When it comes to bridges in Tokyo there is only ever really one that gets a mention and that’s Rainbow Bridge. No real surprise there I guess as it offers a picture perfect postcard view of Tokyo city and is famed for it’s beautiful night scenery. However, just 10 kilometres south-east of there is another interesting looking bridge but many people have never even heard of this one!

It’s one that’s fairly new to me too having only noticed it in the distance a year ago when my wife and I went on the restaurant ship around Tokyo Bay last February. However, without a car this bridge really isn’t that easy to get to. Shin-Kiba is the nearest station and a place I’ve only ever been to twice before with both times being to see the Manic Street Preachers play live (in 2010 and 2012) at Studio Coast. The station is four kilometres and a 50 minutes walk away so still not too appealing. Buses do go there though from outside Shin-Kiba station. The bus stop for Wakasu-kyampujo-mae on route #11 will take you to where the bridge is. Not my style though so going by bicycle was the only way in my mind!

In recent times I’ve considered it better to try and combine things like this with my arrival in Shibuya for work rather than cycling all the way down to such a place and back on my day off. Mind you, it does mean I’m a bit tired at work but there’s usually a bit of down time to recover during my working hours. With all that in mind I left the Tokyo Fox Global Operations Centre in Itabashi-ku at 9am and needed to be in Shibuya for work four hours later. Plenty of time to fit it all in with time to spare!

As expected, nothing too much of note happened on the near-two hour journey to the bridge which on reflection is no bad thing given what happened to me five days later when I was knocked off my bicycle. Just before the bridge I passed the Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome but thought I’d wait till my return to photograph it but inevitably ended up forgetting!

Dinosaur Bridge, which is located near the Wakasu Park Camping Ground, is maybe the perfect sequel to recent trips to Dinosaur Park in Shinagawa and Dinosaur Space in Izu. It spans for more than 2500 metres and gets it’s nickname as the two enormous truss sections of this double cantilever bridge give the appearance of dinosaurs locking horns. 

It felt good to feel the fresh sea air as I moved back and forth along the path to take a few photos of the bridge. I knew it was a popular spot for sunset pictures and later found out that it’s a popular place for people to view the first sunrise of the year on January 1st.

I was just about to start heading back to central Tokyo when I noticed that you could go beneath the bridge for about half it’s distance so I took a quick wander along the walkway which was full of fishermen dipping their tackle in to see what bites!

That wasn’t quite the end of my adventure as on the way to Shibuya there were a few photo stops beginning quite near the bridge with a Family Mart which is called Port Store (below) for some reason. Now I never said they’d be interesting pictures did I!!

That was not even the first Family Mart of note that day as before the bridge I took a quick detour to see an interesting architectural building (above) near Shiomi station which just happens to be home to the convenience store on the ground floor.

A couple more buildings of interest followed (below) including Toyosu Station which featured in ‘Tokyo Modern Architecture #3‘ last year.

Once back over the other side of the Sumida-gawa River I made a brief stop in Tsukiji but not for the fish market! My interest was a place called Tsukiji Honganji Temple (3-5-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku) which I’d never heard of until I saw it on some TV show one Friday evening last year. As I was pushed for time I didn’t go inside and indeed I’m not even sure if you could go inside! I was surprised to see that this buddhist temple was quite busy as I thought it’d be just me there! Established in 1617 near Asakusa, it was destroyed a couple of times by fires. It was then built between 1931 and 1934 and is noted for its unique architecture influenced by temples in India.

Just a kilometre up the road from there is the Wako department store in Ginza (4-5-11 Ginza,‎ Chūō-ku) and that was my final photo stop as I need a new picture of it for a future ‘On The Trail Of Shin Gojira’ post.

It was another seven kilometres from there to my workplace in Shibuya. 50 kilometres before work ain’t a bad warm-up though I guess most people would say it’s a bridge too far!