Walking the Rainbow Bridge

One of my best kept secrets on this blog must be walking the Rainow Bridge. I love walking, I take hours and hours of walks every week and I have trouble sleeping if I don’t take a random hour long walk every day. One of my favorite walks is the Rainbow Bridge, the circular Golden Gate look-a-like that connects mainland Tokyo with the artificial islands of Odaiba. Even many Tokyo people doesn’t know it’s possible to walk the bridge and even fewer would consider it a very good idea indeed. In winter it is bitingly cold with strong winds and sometimes fierce sun. In the summer, it can quickly become a good reminder of the importance of staying hydrated and out of the blazing sun. It’s a fun, safe walk though, with great views of Tokyo and some much needed fresh air in the summer. It’s also surprisingly quick, and for travelers on a budget it is easily the cheapest way to visit Odaiba! The entrance to the footpath on the bridge is easy enough to locate from the Odaiba side but it can be tricky to find from the Tokyo side, even though most people go from Tokyo to Odaibe on the bridge and not the other way around. A good way to find it though, is to exit Tamachi station, get out of the East exit and just follow the biggest road straight on, as far as you can go until you reach the massive foot of the bridge. It’s a good 15 minutes walk to the bridge and then maybe another 15 minutes to cross to Odaiba. It’s possible to take your bike over the bridge but there’s a rather complicated system for bringing it over on the “wrong side” of the bridge. You’ll get it when you go there though. Just let the guards do whatever they need to your bikes and you’ll be fine. There’s plenty of stops on the bridge where you can take photos and I always end up spending a lot of time there, I must have hundred of snaps taken up there on my computer but I keep putting this post off waiting for the better shots I’ll take next time I go over. Well, I’ll post them too, when I do. Enjoy!

Tokyo As Seen From Ariake

The other day I visited Tokyo’s Odaiba district, the Ariake part and took these photos of the mainland Tokyo skyline. The train line running on the far right corner is Yurikamome line and just in the corner you can see the Ariake Tenisunomori station (有明テニスの森公園) that was completed over 20 years ago but still looks brand new, probably because very few people ever use it. As you can see there isn’t much around here. In the middle of the photo you can see a still undeveloped piece of land which is set to become the new place for the famous Tsukiji fish market, but as of now there’s still not much going on right here as the land needs more preparation before the new construction starts. To the extreme left in the first photo you can barely make out Tokyo Tower and to the right you can see the new Sky Tree tower, the outline is complete but there is still a lot of construction to be done inside.

Design Festa Autumn 2011

Just a few photos from last Sundays Design Festa, a wonderful event for makers, artists, designers and craftsmen from all over Japan (and quite a few from abroad) held twice yearly in Tokyo’s Odaiba district. There’s hundred if not thousands of exhibitors, some great, some very enthusiastic.

I got there early since I didn’t have much time to spend but even being 30 minutes early I met with this massive line of people, literally thousands of people lining up to get it. And I didn’t even have a prepaid ticket to get it! Luckily, for once in my life, being unprepared turned out to be the best thing since all these people lined up all had prepaid tickets! The line at the ticket booth was about 25 people and moved very quickly. I was in in no-time! I have already posted one paper crafter, and here’s one photo of a young lady designer and illustrator. I couldn’t look closer at her work since she was… not very talkative. For as long as I watched she stood immobile with what I thought was a bag but later I noticed her walking around with it, some sort of mask. Quite a few people watched me take her photo. From the look of it, it seems she had some really nice illustrations in her booth! Maybe next time I’ll catch her without the mask. If anyone talked to her, please let me know!

Siryu Paper Craft Dragons

At the twice yearly Design Festa I saw this wonderfully creative papercrafter and his amazing creations! Most of his work is of dragons but there’s a few people and other animals as well, tigers and even a kitty! The deisgner’s studio is called Siryu (his official site is here and his blog is here). He is located in Nagoya and came over to Tokyo for the weekend, which explains why I have never seen his work before. I got a model-kit of a small golden dragon for myself. It looked really complicated but now that I’ve read the instructions I realize that it’s easier than it looks. It’ll make a great Christmas present to one of my craftier little relatives.