Odaiba, Tokyo's Fakest Island Since 1853

Constructed in the mid-nineteenth century by the Tokugawa Shogunate, the artificial islands of Odaiba originally housed fortresses designed to defend Tokyo Bay from would be invaders. Following the success of the1985 World’s Fair in Tsukuba, Odaiba’s main island was re-envisioned as an international showcase for technology and ultramodern living. However, with the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, the expensive project had to be abandoned. Later in the decade Odaiba was reborn yet again, this time as an entertainment and shopping district. Although Odaiba’s primary attractions are now shopping malls and theme parks, the area still exudes a certain futuristic ambience, as evidenced by the world-famous Fuji Television building (seen above). You can even enjoy a futuristic ride into Odaiba on the completely automated Yurikamome train line (“Look ma, no driver!”), just one of a number of private and public transit lines that service the artificial island.
The entrance to Nekorama! (neko meaning “cat”), a feline-centric store located at ground level in the multi-story Decks Tokyo Beach mall.
I love a good turkey sandwich more than just about anything and turkey has to be one of the hardest meats to come by in Japan (as anyone who’s ever tried to explain Thanksgiving dinner to a room of confused Japanese first graders can surely tell you). So you can imagine how excited I was to happen across “Turkey’s Premium Turkey Sandwich”. You can probably also imagine how utterly despondent I felt after discovering that they don’t have a single turkey sandwich on the menu. The fact that I didn’t even feel even the least bit surprised by this speaks volumes about what a year in Japan can do to a man.
Some naughty high school students sneak a peek inside Condomania, also located inside of Decks.
The 6th and 7th floors of Decks are occupied by “Little Hong Kong,” a mostly food-centric, Japanese-style amusement park. One restaurant I spotted here offered dim sum treats on a conveyer belt a la kaiten sushi.
Here we see the Daikanransha, allegedly the second largest Ferris wheel in the world. Just past the Ferris wheel you can see “Palette Town,” yet another shopping mall that also houses "Mega Web," a large car theme park owned by the Toyota Corporation. The park is split into three separate “pavilions”.
Toyota uses these three pavilions, the “Toyota City Showcase,” the “Toyota Universal Design Showcase” and the “History Garage” to showcase not only their new products but also their corporate philosophy. If you’re able to stomach a little corporate propaganda, the pavilions are a good way to kill an hour or two in Tokyo without spending any money (the park is free and open to the public).
First up is the City Showcase; essentially a huge showroom chockablock with all of Toyota’s newest vehicles for the Japanese market.
The main floor of the City Showcase is dominated by “Hybrid Wonderland,” which in addition to showing off the newest hybrid cars and SUVs also attempts to “educate” visitors on how Toyota’s hybrid technology works. What’s so great about driving a hybrid car? Why, ask Mr. Hybrid!
I mean, if you really think about it, hybrid cars are practically living creatures…wait, what?

As many of you will know, Toyota makes a bunch of really sweet cars like this…

…but 90% of all Japanese people would rather drive this instead. I stood and stared at this car for about ten minutes but not even a single clown came out.
One of the coolest things about the whole complex was the “Ride One Corner”. Allegedly, you can take any Toyota car currently in production for a test drive for only ¥300. All you have to do is make a reservation on the Ride One website a day in advance (it’s worth noting that foreigners can participate too, provided they hold a valid driver’s license from a Geneva Convention member country).

Wait, who the hell chose the clown car?

Up next is the Universal Design Showcase. I’ll let the good folks in Toyota’s marketing department explain to you what exactly “universal design” is:

Tall, short, male, female, plump, slim, young, mature, elderly-we’re all so different in so many ways. This showroom offers you an opportunity to notice for yourself the importance of Universal Design, a design approach that strives to accommodate the differences in the ways individuals use a product. TOYOTA Universal Design Showcase: a place where we can all share ideas about Universal Design.

Basically, the Universal Design Showcase is a museum of Toyota design, demonstrating how Toyota vehicles have evolved over the years to incorporate elements of this so-called universal design.
Ah, the “Space Touch”. Just because we now have the technology to create a functional control panel that looks like something out of a 70s science fiction film doesn’t mean that we should actually make it. The unit uses an antiquated-looking hologram projection system to create a floating orb that serves as the car’s control panel. But wait, there's more. It’s also a touch screen, so you manipulate the orb by touching the screen. Wow. “Seeing into the Future?!” Hell no.
Here’s one of the dancing, neon wheelchairs as seen at last year’s Expo in Aichi. Formally, it’s known as “i-unit,” Toyota’s “future concept vehicle”. Memo to Toyota: adding the uber-hip “i” prefix to a quadrupedal segway doesn’t make it any cooler.
Finally we reach the last of the pavilions, the history garage. From what I saw, none of the cars in here were Toyotas. Don’t ask me why.

This is pretty funny, don’t you think? I sure think so.

