While taking the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour in Tokyo we cruised around Tokyo Bay. This is the last great development frontier in the city, primarily because it’s mostly wetlands where no one in their right mind would build a permanent structure. And in light of climate change and sea level rise, it seems doubly crazy. But what the hell, there’s big money to be made.
The Ikebuuro area is home to J-World Tokyo, the Konica Minolta Planetarium “Manten”, the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater, Namjatown, Sunshine City and the Sunshine Aquarium. Think, giant theme parks.
Right next door along the languid grey shores of Tokyo Bay sits the Odaiba area of Tokyo where you will find the Rainbow Bridge, Venus Fort, the palette town shopping mall, Fuji TV Headquarters, Diver City Tokyo Plaza, Odaiaba Marine Park and (I’m not making this up) the Statue of Liberty, the Odaiba Tokyo Ooedo-Onsen Monaogatari (13 indoor-outdoor bathhouses fed by natural hot springs), the Aqua City entertainment restaurant center, and the Decks Tokyo Beach open air shopping deck. Think, shop ’til you drop and then feed your face.
And what would make all this joyous crap perfect? A Ferris Wheel, of course. And right, smack dab in the middle of the mayhem there’s a big red and white Ferris Wheel resembling the one in Coney Island. It was my first Ferris Wheel in Japan, but not my last.
A few weeks later I was staying in Osaka and when I caught the local train from Juso to the Umeda Station, I had to laugh because there was a giant red Ferris Wheel and amusement park standing right in the heart of Osaka’s City Center.
When Inna joined me a week later, we took the thirty minute ride on the bright red wheel and it was awesome. The views of Osaka and beyond were breathtaking.
Down in the Dotonbori area of Osaka where the best sushi and noodle shops are located is the home of the kuidaore food culture. Osakans are noted for their love of food and they tend to be heavier than the rest of the Japanese. Restaurants line the Dotomborigawa River, and large famous billboards cover entire buildings. On the north side of the river, where geisha used to entertain their customers, are now small bars and restaurants squeezed together in rows. The southern side of the river is the center of the Dotombori area, which was once known as the theater district. Nowadays, colorful neon signs and flashy signboards brighten the area, which was so crowded that it looked like the world’s biggest scrum.
Along one canal we stumbled on another very unique yellow Ferris Wheel suspended on the outside of a U-shaped girder, it’s little red-gumdrop cars rotating slowly clockwise like small rooms. It sat atop a very popular arcade. And next door was the Tako-Yaki Kukuro restaurant which is famous not only for its octopus pies but also the big red octopus on the front of the building. Many of the eateries in the area have large plastic animals on the front facades of their establishments and tourists flock there in droves. We saw more foreigners in thirty minutes than any place else in Osaka.
Why do the Japanese love Ferris Wheels so much? Well, Japan is a mountainous land; two thirds of the place is designated as hilly. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Japanese love their vistas. To view the world from on high brings them great joy. They love to stand on pretty much any mountain and look at the world below. And one of the most popular attractions throughout Japan is what they call the “ropeway” — a tiny cable car that runs to the top of a mountain, usually above a town or a lake. And absent a mountain, there are always the giant radio towers like Tokyo and Kyoto Towers, where people flock day and night to stand atop a tall structure and take in the lofty sights.
I found the Ferris Wheel obsession in Japan amusing because it made me think of my home town of Annapolis where during the election in 2017, the incumbent Republican mayor warned that if his opponent was elected, he would erect a Ferris wheel at the City Dock. This was pure nonsense, but it was an attempt to scare the voters into thinking that the Democrat would destroy Annapolis by turning it into a cheesy amusement park.
Clearly that tactic wouldn’t work in Japan where the Coney Island look is quite popular. And to be honest, the Ferris Wheel in Osaka, when juxtaposed against all the sleek and shiny skyscrapers, looked pretty cool. I wouldn’t suggest that a Ferris Wheel would be appropriate for Colonial Annapolis, but I’m betting you’d have a great view of Baltimore, and maybe even Washington, D.C. on a clear day.
