Tasmania to Tokyo – Tokyo – Day 67 can be found here.
Every trip has its seeds – notions that lodge in our brains and eventually grow into the scaffolding of flights, transfers, and hotel rooms that (hopefully) support the bloom of memorable, meaningful travel experiences.
One such seed was watching James May wander through teamLab Borderless in his series “Our Man in Japan.” May has travelled extensively, but he had a genuine look of awe upon his face as he strolled through what teamLab describes as, “…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.”
If you’ve been with us for the long haul, then you may recall that we visited a teamLab popup (Future World) in Singapore. Borderless is a similar concept – but vastly different in scale and its level of immersion. Borderless is 75,000 square feet with more than 50 interconnected rooms, almost 5 times the size of Future World. It can take 2 to 3 hours to explore.
This means that we’re going to need a solid breakfast before we get underway. Having attempted to forage from local grocery stores, we have since moved on to sampling mesm’s a la carte offerings – specifically the fruit and yoghurt:
The yoghurt is unsweetened, but the kids don’t seem to mind – the strawberries are ripe and sweet, so it all works well together. Plus it’s nice to eat something that doesn’t contain an inordinate amount of grease.
Our teamLab window starts at 9 am, so we hop into a taxi shortly after 8:35 am. It will be interesting (read: vaguely horrifying) to see how much we have spent on cabs by the time this all wraps up, but we just don’t have it in us to use the subway right now. Carefully avoiding travel exhaustion, or just plain lazy? Could be either, may be both. Our hotel is also about a 10 minute walk to the closest station.
I just tapped ‘teamLab borderless’ into the Go app as our destination without paying attention to the exact street, so the driver drops us off close to the building – but on the wrong side of it. I make a mental note to pay closer attention to entrances and get dropped off at the right location. But the 5 minute walk does us no harm, and we soon enter teamLab Borderless.
There’s a brief wait as the group ahead of us goes through the briefing, then it’s our turn. They remind us to download the app – which I do – and otherwise the rules are essentially: stay with your kids, no flash photography, and don’t break anything. Sensible shoes are also required.
Then we’re inside – and what a world it is:
We start in a world of endless blossoms, and soon end up in the famed waterfall room – in which I only take pictures of my children, so you’ll have to be content with a stock photo instead:
Photo Credit: teamLab Borderless – the interior does genuinely look like this, but with many, many more people inside
Though I do manage one shot of the birds in flight:
We then enter a room of endless calligraphy:
Past butterfly clusters that disperse when touched:
There’s a room filled with mist, where we are serenaded by spectral musicians and the pounding of drums:
And an endless computer-governed garden:
Certain rooms have controlled access, where they limit the number of people inside and where backpacks must be unslung – such is the case with the room of glowing orbs and mirrors:
This is one of our favourites:
We walk through a simulated bamboo grove:
And through what feels to be a river filled with ever-changing lilly pads:
The multi-coloured flowers soon become a field of sakura blossoms:
There’s also another access-controlled room filled with fibre optic lights:
There are times when it goes completely dark, which is disorienting – but feels somehow more artistic in a way, if wild unpredictability can be called artistic.
Though again there is an element of control and interactivity – visitors can send certain elements out into the system:
The scale here is breathtaking – it’s all absolutely massive:
Though it’s also very, very full – Borderless can hold up to 1,600 people at a time, and welcomes roughly 2 million visitors every year. Visitors should target either the earliest or latest time slots if they wish to avoid crowds.
Back into the hallways we go. They change endlessly, evolving from butterlies to flying calligraphy:
We enter a room of interconnected tracks, filled with glowing orbs:
And of glowing, shimmering cubes filled with crimson flowers:
We visit a digital reef:
And spot a familiar spot – an undersea area filled with visitor-created fish, similar to the one we saw at teamLab Future World:
There’s quite the line, but our daughter really wants to release her own creation into the world. Thankfully the line moves quickly, and we’re only waiting for 10 minutes before she gets the chance to create her masterpiece:
Behold! The JellyCat
And out it goes:
While I’m doing this, my wife is kind enough to take some video of the exhibits:
We’ve been here for more than two hours at this stage and seen most of the rooms – and it’s getting very busy indeed – so we decide to head off for an early lunch.
