Also known as the official beach of Tokyo, Odaiba’s construction was initially started to protect Tokyo with a series of six fortresses islands build in the 1850s.
Today, you can only access the No. 3 Battery Fortress or Dai-San Daiba (第三台場) which has been open to the public since 1928. Usually empty, this reconverted battery is an amazingly peaceful park with a stunning view of both Odaiba beach and Rainbow Bridge!
However, Odaiba is much more than this beautiful bridge. Odaiba in its actual form has been shaped since the 1990s with the construction of some major commercial outlets, residential and leisure areas.
These include the famous Fuji Television Building, the Miraikan (the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation), Tokyo Big Sight (or Tokyo International Exhibition Center), Aqua City, The Panasonic Center, the Museum of Maritime Science, the MegaWeb or the world’s largest showroom where you can actually test all the Toyota cars available in Japan.
There is also a replica of the Statue of Liberty, the Sega Joypolis (an arcade wonderland), a life size Gundam statue and finally a stunning onsen, the Oedo Onsen Monogatari Hot Springs. This is an Edo Period-like outdoor and indoor onsen park that everybody must visit once in their life, whether you are a visitor to Tokyo or a resident!
Visiting Odaiba cannot be done in one day, there is so much to discover there and we strongly advise you to plan ahead in order to not miss anything that this place has to offer!
