Odaiba is an artificial island in Tokyo Bay with some of the strangest attractions of the entire city on display: from psychedelic light installations and huge robots to a museum completely dedicated to unko. You’ll find out what that last thing is soon enough.
A visit to Odaiba is like going on a day trip outside Tokyo without actually having to leave the city. Everything feels somewhat different here compared to the rest of the capital. It’s a bit less chaotic, there’s more open space and you’ll even get to enjoy the occasional sea breeze once in a while. Sea breeze, yes, because you’re on an island now. An artificial island even, because Odaiba (together with five other manmade islands) was only reclaimed from the sea around the year 1850. Its main purpose was to protect Tokyo Bay from all possible sea invasions. For more than a century, Odaiba was just a sea fortress with a bunch of cannons looking out over the water (“Daiba” means battery in Japanese). When WWII showed everyone coastal forts have little use when the enemy can simply take a bunch of firebombs and fly right over them, the islands were abandoned and quickly fell into disrepair. It took until the early nineties for the government to come up with a new master plan for Odaiba and the surrounding area. The Island would be made into the Tokyo of the future: high-tech, sustainable and liveable. A model city was to be built on it, offering a healthy combination of residential, work, and leisure options. Fantastic idea, but an idea doesn’t always work out as planned.
Odaiba: beaches, robots and a touch of the USA in Tokyo Bay
In 1993, an important first hurdle was passed with the opening of the monumental Rainbow Bridge connecting Odaiba to the mainland. Unfortunately, the rest of the plan didn’t work out as smoothly. This was mostly due to the main construction work coinciding with the Japanese stock market imploding. As a result, many investors suddenly ran out of money, causing delays and eventually empty buildings. It took the better part of a decade for this to visibly change. The model city never truly materialised. Not too many people live on Odaiba even now, especially compared to the rest of the city. It’s still a popular destination though, be it mainly as a place for entertainment and events. Several large hotels and modern malls were opened; in 2021 a number of Olympic events were held here (the Olympic village was built on another island nearby) and there are several museums, Japanese onsen, indoor amusement parks and digital installations to enjoy. Even the world’s biggest tuna auction (the one in Tsukiji Market) moved to the area (to nearby Toyosu) due to lack of space. Here are some of the island’s biggest attractions.
1. Odaiba Marine Park: spend an afternoon on the beach
When someone books a trip to Tokyo, there’ll be plenty of things on the schedule. Spending a day at the beach will most likely not be one of them though. Still: it’s perfectly possible, and we owe it to the reclamation of Odaiba. The Odaiba Marine Park is an 800m long sandy beach bordered by a wooded park, a promenade and a few hotels that could have come straight from Antalya: immediate holiday mood achieved. Swimming is prohibited – the water quality around the world’s biggest metropolis is seldom fantastic – but there’s plenty of sports to be done on the beach and wind surfing/paddle boarding apparently is allowed. When I was there, the beach was almost empty (normal on a late November morning), but in summer it can get quite busy. You have great views on the Rainbow Bridge and the Tokyo Skyline from here. The white beach combined with the impressive panorama across the water makes for one of Tokyo’s most unexpected scenes.
2. The Rainbow Bridge and the Japanese Statue of Liberty
Speaking of unexpected views: you can somewhat put San Francisco and New York in one picture on Odaiba. To do so, you’ll have to go up the elevated promenade running between the trees along the water, until you suddenly end up spotting an exact but slightly smaller copy of the Statue of Liberty on the beach (a bit like the ending of the original Planet of the Apes). This statue was donated to Japan by the French for some celebratory year in 1998, and became so popular they never removed it. Choose your angle well and you can get the Rainbow Bridge (which looks like San Fran’s Golden Gate) in the same frame. Go stand with your back to the Aqua City Mall and you can get the “LOVE” sign on it as well. Take the picture after sunset though: both the bridge and the statue are illuminated at night. Usually the pillars are white, but in December they get every colour of the rainbow: hence the name.
