Japan Trip Day 8: Caretta Shiodome, Odaiba

I still cannot master the art of balancing the room heater temperature with outside winter temperature as last night I woke up repeatedly again. I was also honestly worried about waking up late because I thought the sun was already high when I saw the brightness behind the sliding door. It was actually the light at the sink that was deliberately left on.

I took a shower in the morning and they flipped around the onsen i.e. the one designated for male last night was for female in the morning and vice versa. I saw some people were already checking out. People usually do not shower in the morning so I got to enjoy the onsen all to myself. This morning onsen was slightly bigger than yesterday with 3, instead of just 2, showers. Although I was in a rush, I still soaked in the actual onsen just for the sake of utilising it.

The male ryokan owner, whom I did not meet yesterday, was the one checking me out and he was promoting the Monkey Park again hahaha.. Sorry uncle.. We have to rush to Tokyo already. He drove us to the station and somehow the train was already there earlier than the schedule that I checked yesterday. Maybe the timetable that I saw yesterday is an outdated one.

The initial plan at Tokyo is to drop our luggages at temporary luggage storage at Tokyo Station and then to go to Caretta Shiodome since it is too early before hotel check in time. I think as it is getting closer to the end of year holiday, the station is just getting busier. The temporary luggage storage at JR East Travel Service was so full that they did not accept anymore. So we had no choice but to go to our hotel to drop our luggage first.

People are excited Caretta Shiodome for the winter illumination but I went there for the Aladdin exhibition to promote its Disney MovieNEX release. The area for the winter illumination was cordoned off.

Could not get any closer to take a photo. In case you wonder why I did not take photo from closer, the 'thingy' at the foreground is actually a water fountain so I could not step on it.

I thought we could just spend about half and hour there since the exhibition was only the magic carpet to take photo and a few things at the 46th floor. My sister took stupid photos at the magic carpet so after going up to 46th floor, I went back to re-take at the magic carpet. Anyway there were only few people and mostly no queue for that so I could afford to be more thick skinned. There is a bubble tea store facing the carpet so I tried bubble tea in Japan for the very first time.

The troublesome part is having to remove shoes before getting on the carpet

The lift that we used to go up was decorated with Aladdin stuff. As the lift went up directly to level 46, it was quite fast. I wanted to take photo in the lift without others so we waited for an empty leave to go down but we ended up with the non-decorated lift. I gave up on taking photos inside the lift with my face.

The whole floor of the lift has the magic carpet design

Stills from the movie on the walls of the lfit

Anyway, at level 46, there are only these 'attractions':

Magic Carpet design on the wall

These are the clothes worn by the Japanese dubbers

Magic Lamp

Out of the things that can be chosen for display, why is it the snake? Meh -_-

There is a stamp rally so we were also distracted by that and ended up going around the mall.

The counters at various levels for the stamp

The final product of all the stampings. No prize to exchange to for completion though.

As we were going around the mall, I even found Toy Story 4 things to take photo with.

I think can step into the ball area but I did not dare :( I don't know if it is only for kids.

I want to rest to prepare myself for the next two days at Disneyland. Akihabara, Nakano, and the usual anime stuff are not in my list for this trip. Odaiba is an exception not because of the Gundam but because of the souvenir shop. I sort of regretting not getting the sarubobo cloth at Shirakawago as even yesterday at Nagano, I still cannot find any reasonable or better souvenir compared to sarubobo. Previously I could not find Tokyo Banana Kit Kat except at Odaiba so that was my main reason.

The pre-new year crowd was obvious at Odaiba. Diver City has never been as crowded as today in my past visits. A new Doraemon Shop just opened in Odaiba and there are few Doraemon statues. These are the main pull factor for my sister to visit. Despite that, she did not even check where the statues are located. The hell... The queue for the Doraemon shop was crazy and according to signage was 3 hours. No way I was going to queue there. The Doraemon statues are at Diver City exit/entrance nearest to the Tokyo Teleport station. The statues are only Doraemon sitting on a bench, Nobita and Shizuka sitting on another bench, and a clock in between. The size is comparable to the statues at Otogi no Mori park so nothing was really impressive. There were queues (~ 5 people in the queue for each statue) to orderly take photos.

In the evening, there will be some light show and puppet show in the 'glass cabinet' thingy. Not sure exactly what as I only saw it as I was walking to Tokyo Teleport station on my way to Maihama

Took photo with the other bench with Nobita and Shizuka first so I forgot to take the picture of just the statue without me.

To commemorate the opening of the Doraemon store, the decorations within Diver City are also full of Doraemon. Previously for Gundam, the decorations were only on the lift doors. For Doraemon, the escalators and the pillars also get huge makeovers. Not fair :(

Just one example of the plasters on the pillars. There are many other designs.

