Japan - Tokyo (Day 2) Last day of our trip!

Its our last day in Tokyo and in Japan *sniffs* Our plane is not till the evening so we head out to Daiba (an artificial island in Tokyo Bay, also called Odaiba), on the recommendation of our Tour Leader.

This was the rather futuristic view we had on the train into Daiba - I thought it looked like something out of The Jetsons!


After crossing the Rainbow Bridge we arrive in Daiba, and are greeted with a whole host of quirky architecture! (Including a Statue of Liberty for some reason!)


We wandered into a shop and I found this really crazy keyring that made me giggle quite a lot (and I consequently bought):

And then I found an accompanying model:

I'm not sure what on earth it was all about...but there were lots of others taking photos so I assume it was a bit of a commodity!

After some further wandering we stumbled upon a giant moving Gundam! We just caught the end of his little show (his head and chest moved from side to side and he made lots of mechanical noises), and the next show wasn't for a couple of hours, but we still stared at him in his majesty.


Our last stop in Daiba was the labyrinth of a shopping mall called Venus Fort. It was decked out like an 18th century European city in twilight (kind of similar to the Trafford Centre, really)!
There was one section of the mall that featured a massive fountain and disco ball, accompanied by recorded music similar to that of G4, and the whole scene seemed rather over the top (but in a fun way!)

There was a vast array of shops there, (we did get lost a couple of times!), and we went into this cute kids shop were I wish I'd bought everything in sight!

Ooooh, everything was so cute in there! Why oh why was I so sensible, thinking about the weight of my bag and such?!

Anyhoos, eventually we found our way out of the mall, but we didn't have much time left before having to venture to the airport, so it was another futuristic train ride back into Tokyo...


...to catch another train to the ACTUAL Tokyo station (as it didn't seem right visiting Tokyo, and not actually going to the official station!)
We had a little walk round and saw some gardeners tending the trees outside the Imperial Palace...


And heres a little peep of Tokyo train station...

(That is one complicated train map, ay?)

So yes, thats pretty much the end of our time in Japan... I got photos of some awesome origami in the airport:

So cool!

But yes, so there we go! Japan done! It was an amazing holiday, and I would love to go back and explore more of the place, or at least stay in Tokyo a bit longer (you need a lot, I say, A LOT more than 2 days to see that city!)

I'm currently drafting out an illustrated diary of my time in Japan, so no doubt I will waffling on about that soon enough.

Incase any one is interested, I booked my Japan tour with STA Travel, and I went on a 9 day tour called the Japan Express: Osaka to Tokyo. The tour is actually operated by a company called G Adventures and I thoroughly recommend them! Plugging done! Oh, except one more thing... go to Japan! Its awesome!