Cosmo Clock 21

Dylan put his fears aside this afternoon and accompanied me and Connor to Cosmo World for a ride on Cosmo Clock 21, the gigantic ferris wheel located in the Minato Mirai Shinko (new harbor) District.  Cosmo Clock 21 was built in 1989 with a height of 353 feet and was the world's tallest ferris wheel until eight years later when the Tempozan Harbor Village ferris wheel was constructed in Osaka with a height of 369 feet.  Shortly thereafter Cosmo Clock 21 was dismantled and relocated to a taller base which gave it the same height as the ferris wheel in Osaka.  Apparently the ferris wheel world is very competitive here in Japan!  Cosmo Clock 21 has 60 cars and each car seats 8 people.  Dylan has a fear of heights, but he decided to brave it.  He spoke of regret halfway up and asked me to stay still for the remainder of the ride to minimize our risk of falling out, but we ended up making it out in one piece:

Connor enjoyed sitting in the cartoon cars in the amusement park down below, especially Anpanman (the first pic).  Anpanman is the most famous children's cartoon character in Japan and his head is made of a bun.  The creator of Anpanman came up with the idea during WWII when faced with the prospect of starvation.  He dreamed of eating a bean/jam filled pastry called an Anpan and Anpanman was born.  Many of the other heroes of the cartoon also have bread for a head, such as (Shokupanman) white bread, (Currypanman) curry-filled bread, (Melonpanna) melon bread and (Creampanda) a cream bun.  Watch an Anpanman cartoon here:

Then we took the subway to Chinatown to pick up some more steamed buns.  I am not kidding, we each ate one (Connor too) on the way home.  The arm flailing was in full force, though he looks pretty mellow here: