Japan - Day 9: Teamlabs & Shopping

The Tokyo Grand Hyatt has a number of positive qualities: close to various subway lines, lovely breakfast buffet, tea time & happy hour in the club lounge...but have to say, the beds are a bit on the small side. We shouldn't have been surprised, I've known this is normal for Japan and Asia generally, but I guess we just had such good luck with all of the other hotels so far this trip that it was a bit of a jarring surprise when we saw the two truly "double" sized beds. 

But! As mentioned, the breakfast somewhat made up for the beds. I sadly forgot to take any photos, but it was a nice mix of Japanese and Western options. Though no sashimi courses -- that must only be at ryokans! 

Today our only itinerary item was checking out Teamlabs: Planets. I've heard of these immersive digital art exhibits in lots of cities -- I think DC has some, Vegas has a few, but Japan, and Teamlabs in particular, seems to be the leader.  I will say the experience was less than ideal because it was SO crowded. Next time, if we check out one of the other Teamlabs exhibits elsewhere, we will be sure to pick a weekday. 

Was I impressed? Yes, the rooms were definitely impressive. Some of the more interactive exhibits included a trampoline that created sound and colorful image based on how accurately you jumped on the digital ball. Here's a more passive exhibit...just lots of strands of light and endless mirrored reflections.  (I took this shot pointing up to the ceiling). 

Some of the other exhibits were just kind of...odd. Like this one with huge balloons. 

This was one of my favorite rooms because all the orchids were 100% real. The kids liked ducking down and finding hidden spaces behind the "curtains" of orchids. 

Me pretending to be lost in the flowers...there were too many people to actually get too tranquil. 😆 

This exhibit has a bunch of eerie eggs in a field which would make unique noises if you pushed them...leading eggs around them to them also echo those noises. 

This was one of the more educational spaces -- you walked around the rooms using your phone to "capture" various extinct species and learning about them. We managed to snag the saber toothed tiger at this waterfall!

This is an obstacle course where the balls and walls changed based on which ones you jumped on for the trek across the room. 

The photo below is from a room where you drew animals which immediately become digitized and animated, running around the entire room interacting with other animals (ie, butterflies multiplying around flowers, getting eaten by frogs, etc. This is R snatching a shot with her snake before it darted off in search of more frogs to eat). 

All in all, glad we experienced it, and probably would give another exhibit a try next trip. But I suspect this might be one of those things where it starts feeling like variations on the same theme pretty quickly. 

We grabbed our first bowl of Tokyo ramen at the Teamlabs cafe -- very tasty...would never have guessed what it was vegan!

After recharging our energy, we went off to Ginza for some dedicated shopping time. We hit Gu (big hit for all the women in the family), Ginza 6, Itoya (R was the big shopper here), and Muji (wish I had more time to spend there, but as is, it was getting late so I mainly just loaded up on snacks to bring home). 

Amidst of all the shopping, we managed to avoid a complete rebellion from Baba by bribing him with a traditional unagi meal. Consider it second lunch. 

Proof that the eels were fresh?

We arrived back at the hotel around 7:30, laden with shopping bags and exhausted (physically and mentally). Good thing happy hour went until 8:15. The kids left pretty quickly (no mango puddings today) but Ian and I sat there with our wine and tea until they forced us out at 9. 

Tomorrow, we tackle the daunting task of packing everything we've bought...