Anna-Sophia wanted to go to Harijuku for her birthday, and so we did. Harijuku is Tokyo’s main counter-culture neighborhood for young people, and it’s got a shop for every kind of outfit imaginable. Glitter bedazzled pants, 6” platform shoes, pink furry false eyelashes, and so on… One guide said it’s a neighborhood that runs on hormones and sugar. Yup, sounds about right.
We meandered through shops, splurged on a strawberry crepe that was intense (strawberries, ice cream, strawberry syrup, whipped cream, nestled in a crepe), and enjoyed the sights.
Shibuya Scramble – the world’s busiest crosswalk – was also on the agenda. We introduced Anna-Sophia to the wonder that is a Japanese department store. Rather than one big store with lots of sections, Japanese department stores have lots of mini-stores. Think of the cosmetics department of a Macy’s and then apply that to clothes and other things and that’s closer to the idea.
Kiddo wanted tempura shrimp for her birthday dinner, and we found a good place inside the Shibuya department store (department stores also have food halls in the basement for groceries and prepared foods as well as floors of small restaurants on the top floors).
It’s hard to capture the sheer mass of humans crossing Shibuya Scramble in a photo taken at ground level. It’s a lot. It can feel intimidating to cross and see a massive volume of people coming at you crossing in the opposite direction. Even outside this famous intersection there were countless times where the density of Tokyo was palpable. It makes New York feel pretty wide open.
On Friday we had to switch hotels and then we had plans to go to teamLabs Tokyo. We were booked at the APA hotel by Shinjuku station. What I didn’t know is that there are FOUR APA hotels within a single block radius, and we only got to the right one on our fourth try. 🥴
After leaving our bags, we headed out to the port section of the city to get to teamLabs. It was absolutely pouring out, and our indoor activity was perfectly timed
teamLabs is an indoor art installation where the art is interactive. What I didn’t appreciate was the massive scale of the art. Truly massive. The exhibit consists of maybe half a dozen rooms each of which can hold dozens to hundreds of people at a time. Before heading in, you have to remove your socks and shoes, roll up your pants, and get a pair of rental shorts if you’re wearing a dress because many rooms have mirrors on the floor.
I loved the second room. Walking on cloth-covered foam made me feel like a little kid in a bouncy-house. The walls were also covered in what I can only describe as small bean-bag pillows. It was a fabulous experience for all the senses, and the scale made even the largest adult feel small.
Next up was a room filled with strands of LED lights. Because the room walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in mirrors, the effect of the lights turning on and off was dazzling. There’s also an app through which visitors can trigger the lights to behave in different ways. We spent quite a while in here, watching the lights and enjoying wandering the maze among the light strands.
Moving to the next room, we moved down a ramp through milky water that got deeper and deeper (up to our knees). In the room, light-projected fish and other images dance on the water surface. The images are all computer-generated based on the movement of the people in the room, so the image is always unique.
Bubbles! The next room felt like being miniaturized and caught in a foam of bubbles. Giant balloons roamed the room, and light and mirrors again influenced your impression of size and space, making the room feel infinitely large.
The last of the digital rooms was a sort of planetarium style room with flower projections moving across the screen. I had a hard time in here, finding that the movement triggered dizziness.
The last room was in a different section. Once you entered, you sat on the mirrored floor and were surrounded by a living garden hanging from the ceiling which moved in response to the location of the people. It was stunning, and again made us feel tiny, like insects in a flower garden.
Vacation Days 