Tokyo Teleport Town

I remember seeing a TV show about Tokyo Teleport Town when I was a kid, and vowed to see it one day. TTT is a giant man made island full of "buildings of the future" just off of Tokyo Bay. Apparently it cost $35 Billion to build. Honestly, it was astonishing.

You head to Shimabashi station on the train and then board a futuristic computer controlled monorail which takes you all around the island. TTT was designed to be an experiement in future living (so says wikipedia), as well as being the central communication hub of Japan. The crazy orb building you'll see in the photos is the Fuji TV building, and the inverse pyramid buildings are a convention center. James and I and some other friends spent nearly a day wandering around. We went inside this Toyota technology exhibition building and drove a Gran Turismo motion simulator ride, and took a spin in a car that could drive itself. Impressive! At one point our wanderings took us to this weird wedding mini city. In Japan, people spend TONS on weddings, and in TTT you can rent a recreation of an entire French village at a cost which would probably feed Africa.

Later that night we met up with some other new friends in Shibuya (crazy lights and bars district), and thats when disaster struck! James and I missed our train back up to the apartment. You can read more about that a couple of posts down.