Day 14 - teamLabs Planets, Sayonara Japan!

When I Googled things to do in Tokyo that we hadn't done before, I kept seeing teamLabs Borderless pop up. It looked intriguing, but the exhibit had closed while it is being relocated. However, it's sister attraction, teamLabs Planet, was touted as being similarly cool. So after some research and effort, we found a day we could squeeze it in and grabbed some tickets before they sold out (they frequently do).

In hindsight, the words used to describe the exhibit are not ones that would typically draw me in, stuff like "Immersive digital art experience" and "International art collective." In fact, this is how its described on their own web page:

Together with Others, Immerse your Entire Body, Perceive with your Body, and Become One with the World

teamLab Planets is a museum where you walk through water, and a garden where you become one with the flowers. It comprises 4 large-scale artwork spaces and 2 gardens created by art collective teamLab.

People go barefoot and immerse their entire bodies in the vast artworks together with others. The artworks change under the presence of people, blurring the perception of boundaries between the self and the works. Other people also create change in the artworks, blurring the boundaries between themselves and the works, and creating a continuity between the self, the art, and others.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued and wanted to check it out, as it had mostly rave reviews. We checked out of our apart-hotel and stashed our luggage at Tokyo Station. This was not an easy task, as it appears 1.8 million other travelers want to do the same thing each day...and finding both a locker, and a locker large enough to fit our things, was not easy. However, after a search, we were luckily able to find a few vacant lockers that could fit our things that cost about $6 each. Once that was done, Rich found us the nearby bus station we needed, and we caught a bus to the teamLab area in about 15-20 min.

There was a huge crowd outside, and we were quickly led into a large locker area, where were instructed to leave our bags, remove our shoes and roll our pants up to our knees.

From there, you walked a long a dark hallway through seven large exhibits with hundreds of others who appeared to have the same time appointment as you. The first room, you walked uphill through about an inch of warm water gushing down. Hmm. Okay. There was a small waterfall cascading through a hole in the ceiling at the top. Urban waterfall? Not sure. But it was...meh.

The second room was more of a fun challenge, a pitch black room (a darkened room was a common theme of the day) that was basically a giant bean bag for flooring. Your feet sunk in deep and it was quite difficult/frustrating to wade your way across. After a few seconds of fun, I found myself quickly wanting to just get across as it was physically exhausting. 

Room #3 had the wow factor of the day- thousands of sparkling and twinkling LED lights suspended from the ceiling over mirrored floors. It felt like the Las Vegas Cosmoplitan hotel married a Disney Frozen princess and had a baby. I loved it. I am shallow like that.

The fourth room was filled with about a foot of murky gray water, onto which it was 'filled' with colorful laser lights of koi swimming around. And supposedly, when you hit a koi, it would turn into a flower whose petals would scatter. Therefore, each experience was unique and could never be replicated. Except, I didn't notice the fish ever turned into flower petals, and after awhile, it was time to move on. Interactive level was high in theory, but unnoticeable.

The fifth room was cute, but fairly underwhelming. It was filled wit large white balls, and the lights changed colors ever few seconds. Some balls moved, some did not.

Room #6 was by the far, the most funky, eclectic and otherworldly. It was a semi open air moss filled room with, let's call them silver jelly bean alien rocks all over the place. To add to the mystique- there was mist pumped into the room periodically. More...ah...questions, here. To be clear, each room had a very detailed explanation that made sense at the time, and helped me understand the vision of the artiste... However, this did not satiate the curiosity of my practical nature, who kept asking, why?

Room #8 was supposed to be the swan song of the exhibit, I believe. Hundreds of suspended orchids hanging everywhere over a mirrored floor. Did it smell kind of pretty and feel like we were in a park, if that park had mirrored floors and lots of Japanese people within 50 feet? Yes, yes, it did. Which means, it was nice, but not so nice that I disappointed when they kicked us all out after about five minutes.

My overall review of the place? It was worth a short visit. There were interesting and thought provoking experiences that were far more immersive than most other museums. There were new and creative ideas, and it would be quite fun for anyone young and ambulatory. Is it worth a special trip? No. Definitely not. It's not something I would recommend compared to the many other experiences Tokyo has to offer. Perhaps something for a rainy day? I want to say we spent about  $32 per person in yen, and I think it was a bit much given how little time we spent there. However, I can see the costs involved in maintaining those exhibits has to be pretty staggering. I really wanted to get the vegan udon from the cafe next door right after, but it was priced rather high, and I had already spent enough there, so we moved on.

We had a short walk back to the bus stop, and it was so beautiful outside! We had to wait for a second bus to come by, as the first one was packed to the gills.

Once we got back to Tokyo Station, we retrieved our bags from our lockers and then searched for a sushi restaurant for lunch. We tried and failed and ended up getting fast food since it was now like 2-3pm, and we were starving. Not exactly the last meal we'd envisioned having in Japan, but we had to take the bus back to the airport (quite pleasant), and then we caught our flight back to Honolulu seamlessly. We luckily had a row of three seats for Ryan to spread himself out in, with either his hot, heavy head on my lap, or his feet. ;-) Some things haven't changed in 14 years.

It was not the trip we'd planned, and much of it was last minute, but we had a very relaxing and fun trip, save the for the 'tude thrown our way daily by a surly 14-year old. We had a great time, and even though there is so much of the world left to see, I believe we will be back soon, thanks to Ryan's love of the country.