3. The Fuji Television Building: modern Japanese architecture at its best
Tokyo’s skyline is very impressive, be it mostly due to its incomprehensible scale. Unlike cities such as Shanghai or Hong Kong though, its number of truly unique looking showstopper buildings is relatively small. One of the exceptions is the Fuji Television Headquarters built opposite the Odaiba pier in the late nineties. This whacky building can best be described as “retro-futuristic” (as in: this is how people in the nineties thought the future would look like). The building would be seen as relatively ordinary, were it not for the giant sphere they slammed right into it. This is the Hachitama Spherical Observation Room, and you can visit it for a great view of the entire island. The rest of the building can be seen on a guided tour. It takes you to the rooftop garden and will give you some idea of the inner workings of Japanese television.
4. The Unicorn Gundam: say hello to a huge battle robot
The Unicorn Gundam in front of the DiverCity Mall is one of the crazier “only in Japan” things you’ll find in Tokyo: an almost 20 meter high robot that was unveiled in 2017 and actually transforms a few times a day. It’s one of many robots featured in Gundam: an anime series first broadcasted in the late seventies, but later became a franchise comprised of dozens of series, movies, games and comics. Every few hours the Gundam morphs from Unicorn to Destroy mode, accompanied by his own heroic theme song and lots of glowing and moving parts – quite impressive. The transformation takes place at 11 am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm. At 7 and 9.30pm they take it up a notch with a special audiovisual show, with clips from the anime projected on the mall. There a bit too early? No worries, there’s a whole food court right inside, ane on one of DiverCity’s top floors you’ll find a Gundam Base: a store selling thousands of the franchise’s action figures – some of them quite rare.
5. The Unko Museum: a poop appreciation venue
In that same mall you’ll soon come across the next “only in Japan” thing on Odaiba, because DiverCity is also home to the Unko Museum: one of the country’s more remarkable museums. It has only one mission, and that is to make poop cute. Indeed: Japan can kawaii-ify everything, as long as someone wants it hard enough. Here’s a small quote from their original sales pitch:
“Poop will make your everyday, the streets of Tokyo, and the entire world cuter than ever. Come and enjoy this unique unko kawaii world and look at, touch, photograph, and play with poop, for a unique experience that can be found nowhere else.”
This of course sounds quite unappetizing, but in reality the Unko Museum is a hilarious place for pictures. At the entrance, you’re immediately put on a cotton-candy coloured toilet, after which you get your personal turd on a stick used to operate all kinds of attractions in. These range from funny sets and backgrounds to interactive projections and poop-focused video games. All of course accompanied by the most obnoxious shit-themed Christmas-at-the-mall music imaginable. It’s a bit silly, but I genuinely enjoyed myself and afterwards you can take all kinds of turd-like souvenirs with you. Go buy granny a nice gift, will you. Tickets can be bought here.
6. Other museums in and around Odaiba
There are a surprising number of museums scattered on and around Odaiba. Here are some of the main ones.
–TeamLab Planets (on Toyosu): Impressive visual experience with multiple psychedelic digital art installations. You wade through warm rainbow coloured water, walk through a misty field of luminous silver eggs or play in a room filled with gigantic balloons stacked to the ceiling. It’s best to order your tickets online and well in advance (here for example). I was too late to get one myself, otherwise I would have had better pics.
–Tokyo Trick Art Museum: Decks is another one of Odaiba’s huge malls, and it holds a small and somewhat old-fashioned but charming museum full of optical illusions. Themes range from the Edo Period to all sorts of Hollywood classics. The incredibly sweet staff will happily help you take your pictures.
–Miraikan: This is Japan’s National Museum of Science and Innovation, where you can learn about AI, space travel, robotics and sustainable development. You can interact with a humanoid robot and there are all kinds of interactive exhibits to try out.
-Museum of Maritime Science: Learn about Japanese maritime history in a building that looks like a giant ship. Inside you’ll find lots of model ships, instruments and simulators.
7. Tokyo Big Sight: Japan’s largest congress centre
Odaiba is – I said it before – one of the main places in Tokyo with some actually daring modern buildings. Tokyo Big Sight is one of them. Officially called the Tokyo International Exhibition Centre, it’s the largest convention centre in Japan. It hosts several important fairs and events every year, but besides them there’s not that much to do for a regular visitor. There’s a train stop right across from it though, so you can easily go have a look and admire the building. It looks like an intergalactic giant needed a little coffee table and put four huge pyramids upside down to make one. Impressive venue, and there’s a huge saw planted in the lawn right next to it. Two nice pics in one go!
