Since being here I’ve planned quite a few outings into Tokyo - the list of things to do and see doesn’t seem to be shrinking. Which is a good thing. One of those has been a trip to Tokyo Bay, and we finally got round to it this week. Good timing too, it was absolutely boiling and a perfect day to go and get some fresh sea air.
Tokyo Bay is pretty massive, and one of its most popular areas has to be Yokohama, which is technically not in Tokyo. In Tokyo itself there is however Odaiba a part of town built on reclaimed land and with a distinctive futuristic feel to it. Hell the main train station is called Tokyo Teleport!
As soon as we arrived, and after having read a bit of the guide on the way there, the first thing that hit me as we walked out into the sunlight is how similar this area is to the Docklands in London. Another reclaimed area, Docklands stands out amongst the sprawling London East End - not least because it is home to Canary Wharf. It stands out mainly because it’s so ‘clean’, nice looking and depending on where you go quite ‘futuristic’ in feel. Lots of big buildings and skyscrapers, lots of glass and reflective material, nice canals, shops and the only part of the London transport system which isn’t actually crap - the DLR, or Docklands Light Railway. An independent network of automated trains which take you all over the area.
Thing is while Docklands is definitely a nice part of town, it also feels quite alien. It just doesn’t feel like London, it’s too clean and nice looking. It’s an area built and designed primarily for businesses, and it feels that way. There isn’t any real human feeling to most of it (apart from a couple of nice spots here and there). And the further along you go into the Docklands, towards the so far less developed and regenerated areas (like Beckton or Woolwich), the more you start to see how all this futuristic niceness is encroaching over living areas, which are for the most part run down and ignored. How long that will last is anyone’s guess. When I first started going to the Beckton area when I was at uni it was a proper hole, nothing to do or see, but as the years have gone by it has started to become more and more developped, though the human feeling that you get in so much of London was still missing last time I was there.
Popularity: 3%
Recent Comments