

Make sure when you are visiting Odaiba, you make sure that you plan for a full day of walking, shopping, eating and more shopping. This place is huge! Luckily you can pick up a handy guide of Odaiba when you arrive at the monorail station. Speaking of monorails, in order to get here by public transport you have to catch a SELF DRIVING monorail over the famous rainbow bridge and onto the island.

Odaiba is renown for the giant Gundam statue that stands at a whopping 18 metres tall! This is a 1:1 scale of what a real life sized Gundam would look like. It also lights up at night which is a show of its own to see. This statue is located outside of Diver city which is a mall packed with many outlets to buy clothing, as well as the odd maid cafe and of course you have......

The Premium Kaio Diver city sushi train!

If you are visiting japan for experiences, make this the top of your list because not only does this place make some of the most delicious sushi dishes we have tasted, but it is also home to a shinkansen (BULLET TRAIN!!!!).

Just we weary of the line. It took us roughly 20 minutes to get a table, people with more than 2 guests had to wait longer. Fortunately you get a view of the chef doing his thing while you wait!

At each table they have a tap for hot water and a little container of green tea. It costs no additional, so its nice to have a warm cuppa on a cold autumn day.

So how this works:

Each table is located to the traditional sushi train conveyor belt.
Avoid the sushi on this belt as we kept seeing the same plates passing by
(not too sure how long they are cycled).
Instead, use the neat little iPad provided to you which holds a menu of all the different type of dishes they serve. Each order can take up to 4 plates at a time. What is really cool about this app is that it keeps a log of stock levels and the order list. So it might advise you if a particular dish is "back ordered" meaning you will have to wait longer. It also gives you an option of choosing to add wasabi to each individual sushi!!

Once your order is complete, hit the button and wait roughly 5 minutes and Voila!

Before you know it, a bullet train flies past and arrives at your table!
It's entertaining to watch it zoom past to other tables and you just sit there thinking... doesn't the mini train driver get tired?!

After you clear your plates, make sure to send the train back home by pressing the red button. Yes, this is probably the only time in your life where you are allowed to press the red button.

We ordered a number of "repeat orders" because there was some particular favourites we couldn't get enough of! The garlic grilled salmon was one of them. Even Matt (who disregards all existence of any type of seafood) could not get enough of this. The salmon was so fresh!

The steaming hot udon with vegetable tempura was a great choice. Not only does it warm up your belly on a cold day, but in terms of value it is almost a steal for the portion!

Just your typical prawn fry sushi... or is it?

Deep fried chicken pieces were amazing. It probably stems down to our passion for anything deep fried, but they were great! We had to resist the urge to order a second serving of these little angels.

Takoyaki balls. What more do I need to say?

Deep fried cheese?! We just had to order these and Christine loved them. They were almost like eating cheese crackers. Matt wasn't too impressed with them, but we both did fight over the last one.

The grilled scallop was sooooo fresh! I normally preferred mine grilled more but WHO CARES! 

The next lot of photos would just be Christine going crazy at all the cute japanese styled bento lunches. So I will just leave it at that then.
Takoyaki Museum is below so don't go away.

You would think that after all that we would be full and wanting to avoid food at any costs. WRONG! We are foodies at heart so our next destination was the Takoyaki Museum! This place is located at the Odaiba Decks which is next to Aqua City. It has several smaller souvenier shops where we did a little souvenier hunting. But the real gem is the museum itself.

TAKOYAKI MUSUEM

Here we are! Everything inside is Takoyaki related and unless you hate babies, you will not be disappointed. There are a couple of novelty takoyaki shops inside as well as cute animated statues which they encourage you to take pictures with. Christine didn't need any encouragement.
The cost of this is FREE!

The museum is not very big nor informational. What it is, is a selection of stores that sell Takoyaki, and each one of them smells amazing. We spent 15 minutes deciding hat to eat, when the only option is takoyaki. There are that many options!

We ordered at this machine and was served almost instantly. The result, not your traditional takoyaki but it was close enough. We kind of regretted not choosing the places that gave you sauce as they were a bit dry. Nothing still compares to the takoyaki balls we tried in Akihabara though...

Next on our list is the Toyota Showroom. Both guys and women will enjoy this interactive showroom which features some of the upcoming technology as well as their current prestegious inventiones (the 86 of course). There are games you can play, side shows where you can participate in Segway races, it was mental! (ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN SPEAK FLUENT JAPANESE) So we sadly missed out :( 

Did we also mention that they have historical cars on show as well as favourite classics like the DeLorean DMC 12 from back to the future!

It has a great olden style theme to the factory. Really sets you back a couple of years, and the detail is inspiring! All this effort to showcase a couple of cars. Wow!

We had to spend some time with this beauty. What more could you want from a car with a 2.0L Subaru boxter engine, wide body kit and a sun roof? Oh that's right, how about the fact that it is a beautiful orange and black colour? You have yourself a deal!

Linked up to the show room is the "Venus Fort" which is a selection of shops encased in a Medieval European styled centre. What makes this place a tourist's dream is not the shops, but instead the glorious lighting on the roof that changes colours depending on the time of day! You can see sunrise to sunset if you spend enough time in this mall!

Or it could also be the fact that it is so beautiful. I mean just look at this fountain!

The last destination on our trip to Odaiba was Palette town. 

Unlike what you might think, it has nothing to do with Pokemon (*cries) but instead it is another outlet village which is very colourful and affordable.

Make sure to check out the games arcade located under the ferris wheel also. Not only is it a great view but you can literally spend hours inside playing all the games they have to offer. It basically sh#ts on our very own Galaxy world. They have batting cages, soccer shoot out games and even tennis games? Crazy!

We then decided to backtrack a bit and head back towards the Odaiba Decks which gives you a great view of the stunning lights that turn on at night. You can see the pretty colours of the ferris wheel gloriously spinning as well as the Japanese statue of liberty!

How could I also forget the Rainbow bridge of course! Unfortunately it wasn't as colourful as we had hoped it would be, but nonetheless it was still a breathtaking view.
Very romantic for all those couples out there!

See? What did I say... Romantic! This feature actually has a BIG RED BUTTON that causes the inner globes to light up and dance along with music. Very nice spot to share a kiss =]

Make sure to include Odaiba on your list of "To Do's". There is much more you can do here that we simply cannot cover. We didn't even show you all the shops available to spend all your money at! This was not only a relaxing day (considering our hustle and bustle schedule) but it was also jam packed full of fun. Definitely a highlight for us!

Want to read more about our Japan trip? 

Click on the link below!

TOKYO, OSAKA AND KYOTO IN 13 DAYS - COMPLETE TRAVEL POST

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