You know, I’m not much of a car guy (could you tell?) but even I could get excited for the DeLorean. If only it could have taken me back to a time when turkey sandwich shops actually sold turkey sandwiches.

Yokohama Chinatown

Yokohama’s Chinatown (Yokohama Chuukagai) is the largest Chinatown in Japan and one of the largest in the world. Boasting hundreds of restaurants, shops and various other curiosities, the neighborhood has become one of the Tokyo area’s must-see tourist spots. Having been reared on Sunday dim sum in Chicago’s Chinatown, I couldn’t resist stopping by for a look around and a bite to eat.

Yokohama Chinatown’s history stretches back to 1859, when the port of Yokohama was first opened to foreign trade. At the time, foreigners living in Japan were strictly regulated to living in specific settlements and Chinese traders were forced to take up residence in the area that is now Chinatown. These restrictions were eventually lifted, however and ten years after the war, in 1955, Chinatown was officially recognized by the local government and the Goodwill Gate (pictured above) was built. Sorry we tried to invade your country, here’s a gate.

The streets of Yokohama Chinatown are as bustling as, well, any other streets in Yokohama.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Basket-steamed buns of all types were in no short supply, being sold by street vendors and shop windows all over Chinatown. Japanese etiquette be damned, I marched down the street proudly eating my pork bun with a grin.

The confusingly-named “China Museum” is in fact, a multi-story building filled with restaurants.

The sign in this photo reads “Roast cat, made to order!” Just kidding! Cats are usually broiled, not roasted.

Finally we reach the Pandaya (“Panda Store”). The Japanese sure do love their pandas and the vendors in Chinatown seem to have capitalized on this obsession, selling more panda merchandise than you can shake a bamboo branch at. Pandas themselves may be an endangered species but judging from Yokohama Chinatown, I would say that panda stuffed animals are not at any similar risk.

It's A Small World After All: Tokyo DisneySea

First opened to the public in September of 2001, Tokyo DisneySea is one of the newest Disney theme parks and also one of the most popular. The nautical-themed park is located in Chiba, just outside of Tokyo and adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland, (which was, until recently, the most popular amusement park in the world). Both parks are owned and operated by Japanese entertainment conglomerate the Oriental Land Company and are the only Disney theme parks in the world that are not owned by Disney (The Oriental Land Company simply licenses the relevant characters and likenesses from Disney).

Personally, I hadn’t been to a Disney amusement park since I was a young child and my memory doesn’t stretch back that far, save the occasional traumatizing event. So when Matt (who counts visiting every Disney park in the world among his lifetime goals) invited me to tag along, I agreed, figuring that I could see two things I had essentially never seen before at the same time: Disneyland and a real Japanese theme park. Could Tokyo DisneySea really be both of these things simultaneously?

As previously discussed, Disney’s flair for creating immersive fantasy worlds has proven quite profitable in the Japanese market, where elaborate simulacra are among the more popular leisure destinations. DisneySea was designed to appeal more to adult tastes, with its focus on thrill rides and shows aimed at an older audience. Still, the park is pure Disney through and through and is divided into seven self-contained worlds (“Ports of Call”), in the style of other Disney parks (this fact should not be surprising as the park is based on blueprints for a proposed water-themed Disney park in Long Beach, California that was never built).

It is often said that both Disney parks in Japan are overwhelmingly American, representing nothing more than carbon copies of the original Disney parks on which they are based. Such a view can be easily absorbed into the dominant historical narrative: that of a hegemonic American culture and its domination of a feminized Japanese “other”. I would argue, however, as anthropologist Mary Yoko Brannen has in her essay “Bwana Mickey: Constructing Cultural Consumption at Tokyo Disneyland,” (collected in Tobin’s Re-Made in Japan) that the issue at hand is a bit more complex than that. Brannen argues that Tokyo Disneyland is recontextualized in two ways, “making the exotic familiar and keeping the exotic exotic”:

But in the case of Tokyo Disneyland, the owners have insisted upon constructing an exact copy of the original, thereby keeping the exotic exotic to the point of effectively denying that they have familiarized it. My explanation for this apparent paradox is that it represents a specifically Japanese form of cultural imperialism. The process of assimilation of the West, the recontextualization of Western simulacra, demonstrates not that the Japanese are being dominated by Western ideologies but that they differentiate their identity from the West in a way that reinforces their sense of their own cultural uniqueness and superiority, or what we might call Japanese hegemony.

So what then of making the exotic familiar? After visiting DisneySea, I can confirm that this opposite principle is indeed prevalent throughout the park as well, albeit in a far more subtle manner. Keep your eyes peeled to see how an American cultural institution is adapted to suit Japanese tastes.

Upon entering the park, the first “Port of Call,” to greet the visitor’s eye is the “Mediterranean Harbor,” which is decorated in the style of an Italian port city. Despite the fact that I knew it was all just an elaborate construction, I couldn’t help but feel a bit taken aback upon entering the park and surveying the scene, replete with “Mount Prometheus” (which sporadically “erupts” throughout the day). It really is quite an entryway.

