...and the dream comes to an end. Wake up, a little workout, and a little food to start. The hotel had breakfast included, which was easy, although no Eggs'n Things.
Tsana's Apple watch band broke a few days ago, so we went on a quest to find a new one that wasn't $80 (goodbye, Apple store). She considered not buying a new one and just continuing having it hold together with hair ties, but then we were referred to Bic Camera, which is likely the source for most of your local amazon purchases. $10 later, Tsana has a new band that should last a few days, at least.
Today was partly about shopping, so we headed to Kappabashi Street, which where all the restaurants in Tokyo buy there kitchenware. We do love a good kitchen store, but this was like our Disneyland. Kitchen supplies spread over about 10+ blocks, which was fun, yet exhausting (and they tend to blend together after a while). Our main goal was to buy some large pasta dishes, which are made for ramen here in Japan, but we couldn't agree on any (Tsana is not a fan of black, but wants everything shiny - Dave disagrees-you get the picture). We did have a small bounty: a few little mixing bowls, and a tiny whisk for Dave's morning eggs, and a couple dishes for Paczki (our kitty) treats. Also, see the awesome 2 story rack of cookie cutters in this one store, below.
After a couple hours, we were shopped out, and decided to head over early to Teamlab Planets, and right on cue, it started raining again. I mean, really? OK, OK, we are experts at this point - and our hotel gave us an umbrella, which Dave almost impaled three people with during the day.
Regardless, the plan was to eat vegan ramen at a place nearby, but to our *surprise* (yeah, let's call it that), the restaurant was outside. In the rain. We made the best of it, and using our new-found umbrella, we had our little shelter while we ate.
We did have to wait 30 minutes for this Michelin star ramen, so the timing worked out perfectly and we were able to enter into Teamlab Planets right after.
Now, many of you are probably wondering what the hell is Teamlab Planets? Glad you asked, and ironically, we didn't know much either, but literally everyone who has been to Tokyo told us to come here. Its an immersive art exhibit and is hugely popular - and super hard to explain. We were given a 30 minute window to enter and there were probably 50 people in our cohort, but you get mixed in quickly with everyone else when you enter.
You start out by taking off your shoes and socks since you walk through the exhibit barefoot (which kind of skeeved us out, tbh). You are officially part of the cattle herd, with about 200-1000 other people (rough estimate). They give the ladies shorts if they are wearing skirts since there are a lot of mirrors; luckily Tsana was wearing pants, so no need to wear questionably washed (if at all) shorts.
The exhibit is split into 2 main sections: Water and Garden. We entered into water first where you waded up-hill, through ankle high running water. The first major exhibit was this large room with thousands of LED strings hanging from the ceiling, giving you this strange, floating feeling, and like you're in a room full of glitter and sparkles.
It was Tsana's favorite room to say the least and we stayed in this room the longest. She even commented that her heaven looked like this.
We then visited a room with large inflatable balls that were probably 12 feet in diameter and you could gently push around. All the rooms, including this one, had loud music (probably to drown out all the crazy children screaming) and were cray-cray with the colors. Note: Definitely don't come here if you have epilepsy.
The next room was knee high water where koi fish were projected on to the water, so it felt like they were actually there. It was a bit warm, like the wading pool at your city pool in the summer, after all the little kids got done with it - if you know what we mean. We probably stayed here the shortest amount of time.
The next room, was Dave's favorite. Everything in this building was mirrored on the floor, walls, and ceiling, so when you lay on your back, you feel like you are surrounded. We chilled on our backs for this room, and watched a huge IMAX movie projected onto the ceiling- it felt as if your floating in space with huge flowers. A little trippy, a little funny, a little floaty - either way, afterwards, we figured we knew what it was like to grow up in the 60s.
The next section of the exhibit, Garden, wasn't nearly as cool as Water. There were only two rooms here. We walked back outside, where it was still pouring, to see some mirrored objects along with some moss, which I guess might be better if its not raining. We then went into the last exhibit which as a room full of real flowers and plants hanging from the ceiling. They would lower and raise randomly and it was very relaxing.
After Teamlab, we originally wanted to see the Geishas, but since it was still raining we decided to head back to Tokyo station and do some final sweet shopping at the large food hall they have there.
2 large bags of stuff later, we were really beat and headed back to the room to recharge our batteries for a bit.
We were officially over Japanese food at this point and Tsana found an Israeli place nearby, called Ta-im, so we headed back out into the weather (yep, still raining). It's a good thing we did, because the Israeli place hit the spot! We shared some falafel, and some pita with some dips (we love a good babaganoush). Tsana got a tabouli salad, and Dave got a chicken plate. We were happy and a super cute place too.
Tomorrow plans: our flight isn't till around 3, so Tsana might do some morning shopping and Dave might do a final Kit Kat run, but we will do a final blog entry tomorrow, with some final observations about Japan for all to see!