This morning we had a game plan. We went to Tully’s for our now “regular” ham and egg sandwich and coffee before breaking off for our morning activities. Mom and Dad’s Christmas present from my sister and I was an Ikebana class experience to learn the art of Japanese flower arrangement. They took off for their 10 AM appointment and my sister, Ryan, and I set off to check out TeamLabs Boarderless, an interactive, immersive and modern, no idea how to describe it, exhibit.
We hopped on the train for the 58 minute journey to the TeamLabs area by the ocean. We arrived with time to spare and just beat the line rush. As we got to the front, one of the workers told us we were at the wrong place! I had no idea there were more than one of these things in Tokyo! Apparently, I bought tickets for the TeamLabs Planet experience, not Boarderless, so it was back onto the train for another 20 minute ride to the correct location. Thank goodness the trains in Japan are so easy to navigate. We were at the new building in no time and had a short wait outside in a quickly moving line.
We entered a black room and watched a short intro video that told us to remove our shoes and hike up our pants to at least our knees. Wait….. what? My super tight skinny jeans were not going to budge more than 3 inches above my ankles and my sister and Ryan were looking at me quizzically and I had no answers for what we were about to experience. With shoes off, we were instructed to move into a locker room to put our stuff up. I was not allowed in with my pants, so I got to wear these super sexy cut off sweat-shorts instead!
Once we got the go-ahead for our pant situation, we started the journey into a black corridor with the softest velvet black walls and dim colorful lights to indicate our course. The first area we came across was an upward slope with water running down it from a waterfall at the top of the slope. It was so relaxing to walk up and the water looked beautiful with a blue light shining through it. At the top, we were given towels to dry our feet before entering the next room – a giant bean bag! When I say giant bean bag, I mean that then entire huge room was one massive bean bag and it felt like you were climbing through quicksand to get through. It was so unstabalizing and we kept pushing each other over since we were so off balance. It was hilarious and so comfortable! We need one of those rooms in our house!
The next room was my absolute favorite. It had what seemed like thousands of strings of lights with mirrors on the ceiling, walls, and floors. The lights changed colors and patterns and made all of these wonderful designs as we walked through the maze of a room. It was totally mesmerizing.
We continued on and encountered a slope that led us into knee high milky water. After turning a corner, we waded into this massive room of water with various light patterns materializing around us. There were giant coy fish, flowers, and all of these other wonderful patterns. It was so relaxing and felt so good!
After another quick towel dry, we couldn’t wait to see what was next. We entered this room with massive, white balls! They had some helium in them so they floated around and the various neon lights made it look so cool! We pushed each other into them, bumped off of them, and explored the massive room for quite a while. Again – so weird and cool!
The last room in the experience was a giant dome that had a mirrored floor and a video of flowers moving all around it. It was kind of like a planetarium theater but, instead of planets, there were flowers of all shapes and sizes coming at you from all angles. We laid on the floor for a while to watch and relax. The walk to the exit was pretty disorienting and the angle to which the flowers were flying made it seem like the room was turning upside-down.
Sadly for us, that room led us to the exit but we were so pleasantly surprised by how different the entire experience was. A “must do” if you ever see a TeamLabs experience by you.
After TeamLabs, we set off to meet up with my parents at the Edo Museum. The plan was to grab lunch around there and then learn about Japan’s history at the museum but, unfortunately for us, the Edo is closed on Mondays so we had to adjust. We decided to grab some snacks and go check out the tech district of Akihabara instead. We hopped back on the train and rode for 20 minutes to the station. It dumped us out right into a mall and I kept getting side tracked because, well, shopping!!
We exited and immediately felt like we were in another world (like an Anime one!). There were cartoon signs crawling up the sides of the massive high rises on both sides of the road, tons of shops with tech gadgets, powerhouse brands like Sega taking up huge buildings, video games everywhere, shops with figurines, and lines and lines of surprise toy dispensers. Of course, Ryan had to try his luck with one.
Your tummies were rumbling so we found a Yaki Udon place to grab a bite. There were two vending machines on either side of the restaurant (shown below) to place your order and then we found a seat. We showed our tickets from the machines to the waitress and our food was on our table in under two minutes. Boy was it good! I got hot udon noodles with tempura.
After lunch, we ventured out to meet my parents. It took a little to find them and, while my mom went on a bathroom break, we sampled some Macha, strawberry, and pecan, chocolates for a chocolatier. Once we all regrouped, it was off to explore. It was hard to know where to go since most of the shops are on different levels within each building.
We decided to go into the Sega building and it was nuts. Like, I am trying to find different adjectives to describe this place but none can do it justice. There were 9 total floors of games. The first 3 floors were just toy-grabber machines. I tried my luck to get a giant Yoshi but it didn’t work out in my favor. The next two floors had video games of sorts, then there was a floor of music games like DDR. One of the games was like guitar hero but, instead of a guitar, you played a piano instead. One of the guys playing it was on the hardest level and had over 1,000 perfect moves! He was a total piano-hero savant! It was insane to see.
The last floor was the VR floor and had multiple areas for VR shooter games. There was even one where you rode a fake horse and killed bad guys as you rode through a valley (picture to the right above). It was weirdly funny to watch.
We made our way back out of the chaotic lights and sounds of this building. There were quite a few other buildings just like the one we were in. What a place! We browsed through a few figurine stores and souvenir shops before heading back to the station to go to the Ginza district. Ginza is known for its high end shopping. We just wanted to check it out and had no real plan. Ryan was not to keen on walking around the shops and was peeved we didn’t stay behind in Akihabara. I think there was some jet lag involved and we were not in the best mood. We walked some blocks but were all pretty tired after walking +20K steps or so already. We decided to head back to the hotel, rest, and regroup at our favorite rooftop bar at 6. It felt great to take a break for a bit. We also decided we needed to make our full “game plan” the day prior so that we made sure to make the most of our days in Tokyo since today was a little all over the place.
After a few glasses of happy hour wine, Julia, Ryan and I took off to find dinner. Julia’s boyfriend spent some time in Tokyo a year prior and recommended a goyza place and a meat skewer place in Koenji, about a 25 minute journey from our hotel. We didn’t really know what to expect and Koenji was much less populated than Shinjuku. We walked down an street lined with thrift stores and then to another street with a few restaurants. Unfortunately, the gyoza place was closed, but the other restaurant was open! It was a Chinese place with 4 tables total. The chef was also our waiter and he recommended a few things.
We started with pan-seared soup dumplings which are filled with meat and soup broth. You put them on your spoon and cut a small hole in the top of the dumpling to slurp out the soup before eating the rest. Oh my goodness it was AMAZING. Literally the best thing I have eaten in Japan so far. Ryan got a sweet and sour chicken and Julia and I split Chinese shaved noodles with pork. So yum!
We were stuffed by the end of our dinner and the walk back to the hotel felt really good. I tell you, walking upwards of 12 miles a day is intense but at least you can enjoy all of the food guilt free!
The Impatient Traveler 