I went to Gundam Base and realised that Gundam franchise is celebrating 40 years this year. It was too crowded to take a photo with the giant Gundam head there. There is also a Harry Potter pop up store with Newt statue in front. We went to a beef restaurant for lunch but the menu was mostly beef tongue. Eeew... I ended up having my first oden in a restaurant ever as well as fulfilling my gyoza cravings from yesterday.

Not sure what project this is about but this replaces the 3 Gundam Build Fighter statues of Iori, Seiji, and Mao. I did not see them just now but I already took pictures with them 2x so it is okay.

Newt Scamander at the Harry Potter pop up store

My sister bought her Owndays snap while I was mesmerised by the Gundam Head Scale 1:7. It is a limited edition item (1979 pieces since Gundam was first released in year 1979) and I would never own. Owndays is having a collaboration with Gundam 40th anniversary. The Gundam spectacles are not for me as they are all slim/thin frame which will not mask my thick lenses. The Gundam Head (which is actually a spectacle case for 6 spectacles) is more appealing for me. The price is 39980 yen (excluding tax).

You can snap a photo of the Gundam Head and post it in SNS to get a glass wipe with Owndays x Gundam collaboration design. I did not say anything about it but somehow my sister just said she would do that and I got the glass wipe. Today I learnt that SNS means Social Networking Service a.k.a social media. All these while, I always think SNS is a Japanese-only social media app. That is why I never bothered with anything that has SNS in the advertisement. Yeah I am quite noob with technology.

At about 5pm, we left Diver City to walk over to Aqua City to check out Disney Store. To commemorate Gundam 40th Anniversary, there is a light panel to show the 40th anniversary at the foot of the Unicorn Gundam. It was too crowded and I was not prepared to take photos there. Too bad there was no official photographer like they used to have when Unicorn Gundam was just unveiled in 2017.

It was already as dark and the lighted up Odaiba Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower at the horizon looked beautiful. My old camera was completely useless at this spot when we went here in 2017. My new camera is able to capture some images so this is definitely an upgrade compared to the old camera i.e. it was a justifiable purchase lol.

No way I can get this with my old Canon camera. At the same time, this is not according to reality (the sky was actually pitch black). It shows how over processed the photo is but at the same time how powerful the Sony camera for low light.

There was nothing interesting to buy at Disney Store so I proceeded to collect Vacation Package for tomorrow. On the way out, I found the JUMP shop. I only knew that there is a JUMP shop in Odaiba today after seeing some people carrying shopping bags of JUMP shop. As mentioned, I was not in the mood for anime stuff so I did not really try to find where the shop is. This was an accidental finding. I already split with my sister so noone helped me to take photo with Goku.

Hokuriku Arch Pass did not cover the trip to Maihama fully as I had to pay 140 yen when I showed the pass to the office. Something new to learn everyday. On the way back, I used normal Suica to compare the cost (more than 300 yen) so for tomorrow I will use the Pass. Before collecting the Vacation Package, I checked out Bon Voyage and Ikspiari Disney Store first and found nothing to buy. I walked through the smaller shops at the sides of Ikspiari and found a collectible shop where I succumbed and bought Aladdin collectible cards. So childish... It is not cheap (660 yen per pack) but I bought 5 packs to round off the total to 3300 yen instead of having 50 yen or 10 yen coins as change.

I bought Paopao at Shinagawa station for dinner and I am pleasantly surprised with the room. This is my first time staying at Keikyu EX Hotel Shinagawa and I will prefer here to Prince Hotel just next door. The room is big for Japanese standard and also bigger than Prince Hotel. The internet is also faster. The only downside is the konbini which is not the usual chains and hence the spread is more limited and the prices are more expensive. The konbini at Prince Hotel is 7-11 by the way.

My sister is still having fun shopping at Akihabara and here I am possibly just injured my fingers a little bit from pushing our luggages by myself. While waiting for the luggages at the guest service, I picked up a brochure for Airporter which is a luggage service transfer. The price is quite high (2000 yen for one piece of luggage, 1500 yen if cabin size luggage) but I am going to use this for tomorrow rather than dragging my luggage. As I have to make the reservation tonight by 11pm, I asked my sister if she wants and how many luggages. Instead of quickly giving a yes or no, she still irritated me with stupid comments that it is expensive bla bla bla.

That was the final straw for today because earlier she sent me an instagram picture of a Doraemon decoration at Diver City that we missed out earlier. Like what the hell... Although I am not a fan, since I was already there, might as well take pictures with everything ma. Stupid..