Rainbow Bridge and Odaiba Island

Saturday, March 14th--Today, we decided to walk across Rainbow Bridge and check out Odaiba Island.  We took the bus and the metro to get near the bridge, and then we had to walk a little way before we found the beginning of it.
Rainbow Bridge is a two-story bridge that has a walking path on either side of it, with traffic lanes in between.  A metro line also runs on it.  The traffic lanes go around in a full circle as they climb in elevation up to the bridge itself.  The walking path that we were taking has an elevator that takes you up to the bridge.

When we got to the walking path, the kids were surprised at the atmosphere.  It was not what they were expecting!  There were cars and big trucks driving by us at fast speeds.  The exhaust from the cars and the loud echo that they made from the confined space of the bridge surprised the kids and they were not sure that they wanted to walk across it after all. 

Looking over the side, we could see the docks with Tokyo Tower in the background....

....and if we looked further along the Tokyo skyline, we could see the Tokyo Skytree as well.

The bridge is 798 meters and was an easy walk.  The kids soon got used to the loud noises and began to enjoy themselves.  They would look for small pebbles on the pathway that they could drop over the side of the bridge into the ocean below.

The vertical beams along the walking path were painted in a series of colors reminiscent of a rainbow.  The Rainbow Bridge is also lit up at night, using solar energy that is gathered during the day.  It is only lit up like a rainbow during the holiday season in December, however. 

 

Almost completely across the bridge....

The family on Rainbow Bridge.  You can also see Tokyo Tower in the background. 

In spite of the loud car noise, walking across the bridge was a fun thing to do.  We enjoyed the views of the boats going under the bridge and the Tokyo skyline.

Rainbow Bridge connects Tokyo to the man-made island called Odaiba.  It originated as a set of small man made fort islands (daiba literally means "fort"), which were built towards the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868) to protect Tokyo against possible attacks from the sea. Specifically, this area was built up in the 1850's as a means to protect Japan from Admiral Matthew Perry and his "Black Ships" when he came to Japan and demanded that it cease to be an isolated country and open itself to the rest of the world. 

More than a century later, the small islands were joined into larger islands by massive landfills, and Tokyo began a tremendous development project aimed to turn the islands into a futuristic business district during the extravagant 1980s. But development came to a near complete stop after the burst of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s, leaving Odaiba nearly vacant.  In the later part of the 90's, development picked up again and now this island is a popular place for Tokyo natives and tourists alike to come and hang out.  It is known as a place where Tokyo can boast of its technological advancement over the rest of the world. 

Out of the six batteries that were built to defend Tokyo, only two remain.   These are the No. 3 and No. 6 Batteries.  We explored No. 3 Battery.  It was completed in 1854. It was damaged by the Great Kanto earthquake, but was repaired. In 1928 it was refurbished and opened as a park. At the time it was an unconnected island, but eventually it was connected to Odaiba Island. In the center of the fort are the barracks, but only the foundation remains. In addition, there are the remains of an explosives warehouse and an ammunition storehouse.

The remains of the cannons.

After we finished exploring No. 3 Battery, (seen in the picture with Rainbow Bridge in the background), we began to walk along the beach toward the buildings on Odaiba Island.  (Nathan and Audra in picture)

We arrived at the ferris wheel and planned to go on a ride.  This ferris wheel is one of the largest in the world, getting into the 1999 Guiness Book of World Records as the biggest one at the time.

They let up to four people in a booth, so we split up into two groups.  Boys vs. girls.  The ferris wheel does not stop for people to get on or off, it just continues at its slow pace and you get on or off the best you can as your booth slowly moves along the bottom.  It just so happened that the girls got a pink booth (to the sheer joy of Audra Mae) and the boys got a blue booth.

The boys thought it was fun to rock their booth back and forth, which freaked their mother out and made her yell and scream at them.  Caitlin and Tayla wanted to rock our booth as well, but I had a meltdown and freaked out.  I am afraid of heights and it was dumb of me to get on this ferris wheel.  I had a panic attack while on it, and don't really remember much.  The girls said that I was hysterical and wouldn't let them move around the booth to take pictures because the shift in weight would slightly rock the booth.  I feel bad that the girls couldn't enjoy the ride as much as they could have.  However, the boys had a great time rocking away high in the air with the great views of Tokyo and the ocean.

 

Audra was a good big sis and held onto Kirstin as she looked out the window.  In spite of their crazy mother, the girls enjoyed the ride...just not as much as the boys did.  It took 15 minutes for the booths to make the slow rotation around and then we could get off.

We noticed these solar panels placed in the shape of a heart on the roof of one of the buildings.

Next, we made our way over to the Toyota MegaWeb area.  This is a Toyota car technology showcase where you see some great racing cars and play around with some of the techno gadgets that are here.

There was a remote controlled jeep that one could drive over rough terrain.  Logan tried that out....

.....as did Christopher.

There was also this semi-truck that little ones could ride around a track.  Nathan was all over this one...

....as was Audra.

More remote controlled cars.  Raymond and the four oldest also watched a 20 minute movie in a theater with seats that moved around as you watched.  I stayed outside with the three littlest because they were too small to sit in the motion seats.  They all LOVED the movie and said it was the best thing ever!

There were also several race cars that Toyota has made on display.

We had to leave before we wanted to because Caitlin had her first church dance to attend this evening and we had to get home so she could get ready.  Before we left for home, we had two quick stops to make.  The first one was seeing this Gundam robot.  He's huge!  The three boys are in front of him.

We also had to stop by the Hello Kitty Japan store.  They have all kinds of Japanese inspired Hello Kitty items, along with treats in the shape of Miss Hello Kitty.

It was fun to look through all the cute Hello Kitty stuff, even the boys enjoyed it.

We found the bus stop and rode it back to Shinagawa Station, where we got on the metro that took us home.  While we were riding the bus over Rainbow Bridge heading back into Tokyo, Nathan realized that we were crossing the bridge by bus and were not going to walk back over it again.  He was very disappointed.  He showed me his pockets, which were full of small rocks.  Unbeknownst to me, he had been collecting pebbles all afternoon so he would be equipped and ready for the walk back over the bridge and he could drop all of his many pebbles over the side and into the ocean below.

There is much more to see on this island, and the kids especially need to see Rainbow Bridge lit up at night.  But, because of Caitlin's dance, we had to cut our time short.  We will just have to come back out here another time!