Many of you will have heard me extolling the virtues of the Qantas Classic Award Round The World (RTW) ticket, purchased with points but capped, allowing you to add more flights for no additional points – if you follow the ‘rules.’ MANY hours of research went into this booking – mostly in regional WA in the Moho 🤣- flexibility and creativity are essential and hence we found ourselves heading to our favourite destination, France, via Tokyo and Helsinki.
Travel is an adventure is it not?
We flew Qantas from Adelaide to Sydney and then on to Haneda, Tokyo landing in the evening. After collecting our luggage and clearing formalities we walked the 800 metres through the Haneda Garden complex to our hotel. Somewhat weary by now imagine our dismay when we saw a queue stretching out of the door and perhaps 50 people long…
We waited patiently in line for perhaps 20 mins until I sent Russell forward to check out the situation and discovered we were in a ‘Delta group’ line and normal check in was upstairs and relatively quick.
We settled into our VERY compact room, showered (attempted to decipher the complicated toilet/bidet instructions and gave up) before donning our stylish Japanese pyjamas and hitting the sack.
Given that we only had one full day in Tokyo and wanted to make the most of it, I had booked a guide through Air BnB ‘experiences’, a first for me.
The next morning we followed detailed instructions provided by ‘Rollin’ with Roland’ and successfully rendezvoused with Roland who looked after us for the next five hours, cutting us loose in time for our booked time slot at teamLab Borderless, more on that later.
Roland had asked what we wanted to see in order to tailor the time available and after chatting to Zoe about her previous trip, I had sent him a rough idea of what we would like to cover including cherry blossoms if there were any left. (Happily, despite the prediction for peak blooming time being late March, very fortuitously the experts had got it wrong this year and the blossoms had peaked only three days before.)
He showed us Shibuya Crossing (very quiet at 0900), the famous Hachiko dog statue and Cat Street before we stopped for sustenance at Marion crepes. Marion Crepes opened in 1976 and pioneered the Japanese-style crepe, also called the “Harajuku Crepe”, from a food truck until it opened its first storefront on Takeshita Street, where it remains today. Curiously, about the only thing you couldn’t get on crepes was lemon and sugar but I made do with peaches and icecream 😉
Post crepes we trekked to Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) and Empress Shoken, who helped make Japan a modern nation. It is surrounded by a lush green forest, totally man made with over 100,00 trees donated from all over Japan and today is wonderfully self sustaining. The entrance is flanked by an impressive sake barrel display on one side and wine barrels from France on the other, all ‘donations’ hoping to be divinely blessed I’m sure.
We stopped for sushi at lunchtime where our meals were ordered on a screen at our table and shortly after arrived via a conveyor belt, very Japanesey. Then it was time for the 3D cat billboard (fun but I didn’t capture it with the right video settings apparently 🤦♀️) and then a short train/ walk to Shinjuku Gyoen national garden, home to over 900 cherry trees and VERY popular right now.
We even had some very elegant Japanese ladies pose for us …
I could have stayed here all afternoon I think, there was a lot more to explore but our time with Roland was coming to an end and after giving us foolproof instructions for the metro to Team Lab we thanked him for his patience, good humour and photography and said goodbye.
Next stop, teamLab Borderless.
What is teamLab Borderless I hear you ask?
“teamLab Borderless is a world of artworks without boundaries, a museum without a map created by art collective teamLab.
Artworks move out of rooms, relate to other works, influence each other, and at times intermingle, without boundaries. Through this group of works, one continuous world without boundaries is created.
Immerse your body in borderless art. Wander, explore with intention, discover, and create a world with others.”
In short it was amazing! Pictures don’t do it justice – not mine anyway but I tried 😂
There was a room where you drew an undersea creature, coloured it in and then handed it to an attendant who scanned it and it magically started swimming around the room next door…. excuse my lack of artistic ability but the intention was good 😉 Bodhi the turtle swimming upside down under Russell’s striped shark.
I highly recommend if you’re visiting Tokyo to pre-book a team lab experience -this is one of two, the other one is even more immersive, involving walking through knee deep water ….
When we came out two hours had passed, the sky had darkened and we grabbed a quick dinner before trudging off to find Tokyo Tower – this could be the first time ever we visit two ‘Eiffel” towers in one trip.
Tokyo Tower was completed in 1953 and functions as a communication and observation tower, it was obviously inspired by the Eiffel Tower and is actually taller but Tokyo Tower only weighs about 4,000 tons, 3,300 less than the Eiffel Tower. We had missed the tour to the top observation point and settled for the lower level which was quite crowded and there was no outdoor space so not great for pics. We actually thought it was more spectacular from the ground.
At this point my watch was telling me we had walked about 15 kms and we were certainly feeling it! We made our way to the monorail station and after some difficulties with credit cards (ticket had to bought on the ‘app’ – my phone was flat, Russell’s on 5%😒 ) eventually we got tickets and boarded the monorail for the airport.
That was our day in Tokyo. I think we did it justice and absolutely lucked out with cherry blossoms and weather, the next morning we flew out in driving rain, forecast to last all day.
Next stop Helsinki, another new frontier for us.