“Even if it’s a light that can never be caught.”

I’d heard the ferris wheel in Palette Town is due to be torn down next year, so I made my next goal to ride it while I still could. I planned ahead this time, to get there one a day when the weather was fine.

The train out to it on the Yurikamome is a ride in itself, being high up so you get an interesting angle on the buildings. It’s driver-less, controlled by computers, so passengers can sit directly in front or in back. And the stop announcements were recorded by voice actors.

I liked this ferris wheel a lot – the brighly colored, round buckets, there isn’t a recorded vocal guide so I could enjoy being up that high in silence, and there are open grates so I could feel the impressive breeze.

That pointy thing is called the “Teleport Bridge” and yet I still had to walk across it:

The glass box sticking up is the upper part of the Toyota City showcase, with stacks upon stacks of cars available for test-driving: 

The train and a boat departing at the same time:

Odaiba is a man-made island originally built to hold cannons as defense against Perry’s Black Ships. How many islands are perfectly rectangular, after all?

I didn’t care for this building from the ground, but at a certain angle on the rotation you can see both the sparkle from the water in the glass and the reflection from the window in the water, and it’s actually quite pretty:

Around the wheel are all sorts of expensive and high-tech shopping. So I was surprised to find in the middle:

a slightly out of place farmer’s market:

Aww, who wouldn’t want to test drive this? 

Venus Fort, a shopping mall, is known for a painted ceiling which fades into sunset every half-hour. I was disappointed that it just got darker, there were no colors:

It wasn’t a place I was going to spend any money, but there was a young band performing who were endearingly enthusiastic, all smiles even as their set went over-time. According to the flyer, they’re called Centirental.

Then I waited outside for the real sunset.

The lighted-up wheel was pretty, but occasionally it went from a pattern to an attempt to spell out words, both in katakana and English letters, all indecipherable. 

So there’s that. I’d recommend visiting while you have the chance.