This time I simply joined colleagues who wanted to Tokyo, more precisely to Odaiba. Odaiba is an artificial island in the bay of Tokyo and has some attractions. In order to save some money and because we were a larger group, we bought a kind of group ticket for the regional train instead of the Shinkansen or the equally acceptable bus.
Therefore, we had to leave early in the morning because we needed about 3.5 hours to get to our first destination station.I said regional train, but this is different than we normally have in Germany. This is more like our ourground. The seats are then only on the outer walls and the middle is free for standing. The seats are heated, but this does not bring so much, when the doors automatically open at each stop and the cold comes in. This is only in the cold areas (with snowstorms) in Japan differently, there they open only if you press the doorknob like in Germany. Incidentally, this train has only partial regional train character, a double-decker, if you pay extra and then traveling in a better class. This train rarely runs very fast, often at the same speed as our undergrounds, although speeds as our regional trains are also possible. I was also told that they have in other prefectures something like regional trains. I’ve already ridden with one. The Japanese train system is very fragmented. There are only private companies because the national one was privatized. And there are not so many associations. Thanks to a card, the Suica, I can also travel often without thinking, because I only have to recharge them before I go to the train station and the amount is deducted automatically when leaving the destination, but that is not everywhere usable.
OK, let’s come to the purpose of the journey. Our main goal in Odaiba was the life-size Gundam-Mech type Unicorn, which was built as an attraction. Gundams are huge, pilot-controlled combat robots. These have been around since 1979 (the perhaps better known Transformer since 1984) and have a huge franchise of manga, anime and etc. Especially (action) characters are very prevalent. Is not my favourite, but apart from the giant figure, there was also a larger shop with attached small museum and the individualized models displayed there were sometimes very impressive. Especially the details, such as the artificial aging of the models. Unfortunately, you can not see this in the pictures. Here are a some.
And now the main attraction of the day. The Gundam during the day and at night. At night, additional lighting effects were active. There was also a two-minute show with presentation, light plays, sound and movements of the Gundam. Although I myself had hoped for a little more movement, but only partial equipment on the knees were moved and the head / helmet of the Gundams changed its appearance.
In night.
While waiting for the night, I was briefly in a shopping center, the Venus Fort. This is in the style of Venice. You have the facades in the appropriate style and on the ceiling a sky is projected. There is also a large fountain. At the moment there was also a small exhibition about the 1960s, with a focus on cars.
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