Odaiba

Last week, since we were already in Odaiba, at Legoland, we decided to spend some more time exploring the area afterwards.  And the verdict: Odaiba is awesome!  It's a small manmade island in the Tokyo Port areas of the Tokyo Bay.  Between the beach, restaurants, and tons of shopping, it's a really fun place to visit and it's so pretty!  I don't think I was expecting the views to be so incredible, but they really were.

We walked through the shops a little bit, grabbed some crepes and boba drinks, and then headed down to the water.  The kids had a fun time splashing around, minus Bennett who had to keep an eye on our shoes ;)

After seeing a few people out in the water, I'm anxious to go back and rent stand-up paddle boards and paddle around the bay!

Once we got our fill of sea water and sand in our toes, we walked over to check out the Statue of Liberty.  Yep, you heard that right.  Not quite as grand as ours in the US, but Japan has their very own, it's just a bit smaller!

Then we walked back off the shoreline to Diver City, one of the malls in the area, so that we could get a glimpse of Gundam Man, a giant robot standing nearby.

There's a ton more to do in Odaiba, but after a long day of taking trains all over and playing hard at Legoland, we were beat!  Luckily, it's only an hour and a half away, so we can go back whenever we want . . . but next time, if we leave during rush hour like we did on this trip, we'll be sure not to take our stroller :)

Train stations at Odaiba: Daiba, Tokyo Teleport, Odaibakaihinkoen

GPS Coordinates for Odaiba:

35.628924, 139.776292

Legoland Tokyo

It's no secret that we love Legos in our family.  Peter and I have just as much fun building with them as Will does, and I think Peter even gets the most excited about all of the cool sets that Lego offers.  So, when we heard that Tokyo had a Legoland, we knew we had to go!

Located in Odaiba in Tokyo, it's about an hour and a half from the base by train.  Not too bad if you plan on spending some time out there, which is easy to do, especially since Odaiba is such a fun area (post on Odaiba coming soon!).

Now, this Legoland really doesn't compare to Legoland in San Diego, which is a huge amusement park.  Its full name is Legoland Discovery Center Tokyo, which is a pretty accurate description of what it's like.  There are only two rides, it's all indoor, and it's much smaller in comparison.  But that didn't make it any less fun!  Our kids had a blast--I think we spent about 3 or 4 hours there, and my kids didn't want to leave.  

In addition to the two rides, they had an awesome Mini Town, which was areas of Tokyo made out of Legos, a Master Builder class where an instructor led a group of kids through building a penguin out of regular blocks, a race car area where you could build a car and then race them down 3 different sized ramps (this was for sure Will's favorite area), a Lego Friends karaoke area, a giant, soft squishy Lego blocks building area, a giant jungle gym, and a Ninjago training run where you had to make it through a tunnel with lasers without touching any of them.  So, while not being huge, it definitely had enough to offer our kids and keep them entertained for several hours!  Going back will be a great outing this winter when we're trying to escape the cold!

GPS Coordinates: 35.629292, 139.776350