Japan

TeamLab Borderless

A Byrd

— 5 min read
TeamLab Borderless

On Monday, our second full day in Tokyo, we had lunch at a soba (buckwheat noodle) restaurant near us. Somehow we managed to decipher the menu (thanks to Google Translate) and order some meals despite barely having a word in common with the elderly lady serving us (i.e. she had no English and I have about three words of Japanese). Not sure why I was given the task of ordering when I'm the only one NOT learning Japanese on Duolingo... but I suppose it's good for one's personal growth to feel like an utter drongo now and then!

B's bubbling hot pot meal came with a raw egg. We weren't sure what to do with it so eventually just stirred it in!
My meal.
Cemetery and shrine in our neighbourhood.

Next we rode the train into the city to visit TeamLab Borderless, a digital art experience we'd booked tickets to via Klook the day before. (The only thing we'd previously used Klook for were our non-refundable, two-day Universal Studios tickets, which Klook agreed to refund 30% of in "Klook cash" due to our exceptional circumstances while in LA, so we had to make a couple more Klook bookings to use up that refund.)

Cool shop near TeamLab.
We had a quick look through this nearby manga art exhibition while waiting for our session time.
TeamLab Borderless entrance. The photo that is the header of this blog post was taken while standing on the exact right spot (in the centre of the corridor in line with the X in this pic). If you stand anywhere else, you can see that the text stretches along the walls and ceiling. A very cool effect!
Here's a shot looking in the other direction.

TeamLab Borderless is a digital art museum described as "a world of artworks without boundaries, a museum without a map". (As a result of this, we're pretty sure we missed seeing quite a bit of it! There are pictures in the ads of rooms we didn't find.) "Artworks move out of rooms, relate to other works, influence each other, and at times intermingle, without boundaries." Perhaps it's best explained via pictures and videos!

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In one room we could draw/colour our own sea creature and then watch it swim around on the walls!

B's swordfish.
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Our favourite two rooms were the one with the hill and the one with the sea creatures. The whole museum was quite amazing — we definitely recommend it! J even got his sea creature printed on a t-shirt as a unique souvenir (3000¥ = $30 AUD).

A cool building we saw near TeamLab Borderless.
Monday was an annual Japanese holiday called Coming of Age Day, which celebrates all those who've reached the age of maturity since the previous year's celebration. We saw a few young women dressed up like this.

That evening we had Mos Burger again for tea. The boys had two cheeseburgers each this time, which stretched the total to a whole $19! 😄

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