Happy Birthday to Elaine

HappyBirthday to my mom. Pretty cool to spend your birthday in a foreign country.

We spent the day on Odaiba, a first for my mom.



We started out at Toyota MegaWeb, a futuristic Toyota showroom.

"Toyota MegaWeb - Located in the Pallet Town Shopping center in the middle of Tokyo's waterfront entertainment suburb Odaiba is Toyota's self proclaimed car theme park, Megaweb. Toyota Megaweb comprises of six exhibits such as the History Garage, Universal Design Showcase, Toyota City Showcase, Ride One, E-com Ride and the Kids Hybrid Ride One.

The largest part of megaweb is the Toyota City Showcase where not only can you see all the latest and future Toyota products, but also you can visit the motion simulator attraction know as Mega Theater or hop on one of the rides that terminate from the Megaweb building, like the E-com Ride or Ride One.

The E-com Ride consists of a large track that passes around the pallet town complex and thru the megaweb building, it consists of real cars that can drive by themselves, its a sort of cruise control of the future. You can catch the ride at either the Toyota City Showcase, History Garage or the Universal Design Studio. Cost of the ride is around 200 yen each.

Ride One lets any licenced driver test drive one of the latest Toyota cars on there 1.3km, 2-lap test course that links the 3 pavilions. You can select a car from the Toyota lineup and then take your time and get a feel for the car of your choice on the test course. Resavations are recommended and the cost is around 300 yen per car. The kids havent been forgotten either, they can drive the Kids Hybrid Ride One. The kids ride is a motor assisted hybrid cart that can be driven around a 150m circuit. "