Japan Day 6: The National Stadium & Odaiba

The Japan National Stadium

Today I woke up quite late as I had had an early morning the previous day. In morning I just had a bit of downtime in the hotel, I was in a very nice room and sometimes it is nice to take advantage of the place you are in. I booked a ticket to go to the Japan National Stadium. 

I left the hotel room and had breakfast out the front of the local Lawsons convenience store. I then walked to Akiba station and bought a newspaper whilst on the platform for the Chuo-Sobu Line. 

For some reason I changed at Ochanomizu for the rapid which meant that I had to again change at Yoyogi. So I decided to leave the ticket gates at Yoyogi as it is one of the places that prominently featured in one of my favourite animated movies Your Name (君の名は). I took a couple of photos of the station front. 

The National Stadium is located at Sendagaya. A couple of 100m from the station. It is a very pretty area of Tokyo. I booked the ticket for 2 and of course it was 13:55, when I got off the train so there was a bit of power walking to get to the entry. 

When I got to the national stadium they did a temperature check checked my ticket and gave me a wristband to attach. It was then down in the elevator. The tour was self guided and there were many opportunities to take photos with mounts for phones being present to assist in taking photos. This part of the story is best told with photos so I will do so below.

An olympic podium.
On the running track.
A selfie taken from the spectator seating area of the National Stadium.

After finishing at the olympic stadium I bought some souvenirs for myself and then walked up around the top where there is a park. We could see views of Shibuya and Shinjuku-ku. I think TBH Shibuya was prettier. 

The view from the National Stadium over Shibuya.

I then walked past the metropolitan gymnasium and back to Sendagaya Station. I had a coffee and published a blog post at the Excelcisor Cafe in front of the station. 

The Sendagaya Station front.

After publishing the blog post I got on the chuo line to Nakano. There were some interesting shops in the covered shopping mall (商店街) I did not buy anything. Nakano is one of the most populous wards in Tokyo. 

After that I got the train back to Shinjuku station, my phone was low on charge so I went to Bic Camera, the staff told me the best thing to do was to rent a charger. It was about 300 yen and I could return it tomorrow, it is not just to Bic Camera I could return it to some bigger Family Mart stores. 

I then got on a Saikyo Line through service train to the Rinkai line getting off at Tokyo Teleport. 

Odaiba is one of the interesting areas in Tokyo and in a lot of ways is comparable to the docklands in Melbourne. The part I went to looks over Tokyo Bay over the city, it is quite pretty and it is much more chill than some of the other busier parts of Tokyo. There are some weird things like a statue of liberty for example. 

The view from Odaiba showing the Statue of Liberty and the Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower is also in the background.

After a while at about 9pm, I got the Yurikamome (a driverless train that goes over the rainbow bridge). It was quite pretty I was unable to get the front seat there were quite a few fathers that were taking their kids on the Yurikamome and I think that it is important to leave people be. I got off at the terminus of the Yurikamome at Shimbashi. 

Tokyo tower from the front of the Yurikamome.

After arriving at Shimbashi, I got the Ueno-Tokyo Line to Ueno having a walk around before getting the Kehin-Tohoku line to Okachimachi. At Okachimachi I filmed about 5 minutes of just station noise. For nostalgic purposes later. 

I went back to the hotel and then spent quite a bit of time packing up the hotel room and organising my bags as I will be changing hotels tomorrow. 

Today was a good final day in Tokyo I really enjoyed the olympic stadium. 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.