ODAIBA BAY – flowers, waterfalls and flashing lights

Monday pm – another short walk as we head for the teamLab Digital Art Museum.

From the web – the digital art collective teamLab is the product of an interdisciplinary group consisting of artists, scientists, and more. It has had multiple exhibitions around and beyond Japan over the past few years. Though, despite its Japanese roots, it was only in 2018 that it finally launched permanent (or, at least, long-term) installations in Japan. Better late than never, I suppose. Mori Building Digital Art Museum: teamLab Borderless – billed as the world’s first digital art museum, was unveiled in Odaiba on 21st June 2018 to much fanfare.

When we arrive in the area I think to myself there are not many people here BUT the queue is an hour long even though we have booked tickets.  We have to go past the entrance, down a flight of stairs, along an alleyway, turn left and along another street until finally we see a lady holding a sign telling us this is the ‘end of the queue’.  WOW.  The good point is that the queue keeps moving and it doesn’t seem long before we are up the stairs and in.

A bit of a shock once inside – everything is pitch black and it takes a while for the eyes to adjust but we have to keep on moving so it is a challenge to say the least.  There are no tripods allowed but you can take photos – no flash – now that’s going to be a challenge.  Ramp up the ISO if you ask me – anyway, we’ll see how things go.

Now you have to remember that these artworks are constantly on the move.  They appear in one room and then disappear and turn up in another.  There is a parade of flowering animals including kangaroo, rhino, elephants etc along one wall but they move too fast for still photography so I get out the old point and shoot for a quick movie.

Hmmm, not too bad.  As we move along we hear great thumping music so the three of us try to find the source and we come across a fabulous light show.  Once again everything is moving at an incredible speed so it’s mainly a case of manual focus on a point and then shoot and hope for the best.

This is a small room – no – it’s really small.  Together with the extreme noise, the flashing lights and the amount of people it becomes rather like living in the seventies all over again – but I remain entranced – –

The display goes for about 15 minutes which is a long time when you are standing in a crowded room and practically dripping sweat all over the place.  We stay until the display starts where we came in and then it is back to the wonderful displays of flowers, butterflies and animals.

The last room for us is one filled with mushroom like displays that you have to wade through – interesting to say the least.

There is no set path so it’s virtually ‘legs take me where you want to go’.

We finally find the exit and soon we are back into daylight and fresh air.  What a wonderful ‘just throw yourself into it and enjoy’ we have just experienced.  Would be great to go back again because then I would know what to expect, but maybe it wouldn’t be half the fun.  I am sure that I wandered around with a startled look on my face for the entire time.

Moving right along we head for the Toyota showroom for the guys to have a look around at some boys toys.  This showroom covers several floors – got to hand it to them, they haven’t done anything in half measures.

They have all sorts of cars on display – from luxury vehicles to the small cars pictured above.  Maybe I can make a trade in deal with my Corolla back home?  No?  OK.  This place is spotless and after looking enviously as some of the cars it is time for us to head back to the hotel.

It is our welcome dinner and we go back to Denny’s, this time I remember to take a photo of dinner before I eat it. Is just as delicious as it was last night.  Time also to meet the other members of our troupe, unfortunately two of them had delayed flights out of Sydney and we won’t get to meet them until tomorrow.

I am sure that we will get along famously.

After a run down by Red Leader on what we are going to experience and after we have stuffed ourselves to the gills five of us decide to have a night cap at one of the local bars.

Walking along a side street, We choose a rather rustic looking establishment ‘Beer Wars’. Our choice was definitely a good one because as we entered Queen was playing – ah – familiar music.

It is not a late night as we have an early start in the morning – tomorrow the real adventure begins!