The good thing about living close to the Yamanote Line, especially in my area, is that trains going in the same direction come virtually every minute or so, since the Keihin-Tohoku and Yamanote lines go through the same route and stops at the same stations through Ueno down to Shinagawa. Which train to choose ends up coming down to which train moves faster...
If you've never been to Odaiba along Tokyo Bay, it's mainly a commercial (of the media and telecommunications kind) and tourist sightseeing area with a few funky buildings like the Fuji TV headquarters building, Tokyo Big Sight, Rainbow Bridge and various seaside shopping malls.
I've visited Odaiba before on my last trip to Japan but there was one thing I really wanted to see that I missed out on: the giant Gundam outside Diver City Odaiba.
Once I arrived at Odaiba, I went straight to Diver City. There, standing tall and mighty outside Diver City, was the famed Mobile Suit Gundam statue, along with onlookers taking photos of it. Luckily, the timing was perfect - every hour or so, the Gundam lights up, head starts to move around and steam blows out of its vents, complete with sound effects. Pretty cool.
Afterwards, I went inside Diver City to have lunch. Went to try this okonomiyaki food stall and, because it was apparently featured on Mechaike and Onegai! Ranking, I went for the negi (spring onion) okonomiyaki.
Tasted pretty decent for a standard okonomiyaki. You don't get the same smoky, street-like atmosphere if you ate at, say, Dotonbori, but still definitely worth a try.
The rest of the day at Odaiba was spent walking around Diver City and Decks Odaiba. The latter had this quirky takoyaki museum, which seemed more like a mini takoyaki amusement park, complete with merchandise, mini games and, strangely, an old-school '70s and '80s idol-themed game centre.
I got a bit bored of Odaiba, so I went back up to Tokyo. I decided to stop at Ginza for a little while, in order to visit a high-end traditional Japanese sweets store called Toraya.
Inside, it was populated mainly with cashed-up elderly men/women looking to buy wagashi (Japanese sweets) as gifts. For me, I mainly wanted to try the Kanto ver. of the sakura mochi, so I picked that up as well as this other green blob called the kusa anmochi.
The sakura mochi was certainly interesting and different from the Kansai ver. I tried a few days before. A round blob of red bean paste wrapped in a rice flour mini-pancake and covered with the same salty sakura leaf. In the end, you get the same sweet red bean paste effect layered with the saltiness of the leaf, but the texture was certainly different. The kusa anmochi, on the other hand, was another affair - a green, sticky mochi made of yomogi (Japanese mugwort) with a red bean paste centre. Try it for its unique, sticky texture yet sweet taste.
For the rest of the afternoon, I went back to Akihabara on the way back to my hotel. Continuing the Gundam theme for today, for afternoon tea I headed down to the "other" cafe - the Gundam Cafe at Akihabara.
Apart from the Gundam-themed food and drink on offer (this time, the specials were all Gundam SEED themed), they had a variety of merchandise on sale. The place was a lot more free and "tourist friendly" too: English menus and they let you take photos of the area, even with some of the staff members, judging by what I saw a bunch of American tourists doing in front of me as I was eating. Being all touristy and stuff and doing random poses. Seriously, I had a bit of a laugh inside of me when I saw it.
Ended up trying this rather simplistic looking banana dessert pizza, which turned out to be a bit "meh".
At least the Haro latte was decent.
Shopping-wise, given the usual "flying get" release schedules, I went and bought the new NO NAME single and the Momoiro Clover Z album. Don't know what to do with the giant clear file folder though.
After going back to the hotel to drop off my shopping and taking a shower, I decided to head up to Sumida where the Tokyo Sky Tree was. Unbeknownst to me, when I arrived, they decided not to let anyone go up the tower for the rest of the evening if you didn't have a reserved ticket beforehand (which you can only obtain if you have a Japanese credit card or as part of a travel tour reservation). They finished distributing the limited unreserved tickets for the day too, so I couldn't go up the tower. It was incredibly windy, too. At least it does look rather nice from outside and, given the season, they decided to light it up in pink for a while. Certainly a very tall tower, given its new status as the tallest tower in Tokyo now.
Feeling a bit disappointed, I decided to explore the area for a while. Walking along the river canal outside, I noticed this small food stall selling fried chicken.
What caught my attention was that the shop franchise and its chicken, according to the promo shots posted in the shop, was featured in some TV variety show that had Jurina and Mayu trying the chicken out.
So, following in their footsteps, I went ahead and bought some. Pretty good for what was essentially deep fried chicken sticks.
There was a Sky Tree mall near the tower, so I went there next. Mainly consisted of gift shops catering to tourists, with plenty of local foodstuff, Sky Tree-themed merchandise and other omiyage around. Even though I had a bit of chicken sticks beforehand, I was feeling a bit peckish so I chose this curry shop. Proper Indian curry, not the Japanese stuff. Despite the cost - $14 for the two types of curry I chose and with only a bit of rice & pappadums - it tasted fairly good. Miles ahead of the Coles brand microwave curries I've been living on for months, of course.
The best thing about Tokyo is the huge variety of nice looking and nicer to eat desserts. You don't even need to go looking around much - just go to any department store, mall or even the humble (major) train station and there's a variety of dessert gift shops for you to splurge on. From classic Western cakes, to the more traditional Japanese wagashi and all the trendy French macarons in between, if you're a sweet tooth, you'd be bankrupt by now.
Back at my hotel that evening, I snacked on the sakura-themed doughnut from Krispy Kreme I bought earlier that day in Odaiba. Nothing really special, except for the fancy pink strawberry (I think) icing and filling inside.
Breakfast: Croquette bread
Canned coffee of the day: Roots Aroma Revolution (3.5/5 - slightly higher cost, and it's not exactly a "can" (more like a mini bottle), but fairly decent)
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