Day 9 - Odaiba
Lunch in Shinjuku
Odaiba - Shopping Malls Experience
Teamlab Planets
The lunch in Shinjuku was our opportunity to meet with an old friend. Feel free to skip this part and head straight to Odaiba.
Odaiba is an entertainment district on the southeast edge of Tokyo by the water, filled with a chill vibe and numerous malls, each with its unique flavor. There is a nice scenic walk along the river bank, you can even find a Statue of Liberty and a small sandy beach there. It’s a great place for a chill day away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo city center. For us, however, the highlight of the day was definitely the incredible TeamLab experience.
Voyagers tips: Instead of taking the subway straight to Odaiba, consider heading to other ports such as Asakusa and taking a one-way cruise to Odaiba. This will allow you to add an enjoyable cruise to your itinerary. We didn’t plan ahead to do this but wish we did.
Lunch in Shinjuku
We met up with our old MBA friend Daniel at Yona Yona Beer Works. A great casual place to meet up during the day and enjoy some beer, chicken wings and sausages, although I’m sure it gets busy later in the day. It was great catching up!
After lunch, Daniel pointed us to the building with the big Godzilla on top of the building. There’s a little light-and-smoke Godzilla show periodically too. You can even go up to that floor to see Godzilla up close, but we opted to just enjoy from the street.
Odaiba
After getting out of the Daiba station, we took a relaxing stroll to the Unicorn Gundam statue in front of Diver City mall. It’s a massive Gundam statue and a fun photo op. Diver City has a great food court on the bottom floor and is a nice mall for some shopping.
From there, we continued to scenic walking path to Aqua City Odaiba right by the water. Aqua City is another huge mall, where the main attraction for us is the RAMEN KOKUGIKAN MAI. This is the mini “street” on the food floor where six popular ramen restaurants from across Japan all get together in one area. You can walk down, see which restaurant you want to try out, order the ramens on the vending machine, and go inside to be seated. We chose the Kanazawa Rich Pork Bone Ramen Shinsen, which had great flavor but was a bit too salty for our taste buds.
Next to Aqua City is Decks, another huge mall by the water. There are two unique attractions to call out here: Joypolis and Takoyaki Museum. Joypolis is an indoor amusement park with a video-game theme. There is an entrance ticket fee, you can buy the ticket just to enter or a combo ticket that includes the attractions. We were short on time and decided not to go in this time, but it sure looked fun.
There is a “Takoyaki Museum” which is a section of the food court where all the stalls specializes in takoyaki (Japanese squid balls). The word “museum” is used loosely here. It’s a worthwhile experience if you’re still not full from the prior food courts.
We really enjoyed the walk along the river, chilling by the sandy beach, taking scenic pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Rainbow Bridge in the background, and just enjoying the sunshine and breeze. It was a great stop to wind down on our last day in Japan.
TeamLab Planets
We concluded our Tokyo visit with a bang - TeamLab Planets was amazing and was unlike anything we’ve ever seen or experienced. It’s a fully immersive experience, you go from room to room with completely different experiences in each room. You go in barefoot and some rooms involve walking in water up to half-calf, so dress accordingly.
Voyagers tips: Make reservations early! We almost missed it because the tickets were sold out, had to re-arrange our itinerary to visit TeamLab in the evening when the tickets were available.
If you stay in Shinjuku or Shibuya, be prepared for a lengthy trip home. It takes about an hour to get back to your hotel in these areas.