Our 500km journey from Kyoto to Tokyo on the Hikari bullet train was the longest we had travelled so far in Japan. Yet in under 3hours we made it to the big city by early lunchtime. We had booked into a hostel called Tokyo Imano Ginza, where we would be staying in a dorm for the following 3nights. We couldn’t check in until 2pm therefore went for a quick explore but returned quickly as my feet had not recovered fully from all the walking we had done in Kyoto. We ate at an Italian restaurant not too far from our hostel and got an early night as we planned to go see the Snow Monkeys in Yudanaka the following morning. I will write about this experience in a separate post.
During our time in the city we visited a few of the popular tourist sights. Our first outing was to Shinjuku where we bravely went up to the very tall government building observatory. This high vantage point enabled us to view great distances over the extraordinarily modern city and even further over the horizon we even caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji. As Luke pressed himself up against the glass to get a better look down, I happily stayed back and peered from a safe distance. We then visited the Imperial Palace which starkly constants with the ultra-modern buildings surrounding the massive grounds. Although we were unable to go up to the palace itself, we enjoyed walking through the grounds of beautiful flowers and watching huge catfish and colourful koi carp gape for food in the ponds. It was a lovely sunny day and for the first time since arriving in Japan, we shed our layers to cool down when sitting in the sunshine. We did find however the heat was short lived as it quickly got cold when the light started to fade. The easiest way to navigate around the immense city was to use the trains and subways. Our JR passes did cover some local trains but for the most part didn’t cover the subways.
A huge highlight whilst staying in Tokyo was visiting the TeamLab Borderless Digital Art exhibition. I pre-booked our tickets online prior to travelling to the city as I had read it was growing in popularity. This experience did not disappoint. We travelled out of the heart of the city towards the dock area called Koto City. When we arrived we walked through a complex consisting of a shopping mall, food outlets and lastly some sort of futuristic car display. There were people wheeling around on segways, altogether it just felt very Japanese! The building housing the digital art museum was strange to behold but the queue that trailed the entire length of it mostly drew our attention. Despite pre-booking tickets we had to queue like everyone else. The queue thankfully did move pretty promptly and soon we entered the exhibition. I had seen pictures on Instagram but I couldn’t have imagined the size of the exhibition until walking through it. The rooms are themed with different vibrant moving projections and merge into one another rather like a maze. It was very crowded with lots of people stopping and posing for photos. The first rooms we entered were flower themed and had butterfly projections which flew towards you when you moved, following us as we walked around the room. It was hard to know what order to go through the rooms as there was no real way of knowing where you were once you entered the labyrinth. One room was sloping downwards and filled with large white disks on the end of swaying sticks, giving the illusion of drum shaped flowers. We walked down and lightly brushed our hands over the tops making them bounce and sway. Many of the corridors are black but some had large artistic animations of animals and little warrior men walking alongside us. The animations are projected onto every surface of the rooms, whether it is flat or sloped, black walls or mirrors. One of the largest rooms of the exhibition had interactive elements. There were ropes assembled into small swings that you could climb through, as well as a room with huge balloon like structures which glowed and bounced. Out of all the incredible rooms my favourite was one filled from ceiling to floor of dangling LED lights. The theme in this particular space was the weather and the lights mimicked movements of clouds and rain. The light show was truly spectacular as the mirrors on the walls and floor reflected infinite images. We briefly stopped in the tea room, where a blossoming flower would appear in our cups when set down. Luke was not impressed with the taste of the strange tea but we both enjoyed the novelty light show. The last room we entered, again we had to queue for. This exhibition space was called “The Nest”. We lay on a circular net suspended about 10-15foot from the ground in a cylindrical shaped room. The projection show lasted for 10minuted or so, during which animations flurried around us as we lay on our backs. Leaving the digital art museum we had a bite to eat and shopped in the nearby mall. We stayed at a different hostel for two nights called Book and Bed Tokyo Ikebukuro. This was situated in a different district of the city. It was really quirky, with our bunks sunken into a huge bookcase and a large lounge area. Despite the appealing appearances, we thought it was overpriced for the basic facilities we actually had use of.
On our final day exploring Tokyo, we wanted to see the scramble crossing in Shibuya. A world famous sight to see, we watched the madness of hundreds of people trying to cross the huge cross roads from a nearby Starbucks. After people watching and even spotting the Mario Cart experience drive past, we headed to Harajuku where there was another cafe I wanted to visit. Japan is known for its quirky and sometimes simply strange cafes. The particular cafe I wanted to go to was a Shiba cafe. Here we got to have a drink whilst playing for half an hour with cute doggos! The only problem was the dogs aren’t the least bit interested in interacting with you. They must get sick of people coming in and touching them because anytime you would get near one, it would clear off a second later. Slightly disappointed we explored the chaotic street below, full of food vendors, clothes shops and sweet shops. We had a noisy around until we decided to call it a day. Our final night in Tokyo we stayed at WithB hostel as this was near the airport bus terminal. Having completed our quick tour of Japan, our next stop would be Cairns Australia.
Gone Travelling 
Leave a comment