Travels with Tom: Tokyo

     Riding the shinkansen was really fun, albeit expensive. Next time we go, we are not reserving seats ($$$). We also had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to make the shinkansen (bullet train), which was far too early for me. But, I ate umeboshi onigiri (a picked plum stuffed rice ball) and drank milk tea. Delicious! Nick did guzzle my milk tea when I fell asleep on the train, which was so easy to do. There was so much room! 

We arrived safely in Tokyo, and Tom helped us find our way out of the station. Tokyo station is huge.

     Japan is full of Starbucks, most of them very fancy and aesthetic. Also, walking to our first stop, we enjoyed the lovely cherry blossoms. It was the height of sakura season in Tokyo, and they were beautiful. 

       We saw a traditional Japanese play at a Kabuki theatre. Kabuki is an overly dramatized form of theatre that emerged in the red light districts of Tokyo during the early Edo period. With exaggerated movements and costuming, it is a sort of parody of Japanese culture, politics, and mythology. We saw an excellent play called Hana No Gosho Shimatsu that was about a shogun seizing power from his family. It was a real historical event, but the structure of the play was loosely based on Shakespeare's Richard III. Everyone died; it was very dramatic; there was lots of stabbing. I really enjoyed it (and understood parts of it too), and Miranda and Tom both said it was their favorite part of Tokyo.

     The Kabukiza Theatre definitely was my favorite part! It was definitely a more modern Kabuki play, being based on Richard III, but it followed the traditional Japanese Kabuki style. The play also had incredible special effects! At one point the entire set revolved as a character walked between rooms and outside! A particularly intense scene had very realistic thunder and lightening effects punctuating the actions. As Nick noted, there were very dramatic assassinations. One character introduced himself at the beginning of the play with mournful flute music and was later strangled with the same flute. It was definitely intense! The most memorable part of the play were the primary villain's lackeys, Chinsai and Chōsai. While the entire performance was in Japanese (and very formal Japanese at that), their names were yelled so often we memorized them. 

This is a cool, moving sidewalk bridge that spans one of the Tokyo waterways.

Miranda and Tom taking breaks to admire the view.

Kabuki was just too fun. It was mid afternoon on a Friday, not a holiday, and the theatre was still packed.

     We spent some time drying off inside a Denny's. It wasn't your run-of-the mill cruddy diner, this was a two story immaculate masterpiece of a Denny's. It felt like a true, vintage diner. And the parfaits were good. It was my first (and maybe last) time inside a Denny's. It's very interesting to me to see which companies survive in the U.S. and Japan. Even if it's the same company, like McDonalds, there are probably significant differences depending on place. 

     That evening we went to TeamLab Planets, Tokyo. TeamLab Planets is an interactive museum with exhibits designed to make you feel one with the world. Most of the rooms offered some visual, aural, and physical interaction. Everyone had to take their shoes off, so all the museum exhibits also had an...aromatic element to them. It was super fun. I was excited about going because it is essentially a multimedia museum, and it surpassed my expectations of multimedia use in interactive exhibits. 

A creepy ramp led toward the first room. I wouldn't say creepy! It was a cool, slightly inclined waterfall! 

     One of the first rooms featured billowing dunes that slid out from beneath our feet. Nick took a fun and blurry picture of Tom and me trying to make it through! One that note, one of my favorite parts of the museum was the focus on touch. Between the exhibits, the hallways were almost totally dark, and the ground used different textures to surprise guests and keep us all focused on the museum's goal: To connect people to their senses and surroundings. The ground was squishy, and you could feel the footprints of other people. You could even feel your own footprints changing the terrain for the next visitor.

     The room of infinite lights was a maze of lights and lots of people everywhere. As a quick note for the second picture, I was wearing leggings under my dress, not to worry! This room was literally just full of people taking pictures. And yeah, it was a great picture spot. The lights would all shift and move, and it often looked like hyperspace from star wars. Sometimes they would go dark and you could hear everyone sort of stop for a second. Pictured below is a re-enactment me falling for Miranda. 

    This was a cool room with about two feet of water on the ground. Overhead projectors sent illusions of koi zooming around the room. The koi would frequently explode into petals, or sometimes the whole room would go crazy for a bit. Every time you touched a koi, they would explode into petals! And, because it was sakura season, they exploded into cherry petals. Nick and I danced a little in the water, and I loved being able to experience the lights and colors. 

    If you poke them, they would change colors. And they would send an echo of the color change across the room, changing the other balls' lights! 

     This room was packed with hanging flower displays. Strings of orchids would come down from the ceiling and hang around you. It was really fun. This room was so impressive! It is so hard to grow orchids, and the room was full of vertically grown ones! The floor was also mirrored, creating an endless garden. 

     The outdoor section of the museum contained a moss and glowing alien egg garden. Like the room with the floating spheres, touching one would change the colors of the others. Tom bonded with one of them. Weird, color-changing rock-egg-things. They would jiggle and sometimes go opaque if you poked them. Definitely something baby Yoda would try to eat.

     The next day was rainy again. We had hoped to go see a bunch of cherry blossoms, and we did, but it was less fun in the rain. Also, Miranda's boots started leaking so we stopped at a convenience store and bought new socks and saran wrap. Miranda wrapped those feet up good and tight, and we kept going. The plastic wrap worked really well! My boots are a bit old and leaky, but they worked well after I wrapped my feet. Also, sakura are so wonderful. 

     We stopped at Tully's, a popular café here, to grab some breakfast, and it was delicious! Tom especially appreciated the Tom and Jerry reference.

     Lunch at a yaki-niku place. Yaki-niku is a style of dining originally from Korea but very popular in Japan. You are served a plate of raw meat (typically beef), and you cook it on a provided grill. You can also often order vegetables and rice and other side dishes. This place was killer.

     We wandered about Tokyo looking at Cherry blossoms. These pictures are from the Imperial palace. We were hoping to get to look at the palace itself, but it wasn't available. Sakura are so delicate! They are everything everyone says they are and better, even in the rain they were wonderful. 

     We stopped at the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art to get out of the rain. I found the eponymous view from this room quite nice.

    Tokyo was very cool. I'm glad to be able to say that I went. It's too bad that it was raining the whole time, but seeing the sakura in Tokyo was not a chance to be passed up. All-in-all, Tokyo was a great adventure. We saw cool buildings, walked through the huge city, ate some good food, saw a great show, and visited some impactful museums.