March 27, 2010
16th day of travel in Japan - Tokyo, Japan
As I said in the last post, there are far too many photos in this set for me to do them all in one post. Here is the second set of the same day, and it starts at McDonald's. One thing that I'm happy to say is that I have been to a McDonald's in every country that I've ever been to! Weird thing to be proud of huh? Well, Mc'D is not that well branded of a company here in the US, but they are actually one of the most well marketed restaurants across the globe.
They are right up there with Coca-cola, and Proctor & Gamble. Even Starbucks, as well known as they are, avoids certain non-coffee loving countries in order to ensure profits. If you wonder what the point is, there is McDonald's in India. Don't forget, most Indians don't eat beef. Where's the beef, doesn't really work there.
Well, this particular McDonald's was near Tokyo Dome, which is the next area that we toured around.
Tokyo Dome is a pretty nice area, and has lots to do. After grazing around the area, we went to Odaiba island. There were two reasons for this; to explore and to see things other than TAF 2010.
Docomo NTT is one of the largest carriers of the cellular market in Japan. This was a promo that they had going for wireless internet. Which still is a hard thing to find in Japan. Even wired internet is not easy to get. Most people there just use their cells or go to an internet / Manga cafe.
Lonely? Scary? Both? This was the emptiest train that I've ever been on. It was a spooky type of quite, and really different from the Tokyo hustle and bustle that occurs daily.
We visited the Venus Outlet, to check out what was there, and ended up in the Toyota museum. From this point on, it really is more like a Toyota commercial than a vacation. Although Nagoya is where the car manufacturer is based, this was a really awesome shop. Note: if you have an international license when you come to the museum, you can test drive a car on the indoor/outdoor closed off track for free!
Yup, if you didn't know the Toyota Camry is the Japanese choice for NASCAR. You cannot really see it, but the car is actually leaning to the side, because it is weighted on one side to help it make left turns. Awesome, huh?
I want one of these so bad! This is the replacement AE-86, the Toyota Corolla, the best drift car out there. Even if you don't watch Initial D, this car is awesome. There is plenty of power in it and comes with limited slip!
Ever wonder how the Prius works? Check out the photo above to see the transmission.
Want to be a race car driver? Need to score 100% on the eye test here. You stand about 2.5 feet away and have to hit the red dots that appear before they turn off. Think it is easy?
This is the futuristic side of the museum. I don't see this happening anytime soon, but it was interesting to see. Can you imagine going at highway speeds in any of these? Crazyness.... Like I said before, this is a free Toyota advertisement!
After leaving the museum, Ben and I walked over to the Venus Fort shopping area. It really did remind me of Las Vegas or Macau. It was pretty sweet walking through an imitation of Italy.
A rarity in any part of Japan... Trash cans! It is in the culture there to hold trash in your pocket until you can properly sort it out when you get home. I threw out things most of the time as soon as I could find the nearest convenience store, which had the sorted trash bins in front of them. It was a pain looking for trash cans, and I learned to associate convenience stores with trash bins. LoL.
That is all for this post, just wait for the next one. I will be breaking that up into many parts. There are about 600 photos! Stay with me for Tokyo Anime Fair 2010!
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