Odaiba is – ik heb het al gezegd – één van de voornaamste plekken in Tokyo waar architecten nog echt gewaagde gebouwen durfden neerzetten. Ook de Tokyo Big Sight is er daar één van. Officieel heet dat het Tokyo International Exhibition Centre, en da’s het grootste congres- en expositiecentrum van het land. Elk jaar vinden hier belangrijke beurzen en events plaats, maar verder kan je er als bezoeker weinig gaan doen. Omdat er een treinstop vlak voor de deur ligt, kan je wel altijd makkelijk het gebouw zelf gaan bewonderen. Dat ziet er namelijk uit alsof een intergalactische reus een salontafeltje nodig had, en daar vier piramides op hun kop voor naast elkaar heeft gezegd. Impressionant complex, en om één of andere reden staat er in het gazon aan de overkant ook een enorme zaag in het gras geplant. Heb je die ook meteen gezien.
General travel tips for Odaiba & Tokyo: hotels, tours and public transport
**Disclaimer: This section contains a number of (useful) affiliate links. This means that if you book a hotel or tour through a referral on this page, I’ll receive a small compensation for it, so I can put food on the table without having to start an Onlyfans account. It won’t cost you even an extra cent, so why hesitate? Thank you in advance!**
Where you stay in Tokyo doesn’t really matter that much and depends on your budget and interests. Make sure you’re close to a metro station though. It’ll save you plenty of time every day and apart from the occasional bus, you don’t need to use any other means of transport. Read my articles, decide which area you’d like to stay in and then compare rates and venues on Booking.com (as I did too).
You can book a a whole range of interesting activities, guided tours and day trips in Tokyo. For a complete overview, take a look at GetYourGuide. You can for example go for a Cruise in Tokyo Bay in an old house boat (including dance performance and food). Want to take a break from the city? Go for a guided day trip to Mount Fuji and Hakone.
Buy a local eSIM card before you get to Japan, you’ll need it. I’ve been using Airalo for years. This is an app that lets you buy data in almost every country on the planet. It just takes a couple of clicks. Install the sim at home and activate it after landing: that’s it. You really need mobile data in Japan, so you can use Google Maps to navigate through the subway system in real time. Google will tell you which train to take when, which carriage is best for your transfer and which exit you need to use to get to your destination fastest. Without online help you’re almost guaranteed to get lost.
You’ll need a Suica Card to use public transport smoothly. The Welcome Suica Card is specifically catered to tourists and can be ordered online. You can top up the card with cash in any station, and it works in other Japanese cities as well. The Suica Card also serves as an electronic wallet. The Japanese economy is surprisingly cash-focused, so if you don’t pay with your Suica Card, you’ll be carrying around a whole pouch of nearly unusable coins after a couple of days.
If you want to visit a lot of different cities with the Shinkansen bullet train, it’s best to buy a Japan Rail Pass (book it here directly). You’ll have to do this from home and long before your departure, because they’ll actually send you the pass by mail and you can’t buy one in Japan. If you’re only visiting three or four cities like I did, it might be better to buy separate tickets on the spot – you’ll have to do the math to see which option is preferable. JR-passes can be booked here. Don’t want to bother with all of this and looking for a tailor-made trip (either individually or in a group) instead? Check out Japan Experience: they offer plenty of wonderful itineraries throughout the entire country.
In need of cash? 7-Elevens always have an ATM in store, accepting all foreign cards. You’ll want to use these, because plenty of other places won’t be as compliant.
EU citizens do not need a visa to enter Japan for trips up to ninety days. You could basically leave tomorrow should you want to. The yen is historically low these days, so now is the time.
Ready for more Tokyo? Read my articles on Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara, Ginza, Asakusa, Ueno and Marunouchi next.
Looking for another Asian Trip? Read my blog posts on Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and Hanoi. Would you rather go to Texas? Read my posts on Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.
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