If you’re interested in visiting the Tea House it opens at 10 am and gets very, very busy. We’d strongly suggest aiming to be there for 10 am or a few minutes before. You must order via QR code before you reach the front counter so having some idea of whether you’d like one of the few options of tea or ice cream is important. We ultimately decided to skip this as there’s only one mostly-tea drinker in our family and 10 am is bit early for ice cream (even for us) but we were indeed in line as of 10 am and could have comfortably made it inside in under 10 minutes.
One last glimpse at the digital blossoms moving in the breeze:
And then we’re out.
As always with these sorts of exhibits, there’s a vague sense that we’ve missed something – which teamLab seems to understand:
And the verdict? TeamLab borderless is beautiful, thought-provoking and immersive – I just wish there were fewer people. Might I suggest that they have some sort of premium pricing time for those who want to attend with fewer crowds? There’s a reason that the promotional photos always show it sparsely attended – it’s because it’s a notably better experience.
Much as I grumble, I do understand it’s a popular attraction and – if they did limit numbers – there would be people who’d miss out as a result. It’s also sakura season and spring break for students, so the crowds are somewhat understandable.
We book another taxi – except this time we’re sent a rideshare instead of an actual taxi. From our perspective as riders, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. Rideshares don’t have meters, so the fare is calculated in advance instead of at the end. And we get a regular van instead of a smaller car or a premium van, but our driver seems equally capable.
We soon arrive just outside the Tokyo Joypolis, a kind of combination arcade and theme park.
But first – lunch.
We have decided to partake in that very Japanese of restaurants, the Australian-themed restaurant bills:
Photo Credit: bills
Our son and daughter get a hot chocolate to start:
The chocolate sauce at the bottom reminds me of the calligraphy we saw at teamLab Borderless
Our daughter then has an open faced grilled cheese:
While my son and I each get the wagyu hamburger:
While my wife gets the avocado toast and poached egg:
It’s the first decent avocado she’s gotten since leaving Australia – the guacamole on the Moon is often terrible, though we appreciate @WesW ‘s advice that better avocado is available on request.
From here we head into Tokyo Joypolis itself. We have bought all-you-can-ride passports for myself and the kids, while my wife wisely decides to act as quarterback – figuring out which rides have the shortest line-ups. There are also fastpasses available but at roughly USD$15 per person per ride we’re trying to avoid buying those if possible.
First up is Pirate’s Plunder, a shoot-’em-up where you compete against 23 other riders to see who can shoot the most pirate skeletons while riding a wildly moving barrel:
Photo Credit: Tokyo Joypolis
It’s harder than it looks.
Then we attempt Spicy Taxi – a TukTuk simulator in which one has to drive over coins while honking at animals and solving trivia questions:
We place dead last here, but we are also watching Japanese teenagers practice the steering and honking sequences while in line – so methinks we are at a disadvantage.
We then attempt the Joypolis Explorer, which is a kind of park-wide scavenger hunt. I’m initially concerned it’s going to be boring or overly difficult, but the kids really like it:
Photo Credit: Tokyo Joypolis
Our daughter is particularly proud that she solved the riddle at the end that led her to the final scanning station at the half-pipe ride.
From here we head upstairs and try Mission Spark:
If you are confused watching this video – welcome to the past week of our lives
The goal here is to hit as many of the flashing lights as possible. You can either work as teams of two or as individuals. It’s a fun challenge, but exhausting – particularly after just having schlepped halfway across the theme park on our previous scavenger hunt.
Ride lines are starting to build, so we buy a fast pass for Wild Wing:
Photo Credit: Tokyo Joypolis – ride does not actually fly
It’s another screen-based motion simulator that exists as part of a trio – Wild Wing, Wild Jungle Brothers and Wild River the Treasure Hunt. I don’t join the kids for this, but they seem to enjoy it.