Of course, the parks borders tend to bleed from time to time, as demonstrated by this out of place steam boat steadily cruising towards the Mediterranean Harbor. Old Steamboat Willie must have taken a wrong turn after picking up that cargo or something.

Two exhausted mousketeers having what are most likely Disney branded dreams. It is said that visitors to the Tokyo Disney resorts spend more money on souvenirs on average than visitors to any of Disney’s other parks and I certainly believe it.

Matt enjoys a walk along the outer promenade of the Aladdin-themed “Arabian Coast”. Wait, on second thought, it looks like he isn’t enjoying himself at all.

The Jules Verne-themed “Mysterious Island” houses rides like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”.

Guess what Disney animated feature inspired the “Mermaid Lagoon”? If you guessed The Lion King, you are an idiot.

A large structure in the “Lost River Delta,” just outside of the awesome “Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Skull” thrill ride. I was told that this ride is pretty similar to the Indiana Jones ride at one of the American Disney parks. Notice that the water is on fire. How is that even possible?

In some random part of the park we found one of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines. Matt tried his hardest to use the machine to crack the infamous “Da Vinci Code” but ended up getting frustrated with the third-grade prose and predictable plot devices.

Home sweet home! Here we see the “New York Harbor” section of the “American Waterfront”, which represents the Eastern seaboard circa early 20^th century.

Of course, Matt felt right at home! Not because he’s from New York, mind you but because he is 106 years old.

Care to wet your whistle at Tokyo DisneySea? Lord knows I could use a drink after all of this walking around.

Well, you’re in luck! As beer is sold 24 hours a day in Japan, in convenience stores, vending machines and fast food restaurants, it wouldn’t make much sense if Disneyland didn’t sell beer, now would it? Note that Leo is as refreshed as an actor in an American beer commercial (as opposed to the Japanese counterpart who generally appears to be in some sort of pain after taking a sip of cold brew).

Matt was so moved by the authenticity of the “New York Deli” that he shed a single tear, which was quickly bottled by a park official and promptly resold for ￥5000 as an “authentic New York-style tear” in one of the park’s numerous gift shops.

Given the setting of olde New Yorke harbor and Leo’s strikingly newsie-like cap, I decided to seize the photo opportunity and told Leo to “act like a newsboy”. This is what he did. Way to ruin a good picture, Leo.

This menu, for one of the American Waterfront’s authentically American restaurants, really made me nostalgic for good old, home-style Chirashi-zushi.

Indeed, Tokyo DisneySea was so enjoyable that even my boring intellectualizing of the park couldn’t spoil the fun!

The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ve probably realized that Japanese people love museums. I’m fairly sure that there are more interesting, strange and downright baffling museums per capita in the Tokyo area than there are anywhere else in the world. And we all know how beloved ramen, Japan’s supposed “national dish” (despite its Chinese origins) is. So it only makes sense that Shin Yokohama’s “Raumen Museum” is one of the nicest, strangest and most delicious museums around.

First ramen in space!

The anatomy of a giant cup of instant ramen.

The ramen museum has a special exhibition space towards the back of the first floor that houses new exhibitions on a rotating basis. I know that one of the previous shows here was an exhibition of instant ramen packaging. Well, the current exhibit is far more interesting than that, it’s the "My Cupnoodle Factory," an interactive exhibit that invites you to design your own cup of instant ramen! Step one: buy an empty cup from this machine for ￥300.

After decorating and customizing your cup, you bring it over to the assembly line where you fill it up with your choice of soup mix, noodles, meat and vegetables.

Finally, your ramen is freeze dried and placed inside a plastic bubble for easy transportation. All that’s left is to take it home and eat it up like a hungry college student.

The basement of the museum consists of an elaborate, two-floor reproduction of 1950s Tokyo, right about the time that ramen really started gaining popularity.

Various actors walk around this space, adding to the immersive feel. Here, we see some 1950s police officers organizing a jan ken pon (rock, paper, scissors) tournament in the street, because that’s what cops did in Tokyo in the 1950s, I guess?

While the Tokyo recreation was interesting in and of itself, the real attraction here was the eight ramen shops that it housed. In addition to shops selling old school toys, snacks and cigarettes there were ramenya representing eight of the more famous regional styles of ramen in the country. I decided to show some Tohoku pride by sampling the karamiso ramen from famous ramen shop “Ryu Shanghai” in Akayu, Yamagata Prefecture. The red lump in the center of the bowl is the “karamiso topping,” a special blend of garlic, soy bean paste and spicy pepper. You can mix in as much or as little of it as you like, in order to alter the taste of the soup. I got a bit cocky and mixed in the whole thing, which led to a painfully spicy (yet still delicious) bowl of ramen.