Venus Fort at Odaiba – Now an outlet mall

Well, not completely – but it seems like they did convert most of the stores into outlet/factory stores offering 50-60% off of the regular prices. Mind you, the Venus Fort is still a relatively high-end shopping mall (there IS a huge indoor fountain after all) so in some of the stores bargain prices are still in >$100 range.

It seems like this big change happened around January but as Odaiba is not exactly next door to Mitaka, it was only today that I actually saw the new mall. Outside is changed as well and the inner decor now has more lights – though, they kept the “streets of Venice” look. It used to be that the Venus Fort was worth checking out at least once just because of the design but now the possibility of finding a brand item for 60% off the price you would have to pay in Ginza/Shibuya or Shinjuku means regular visits every once in a while may well be worth it.

Security and Safety Expo 2009 at Tokyo Big Sight

Today I made the trip to Odaiba (well, more specifically Kokusai-Tenjijo) to attend the Security and Safety Expo (Riscon 2009) today. From robots to  signaling equipment to hazmat suits, there was something for everyone  but I was most impressed by the Tokyo Fire Rescue team who showed off both a rescue robot and more importantly, let ordinary people be "firefighters” but I get ahead of myself so let me try to make this more interesting and do it in a “album” kind of way again.

You can see the album here. I also uploaded two movies I made of the demonstrations I watched. I am embedding them below:

 

Japan Security Show 2009

Last Friday, which as a day was not a very pleasant one as the amount of rain was, well, unreasonable to say the least, I had a chance to visit the Japan Security Show at Tokyo Big Sight. The show was a lot of fun though and I saw a lot of interesting stuff even though the commute there and back was painful at times. I even managed to snap a few pictures though only after did I see a sign loudly announcing “No photographs”. This is the second time something like this happens to me in Japan – the first case being at Akihabara trying to record a video of maids singing on a stage… That … was embarrassing.

First off, lets start with getting to Tokyo Big Sight. I blogged before about this since I went there before in order to see the robots exhibition last year and that time I used the Yurikamome Line (which keeps on referring to itself as the “New Yurikamome Line” but it is not so new I am told) which not only can get one much closer to Big Sight than Rinkai Line which we took this time but it also offers a really nice view including the Rainbow Bridge. Heck, it even goes ON that bridge. The catch? It takes longer to get there AND it is more expensive and since we were pressed for time we took the Rinkai Line (臨海線) from Shinjuku.

What was on display? Well, quite a few different things I guess. Not just alarm systems etc. when one thinks of security but also components for such systems such as improvements on camera technology, motion sensing, as well as research related to security such as automatic detection of suspicious activity or automatically counting people in a given area. You could see big hitters of the security world like Secom as well as more general electronics manufacturers like Sony and of course key makers – physical security is as important as ever and it shows. Actually one of the coolest things I saw at the show was a key which has a “Did I lock the door?” indicator which automatically lets you know whether or not you forgot to do just that.

This is something I could definitely use…

Some "future vehicles" from Toyota Showcase

Toyota's showcase "museum" in Odaiba (お台場) is a pretty fun place to roam around in and it is free to get in too! They have a whole bunch of cars from actual race cars to current models, hybrids, and of course different models of Lexus including one that costs upwards of $125,000. For me the most enjoyable part was the "future vehicles" section featuring futuristic single person and multi-person vehicles. They even have a demo of one of the individual-ride models which I think deserves its own post so for this one I will just put photos of the others ;)