Odaiba Round 2

On 3/14 we made our second trip to Odaiba Island. We stopped briefly by the Museum of Maritime Science just to snap a quick picture. The museum is shaped like a large cruise ship. Our next stop was to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. It is similar to many of the science museums in the US only with less to see. The museum’s star (well, it least to us) was Asimo. Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is a 3 foot robot made by Honda. He is really cute and an engineering marvel. Along with Asimo the museum had a robot making area (for kids) and many other kid friendly exhibits & activities. One of the more amusing ones was a game where a child moved a coffee cup through a virtual world. What was amusing is that the joystick looked exactly the same as the large coffee cup that was being moved in the game.

We then took a free shuttle bus to Venus Port where we saw the History Garage. It is a small area filled with several old cars. My personal favorite was the Delorean, best known for its roll in the Back to the Future movies in the 80s. Anne found a cute little BMW that has to be one of the smallest cars I have ever seen.

After a snack in Venus Port we went to the Mega Web (the Toyota Showroom) to take a 15 minute E-com Ride. It was $2 a person to ride in a tiny (think MINI cooper, but smaller) electric powered car. We also snapped a couple more pictures of some interesting futuristic looking cars.

Next we went on the tallest Ferris wheel in Japan. This was a little on the scary side once we started reaching the top. The wind really started to pick up and would occasionally shake our little cabin much to our queasy stomach’s displeasure. After descending we went into an adjacent building which turned out to be full of video games. The highlight there was a man in his mid thirties playing DDR (a video game where you step on 1 or 2 (at the same time) of the 4 pressure plates by your feet depending on the directional arrows shown on a video monitor). This guy was using 8 pressure plates instead of 4 (as seen in the US) and was on a streak of 300 perfectly timed steps. There was also a woman in her twenties practicing his moves a couple feet behind him.

Since our stomach’s were still feeling funny after the Ferris wheel we decided to eat some crepes and spicy flavored French fries assuming that if they (being our stomachs) were distracted they would forget all about the scary swinging Ferris wheel. After eating I convinced Anne to go shopping while I took a couple more pictures of the Rainbow Bridge and the Goddess of Liberty.