EDDIEWONG

I only just found out about this new LaLaport shopping mall in Toyosu a week or so ago via a TV program. The TV program mainly focused on the Kidzania part of the shopping mall which happens to be a huge in-house theme park. Because I was busy cleaning Ulala’s cage at the time, I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the program but I do clearly remember seeing kids with their families riding on small coasters, seeing facilities for kids to learn how to put out fires, construction cranes which kids can control, etc., etc. I think it’s more than your average kinda themepark clearly with educational purposes in mind too.

The program didn’t say too much about the shopping aspects, which is understandable since all shopping malls are cloned with the same shops, anyway.

Since I didn’t have too much to do yesterday, I dropped by in the evening to scoop out the place. Let me tell ya, this shopping mall is huge, even for Tokyo standards. The mall didn’t seem to look too crowded (probably due to it’s size?) until it was time for dinner - every restaurant had a good sized queue! Man, Japanese people love to queue, for some reason. Anyway, like I mentioned, the shops and restaurants here are exactly what you would get in literally every shopping district: Tokyu Hands, GAP, Uniqlo, Rakeru, Starbucks, etc.

The entrance to Kidzania is pretty awesome! It’s decked out resembling the check-in point of an airport! There’s like 4-5 counters with the staff dressed like airline employees and right above them, there is what seems like a full scale airplane (amid just 1/3 of the body). From below, I could see through the windshield into the cockpit. I wonder if kids get to sit in there and mess with some controls… that would be really cool. I think the main attraction of this place is the Kidzania since there were a lot of families, old and young. While I was taking pics outside the entrance, I witnessed a family (mom, dad, daughter, gran) being turned away because the facility was full. And this was at 6pm. Damn, poor kid… she must have been very disappointed.

Oh, oh, oh.. LaLaport also houses a big AsobitCity hobby shop with a fantastic window display of what seems like the real costumes used (either that or they are super-accurate replicas) in the Superman Returns and Batman Begins movies! On display was one of Louis Lane’s dresses, Superman’s, Lex Luthor’s, followed by the Scarecrow’s, Batman’s and Rahs Al Ghul’s. Great stuff! And nope, they’re not for sale.

Anyway, the mall is probably definitely worth your visit if you have kids because of Kidzania and/or if you are into shopping. But like said, this is just another cloned shopping mall with the exact same shops everywhere else. Most of the shops in the mall closes at 9pm while restaurants remain open till 10-11pm. We had to queue up for about 30 mins to get seated at a table in a Yakiniku restaurant. Expect roughly the same amount of time for other restaurants too.