The kids aren’t particularly interested in some of the larger rides that go upside down, and there are others that are flat-out inappropriate for kids their age – obviously including attractions like SADAKO the Psychic Curse Manor and MURDER LODGE – but also less-obvious attractions like Lola and Carla the Beauty Contest:
“You will find your capacity to get the “popular occupation” among the young females, “hostesses” and “hosts” for males at this new styled attraction! The managers; Lola and Carla, with you in the space like a night club, will check your ability by having an interview (personality test) and a photo shooting (physiognomic check) to check for both internal and external perspectives☆
“After those checks, you can get your “cool selfies” with your catchphrase, nomination fee and some “sharp” comments by the managers etc♪ Let’s see how much you could earn!?“
Yeah, I think we’ll keep the kids away from this one…
We do try for a Norse-inspired fortune telling attraction, however:
It asks you various questions about yourself, presents you with some Norse runes, and then spits out a fortune at the end. It takes a surprisingly long time!
The kids are running out of steam at this point so our son goes off to try Laser Shooting Issen:
There’s a whole spiel about this on the Joypolis website, but essentially hackers have corrupted AI to work against humans but there is a good AI that’s trying to stop the bad AI and the only way to fix the problem is with lasers. It’s a long wait but our son enjoys it.
Meanwhile, my daughter and I attempt a few more rounds of Mission Spark. She even manages to beat me on the final round – and I pull no punches.
It’s a long wait for my wife too, but she entertains herself by watching a woman who is hellbent on securing a sakura Stitch doll from one of the claw-game machines.
The Stitch in question
Her boyfriend drags her away sometime after the 30th unsuccessful attempt – at an estimated cost of USD$100 for a USD$20 toy. It’s a valuable learning lesson for our daughter, even though she only caught the tail end of it.
From here, we go to a Gachapon shop to pick up a couple of extra toys for the kids. These were available in Joypolis as part of mini-claw arcade games but after learning the expensive-Stitch lesson the children wisely decide to pay 400 yen for a guaranteed something versus 100 yen for likely nothing (the capsules were cheaper to play for than the Stitch).
There are too many options to count. Each of the toys cost roughly USD$3 to 4, and which ones you get are randomized. It’s not a bad deal – so long as you aren’t trying to get one specific prize in particular. This is part of the inspiration behind ‘loot boxes’ and ‘gacha-gaming’ in video games, which has been heavily criticized for essentially being a form of gambling.
Our daughter ends up with some cutesy anime characters:
While our son picks up a gift for one of his friends.
We finish up with a trip to that most Japanese of institutions, Baskin Robbins:
Though we do try some oddball flavours, like strawberry royal milk tea for my wife and sakura again for myself.
Our daughter quite enjoys her chocolate strawberry too:
Back to the hotel for a little bit more reading / writing / homework – then we wander the streets of Tokyo looking for the most authentic of institutions, a hole-in-the-wall ramen joint. We end up at 九州じゃんがら 芝大門店 also known as Kyushu Jangara, a chain of ramen shops started in 1984 – specifically the one in Shiba Daimon.
Photo Credit: Google Maps
We aren’t flying blind here, having asked our hotel concierge for a recommendation – and here is where they sent us.
It appears to be absolutely jammed, but the proprietor spots us at the entrance and ushers us inside where he shows us how to access the ordering terminal – which thankfully works (mostly) in English.
We order three bowls of regular ramen with various combinations of pork, eggs, and noodles plus one spicy batch. Three seats open up by the time we finish ordering – and a fourth is ready soon afterward.
It’s a great combination of authentically local yet accessible to visitors.
My beer quickly arrives:
And it’s followed soon thereafter by the regular ramen:
And the spicy ramen:
The spicy broth is properly hot.
This particular location apparently opened a year ago – in the cold and rainy March of 2025. They have been building up their business since, and seem to have been doing a good job of it. They are one of the most highly-rated ramen shops in the neighbourhood.
Something I’ve noticed about Japanese restaurants – even if they have excellent food, they generally are not highly rated on Google Maps. If you read the actual reviews, you’ll see reviews that essentially say: “I had an excellent meal.” and then will give it three stars. In Canada, many customers wouldn’t give a restaurant three stars unless served an actual piece of styrofoam in lieu of an entree. (And even then we’d double-check the menu to make sure it wasn’t somehow our fault.)
We soon give up our chairs for freshly arrived patrons, having enjoyed a particularly fine meal. I’m also proud of our kids for going outside of their comfort zones to try something entirely new – I remember being particular about my food when younger, so I know how tough it can be.
But with a busy day behind us – and our bellies full of hot soup – it is time for bed. Tomorrow’s challenge will be figuring out what to do on a day filled with rain.