Returning to Japan, there are some things we have already done that we want to do again, like TeamLab Planets, and other things we didn’t do that we wish we had, like the Sky Tree.
Heading out a little early to get myself a breakfast bánh mì, we met the crew at the train station. A train ride and a walk over a bridge later, we arrived a little early for our session, so went next door for a beer and a sit-down in the sun at a sort of public barbecue village.
TeamLab Planets was still building part of it last time we were here, so we didn’t get to see the whole experience. They had opened all the rooms we experienced last time and a whole load more. You could spend many more hours here now.
The infinity light galaxy and the carpy water were still the best rooms, but this time they also had a giant bubble room. This huge mirrored room had maybe 100 Mini Cooper-sized white silicone inflatable balls that hummed and changed colour. This really brushed up against Aimi’s balloon anxiety, but after we bounced them around for a while, they proved sturdy enough to take a beating without popping. I even belly-flopped onto one and it survived.
The other huge area that was now open was the Forest section, where there were lots of activities to do—mainly for kids. There was a geometric hill with leaves and geckos and frogs scuttling across it. They were projected onto the surface, and if you touched them, they splatted into lots of colours, so kids were running all over having great fun.
Another area had a room full of beach ball-sized rubber balls sunk into the floor. Onto each one a pattern was projected, and when you jumped your way across the room from one to another, they changed colour. Absolutely no idea what it was meant to symbolise, but it was fun.
The trickiest one was a set of luminous coloured bars. They were held hovering in space by tight black wires that sort of disappeared, if you defined the word loosely enough, into the black background. Climbing my wobbly way through it was fun, and a little disorientating with a moving projected background. Again, no idea what this art was about.
The only one that was really disappointing was the capture forest. I can see what they were trying to do: use your phone with an app to walk around a set of walls where different beasts were projected onto them. When you see one you haven’t got yet, you shoot it with a digital bow and arrow or throw a digital net over it and collect it. It was really colourful and sort of wafty and calm, like everything else, except it really didn’t work. I’d shoot an arrow at a stag and be rewarded with a bird of some sort. Then I threw a net over a gecko and got given a sabre-tooth tiger. This got boring quickly, as it seemed to be random, and there were over 100 to get, which must take all day! Cool concept, poor execution.
We really nearly did spend all day there, as there was so much to see. We really should have had a bigger breakfast because we came out and food was then top priority. Aimi went into mission mode, marching faster than everyone else. We got to the Skytree complex and went in search of sushi, but with a queue of over two hours, we decided to get something else.
Instead, we found an okonomiyaki shop, which is something I wanted to have this trip anyway. It’s poor-person food, but tastes super good to me. A pile of pancake, noodles, egg, okonomiyaki sauce, cabbage, and spring onions—it’s fried in a big pile on a flat griddle. We got a selection set with a few other bits, and it really hit the spot.
With a fake coffee and then a real coffee boosting our energy levels, it was time for the Skytree. I tried to book our tickets for sunset, which was a good idea, but we arrived literally as the sun was just dipping below the horizon. There was a crowd of about five people deep all the way around the windows. It was way busier up here than I expected, but we still got a few good shots.
You could just about make out Mt. Fuji as a silhouette. It’s absolutely massive and cast the whole of Tokyo into darkness very quickly. The lights all blinked into life, one by one. After a short while, the Tokyo Tower was lit up and easily visible across the skyline.
Saying the view was amazing is obviously accurate, but what’s really amazing is the difference in height. The whole skyline is littered with skyscrapers of varying heights. Some are taller than others, but when the Sky Tree was built, it basically redefined what a “tall” building was. It’s double the height of everything around, literally dwarfing the lot. It’s incredible!
Once we navigated the crush of people for the lifts and ignored the rubbish glass floor, we went hunting for another train station stamp. We had collected four stamps today just from the Skytree! And then one of the station masters surprised us with a brochure and shiny cards of a new train they are announcing soon. My stamp book is becoming a wonderful scrapbook of stuff.
