Woke up in Tokyo and headed out in the city to get our Tokyo Disneyland tickets. We took the train from Shin-Nihombashi to Tokyo Station We wanted to grab some pastries at the bakery we remembered in the station from March. Sure enough, we found it and set off for the Tokyo Disney Resort Ticket Center near the Yurakcho Station to get our Resort tickets. Once we arrived, there was a small panic that ensued when my credit card did not work at first, but after I was able to get ahold of the card issuer they assured me everything was OK and that they hostess just did the card wrong. After trying again, the card went through and the tickets were purchased. Whew, I nearly had a heart attack!
Tickets in hand we set off to find the Internet Cafe that was back closer to Tokyo Station and we decided to walk instead of taking the train the short distance. About halfway between the two stations, I found a cade called the Marunochi Cafe where I was able to log on briefly and check my email. We verified that all was set for our tour, but we would need to check back in a few days to make sure the contact at TDR responded and all was set with our meeting place.
Back at Tokyo Station, we decided to activate our Japan Rail passes. With our four days at the Resort next week, it gives us the flexibility to decide which days we want to go to Kyoto and Himeji and what days to stay in Tokyo. Rail passes in hand, we headed over to one of our favorite spots, Odaiba (note, both Odiaba and Daiba are used to talk about the artificial island in Tokyo Bay and you will see me use both interchangeably because I can’t remember which one I have used before. Sorry in advance..) to see the Toys-R-Us at the Aqua City Daiba Mall as well as MEGAWEB Toyota showroom.
Arriving at the mall, we quickly checked out the Toys-R-Us for Daniel’s Nintendo search items and grabbed a bite to eat in the basement before heading over to MEGAWEB. As we walked towards the showroom, we wandered the exterior paths of the area and encountered a farmer’s market near the entrance to Venus Fort. One thing we missed out last time that we wanted to do was sit in the autonomous vehicles that drove you around MEGAWEB. We checked into the station for the E-Com Ride station (as it was called) and had to wait a bit for our turn. Daniel checked out some cool cars including the Daihatsu Latte Move (in yellow) which he wanted to purchase right then and there.
We finally got to ride the E-Com vehicle which was a 2-door Toyota fitted to follow pucks in the pavement around a course that went outside and through part of the building. It was super cool and I was so glad we were able to do it. We then hopped onboard the train to head back to the hotel. We reached the hotel around 5:30pm and Daniel and I were figuring out what to do for the rest of the night. I was pooped and Daniel wanted to go out into the city more.
At 5:56pm local time, Mother Nature decided we should stay close to the hotel, a m6.6 earthquake struck the Niigata prefecture of Japan and shook our hotel in Tokyo fairly strongly taking us both by surprised. We evacuated the hotel and headed down to the lobby where the gentleman behind the counter was looking at us like something was wrong with us. There were a couple more aftershocks and we returned to the room to turn on the TV. Local TV has a cool feature where they show the quake map and run a secondary audio in English telling people what was happening. The same 15 second clip of people looking panicked kept airing on the television and we quickly got bored as while there were still continuing aftershocks, we could not figure out exactly what was happening. As the aftershocks kept happening at regular intervals through the night and we decided to call home to let our families know we were OK and not to worry. It was an exciting night, but we decided to stay close to the hotel for the rest of the night to be safe and be ready for Tokyo DisneySea tomorrow.
(Editor’s note: we learned after coming home that the quake was referred to as the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake and what a huge disaster this was for the residents in Niigata prefecture including the family who were buried on a highway and massive damage to homes in the area. I wrote a blog entry on the Daily Update as a follow up in November 2004)
