Odaiba in the Summer

The Japan Summer theme continues and this time we take a look at Odaiba - the reclaimed island located in Tokyo Bay which is currently filled with leisure spots like a beach, cinema's, restaurants, shops, arcade gaming facilities and once again home to the 1:1 scale Gundam.

More photos from the Summer series listed up below.

Odaiba has a very interesting history - following copy pasted from Wikipedia.

The name Odaiba comes from a series of six island fortresses constructed in 1853 by Egawa Hidetatsu for the Tokugawa shogunate in order to protect Edo from attack by sea, the primary threat being Commodore Matthew Perry's Black Ships which had arrived in the same year.
Daiba in Japanese refers to the cannon batteries placed on the islands. In 1928, the Dai-San Daiba (第三台場) or "No. 3 Battery" was refurbished and opened to the public as the Metropolitan Daiba Park, which remains open to this day.

Dai-Roku Daiba (第六台場) or "No. 6 Battery", one of the original Edo-era battery islands, as viewed from the Rainbow Bridge. The developed area of Odaiba is in the background.

One of the cannons of Odaiba, now at the Yasukuni Shrine. 80-pound bronze, bore: 250mm, length: 3830mm. From the originally planned 11 batteries, only five were ever finished. The modern island of Odaiba began to take shape when the Port of Tokyo opened in 1941.

Until the mid 1960s all except two batteries were either removed for unhindered passage of ships or incorporated into the Shinagawa port facilities and Tennozu island. In 1979 the then called landfill no. 13 (now Minato-ku Daiba, Shinagawa-ku Higashi-Yashio and Kōtō-ku Aomi districts), was finished directly connecting with the old "No. 3 Battery". "No. 6 Battery" was left to nature (landing prohibited).

There are a few ways to get to Odaiba - you can take the Rinkai line [りんかい線] and get off at Tokyo Teleport station [東京テレポート駅] or take the Yurikamome [ゆりかもめ] and get off at Daiba station[台場駅].