Tokyo Dome City

So what to do on a cloudy day? How about an amusement park! Actually, I pass by this park every night I go to Kameido to teach. I knew it was off of the Suidobashi exit and I knew I wanted to go there. When Joe and I arrived, we had no clue which exit to take, so we just followed the mass of people.



Here I am at the entrance to the dome. On the way up, however, Joe and I were starving, so we started looking for a "snack" somewhere. We found a street vendor just outside serving little hotcakes for 100Yen. We bought one and it was great! It was filled with some kind of custard. This park was different than theme parks in the US. To get in, it was free. You could walk around, shop, and do whatever you wanted, but if you wanted to ride the roller coaster or some other ride, you had to pay for it individually. We decided to ride the roller coaster. And yes, it was FAST! And the way that it came out of this building was crazy! Over 100 miles an hour! The first hill was a doozy!!!!! And you would never know I had a fear of heights with the way I love to ride roller coasters!



Then Joe and I decided to ride the ferris wheel, if only for the view. The ferris wheel was interesting. It moved at a mach-speed of 2 centimeters an hour. No, really, it was so slow, in fact, I questioned if it was even working when we entered the park. It was indeed working. It just goes around one time for each ride, and takes several minutes to do that. But inside, you get to listen to this really cheesy music supplied by your own individual sound system. They are equal opportunity offenders here in Japan, I think they picked the single-worst song from 5 different countries to choose from for the ride. I suppose if you're on a bad date, the sound system beats having to talk to the person!!!!



A view from the dome side of the ferris wheel ride. Notice the long line of people below. This is the line to get into the dome for a "chrysanthenum festival"...must be real exciting!



Another view from the ferris wheel on the opposite side. Tokyo goes on FOREVER!