Marinda Leigh: Venus Fort and Diver City

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Venus Fort and Diver City - Shopping Haven

Venus Fort, which is located in Odaiba, is now officially my shopping haven. It's a huge three storey shopping mall in the style of an 18th century European town. It houses the outlet stores of all my favourite Gyaru brands such as Murua, Emoda, Duras and Gyda, just to name a few. I went absolutely insane!

Can you spot your favorite Japanese brand?

Getting to Venus Fort isn't too hard if you catch the Yurikamome line. If you get off at the Aomi station, you'll be right next to it and all you have to do is walk a little bit. You can see the famous ferris wheel in the background so you won't miss it!

Photo credits to Odaiba VenusFort website

The architecture and interior design within the fort made me feel like I was walking through an European town. There were paintings along the walls, cute lamps and signs hanging atop doors and a fantastic fountain in the middle of the fort.

After a hard day of shopping, we stopped for a late lunch in an Italian restaurant. The atmosphere in the restautrant was so relaxing and the waitress was a lovely older lady who gave us wonderful service and indulgently put up with our broken Japanese. Ahh, this is the life, we thought. Shopping all day and then sitting down with the bestie for a gossip sesh over some coffee and food. I can't remember the name of the restaurant but if you're in Venus Fort and you have the time and inclination, you should definitely check it out!

Shopping in Japan can be quite expensive. You'd be looking at 6,000 to 12,000 yen ++ per item whether they're shoes, tops or jackets. But when I checked out the prices at these outlet stores, I could not believe what I was seeing! Prices were around the 2,500 to 3,000 yen mark! It was a bargain!

Here's some stuff we found at Venus fort.

I was unbelievably lucky because the first day I went to Venus Fort, there was a sale going on at Unspaced-2 which sells all my favourite Gyaru brands! If you bought more than two items, you got 70% off your whole purchase! I still have the receipts so you can see the the prices of my shopping in Odaiba in my next post. The photos below should give you an idea how much we bought during two separate trips to Odaiba!

Between the two of us, we had more bags than we could carry! But we still managed to get home without losing anything!

Another shopping centre in Odaiba to take note of is Diver City.There weren't any outlet stores but I still went crazy because, as I've mentioned before, I love Forever 21, H&M and Zara.

If you plan to do all your shopping in one day, then Venus Fort and Diver City are about a five to ten minute walk from one another. You just have to cross a few big roads but with all their pedestrian crossings, it's very safe. Like I've mentioned before, Odaiba is set out very well and everything is pretty much within walking distance.