Tokyo - 26th & 27th August 2022
26th August
We arrived in Tokyo on the 26th, and stayed at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Nihonbashi-Muromachi, which had quite an impressive view, although it was still raining when we arrived, but soon cleared up.
The Tokyo Skytree in the distance was always helping to orient the view (it's the third highest structure in the world).
At night, several of the buildings had an identical blue sign, it turned out these were all buildings in the same hotel chain.
That afternoon we visited a paper shop, Ozu Washi, which had lots of hand-made paper. Unfortunately they had a sign which said no photographs, which I hadn't seen until after I took this one of their more decorative papers, hopefully taking just the edges of the papers wasn't too bad!
We had dinner at a tiny (it could probably only seat ten people), and very authentic, tempura restaurant just down the road called Tenmatsu, Nihonbashi. You sit at the bar while the chef cooks tempura piece by piece in front of you. Things are fried so hot, that even something like the spine of an eel (at least I think that was what it was) becomes a crunchy delight. Would definitely recommend, but don't expect it to be like the tempura prawns in sweet chilli sauce that we get in the UK. Definitely zero sweet chilli sauce, and more grated white radish (daikon oroshi)... it wasn't entirely clear what you do with that, I think it gets mixed in with the sauce. Apparently it's a great aid to digestion!
27th August
The plan for the first full day in Tokyo was to get up early and go see the Toyosu fish market over near the docks, using the fully automated raised Yurikamome sightseeing train - it looks like a monorail, but is actually more like a guided bus.
On the way was this large building shaped like a ship (shown below) - the Tokyo Museum of Maritime Science.
Sadly it appears we needed to get up a lot earlier to see the actual fish at the market, so all we got to see was a large empty warehouse and some crates. But there was a model of a tuna fish to get an idea of how big they are (human added for scale). Also pictured is ‘Itchino’, the mascot for the moving of the fish market to the new site (to make way for the 2020 Olympics). Because everything in Japan has a mascot!
teamLab Borderless
Next on the itinerary was teamLab Borderless - a large warehouse-sized set of spaces containing modern artworks. It was called Borderless as the artworks are supposed to blend from one room to another, but I didn't really get that feeling. We got there just a few days before it closed (as it's relocating to a new site in 2023). It was quite dark inside, as many of the artworks rely on projectors and lighting.
For the moving fish exhibit, visitors would sit and colour in fish while they were there, and then they would be scanned and be added to the aquarium for the day. Sadly each piece of paper has a template (outline) of a fish on it, and by drawing a smaller fish inside, it cuts out the fish based on the size of the fish template, which looks odd if you weren't expecting that!.
teamLab Planets
Later in the day we visited a second teamLabs exhibition - teamLab Planets. There are some rooms that have some similarities, so it's probably not a good idea to visit them both on the same day, but they had some very different artworks as well. In this one we had to start by taking off our shoes and socks, and you enter the exhibition by climbing up a long (dark) ramp with rushing water coming down. I realised that this is a more exciting version of the traditional footpath that you get at swimming pools. After that there were rooms with soft and squidgy floors that it was hard to traverse. Then there was a room that was a giant paddling pool (with mirrored walls), and onto the water is projected swimming fish that react to the people standing there. And sometimes just swirling coloured patterns. It felt strange standing in a warehouse sized paddling pool with many strangers! Especially since it was upstairs...
There are many rooms covered in mirrors, and filled with various objects. One with giant balls (like balloons) that changed colour. Rooms with dangling strings of lights. And a giant room where the ceiling is made of real orchids, hanging by strings, that move up and down to make walls appear and disappear (to herd the visitors in and out of the room).
Mori Tokyo City View Gallery
After teamLab Planets we went to the Mori Tokyo City View Gallery, in Roppongi Hills, at the top of a giant skyscraper. But there was a very long queue, and we were hungry and tired at this point, so we didn't actually go in to see the exhibits, we just walked around the perimeter of the 52nd floor, taking some photos of the view. I took an abstract photo of the blinds!
Azabu Asai
So we headed out to go for dinner, stopping off at an art shop (we didn't buy anything as even the toy artworks were over a thousand pounds) and passed a doggy-day-care centre, pet shop and poodle grooming parlour (called Joker). This road didn't look like there should be a great restaurant at the end of it, but there was! When we got to the restaurant, called Azabu Asai, we said goodbye to our guide for the day. The restaurant was amazing (and quite small, it only had two or three tables). The first (fish) course looked a bit odd, as it came wrapped in plastic, but it tasted amazing, obviously the plastic kept all the flavours and scents inside.
