Japan 2019: Odaiba (teamLab Planets, DiverCity & VenusFort)
DAY 9
And we’re back with another day - today is an exciting one. If you’ve been keeping up with all my blog posts up until now (please, I swear they’re interesting) you would have known that teamLab Borderless was one of my favourite experiences ever when I visited back in 2018. You can find the blog post here if you haven’t read it yet. Today, we were going to experience a different exhibit from the teamLabs team - Planets. Also, while we were already in Odaiba, we’d be exploring the area.
If you are new to the whole ‘idea’ of Japan or maybe you just didn’t know but Odaiba is actually a manmade island that was built for defense but now it hosts residential and commercial buildings. I feel like 2 of the most known monuments (I guess I could call them) coming from this area is the ferris wheel and the Gundam statue. But I digress… I’ll just take you through my day as I always do
TEAMLABS: PLANETS
A small pre-activity story: we actually had booked our tickets for another day but my sister thought it was this day - we were able to change it easily online through their website though, so no issue there.
We started off our day at a decent time - I think our tickets were for around noon - 1:00pm. I can’t quite remember. I believe there is only one train that takes you to Odaiba, which is quite fun and interesting. The train runs on top of the water so you get a great view of Tokyo and the surrounding area. We got to Odaiba pretty early, so we stopped by at a nearby 7-11 just to grab a quick breakfast. If you don’t already know the next levelness (?) of Japanese convenient stores, you can basically live off 7-11 meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They have so much more food options than I have here in Canada (honestly, I don’t remember the last time I saw a 7-11, let alone any convenient store).
Just a little rant (you can skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read this part): for the Planets exhibit, there is a notice on the website, when you order the tickers and I swear on the email when you get sent the tickets as well. But, a majority of the exhibit takes place in knee height water (I’m 5’7’’ for reference). So obviously, this exhibit would not be the best for children (unless you bought them a $40 ticket to swim rather than experience the exhibit but to each their own) and you would wear shorts (or pants that could be easily rolled up) to prevent your pants from getting wet… In the waiting room, they played a rules and instructions video basically telling us all this stuff and a lot of the people were shocked or surprised for some reason - like did yall not read the instructions??? PLEASE
Unfortunately photos won’t do the exhibit justice. Since majority of the exhibit is in water, I’m sure they use the water and the movement of water to showcase their art displays. I don’t even think videos could do this place justice because some areas of the exhibit are pretty dark which allows the light display to be that much better you know?
I think one thought you have (or will have now) is, what if people have nasty feet? Honestly, that’s what I was scared of too honestly. No, I did not develop any feet things from this (lol). But as we walked towards the exhibit, we had to walk up a stream of flowing water which I assume was some sort of sanitizing solution because I could smell some sort of cleaning agent in that water. I wouldn’t worry too much… unless you have cuts and open wounds on your feet - I’d definitely skip this.
The exhibit basically has a set path for you to walk through, so you can experience everything they have. If you didn’t already know, teamLabs is a digital art museum, - so they use a lot of lights to display their art. It’s a totally unique experience. You get to really immerse yourself in the exhibit rather than just staring at artwork. I will say if you haven’t experienced teamLabs Borderless, I 100% recommend you do that over this one. Borderless is like the very first and original - I believe its the best. And then teamLabs Planets would be a great extension to Borderless. So if you experience Planets without experiencing Borderless, you haven’t experience their exhibits…
I don’t think there is much for me to say about the experience since it’s quite hard to describe. It’s really all about the experience. I will say however, that I 100%, 10/10 recommend you go see the exhibit if you go to Japan. It’s totally unique and something you’ve probably never experienced before. I believe teamLab were the first to exhibit digital art in this way or at least popularize it. I know they had a Van Gogh exhibit in Toronto (for all my Canadians out there) that was a similar concept but the teamLab exhibits are probably 10x bigger… Also, if you could only see ONE, go to Borderless before you see Planets.
If you’ve been to teamLab, please tell me about your experience!
DIVERCITY
DiverCity is only one of the few main shopping areas on the island. Each of them have their own shops, food and a lot more. It’s kinda insane, honestly. DiverCity if home to the ever so famous giant unicorn Gundam statue. Am I a fan of the Gundam franchise? No, not really (don’t come for me) but was it nice to see? Oh, for sure! Every so often the Gundam will move a couple of its panels and reveal lights - I wasn’t there at the time of the transformation but I was able to see them both.
You’ll also find the Gundam café and museum/shop if that’s your thing.
But by this time, all I could think about was lunch - I was hungry. There are a lot of different food choices around. Plus, there is a food court - just like a food court you’d find anywhere else. I decided to get this unagi don (grilled eel over rice). It was kind of expensive though at about $25 CAD. Though, you could TOTALLY find lunch for under $10.
My unagi meal came with a small bowl and a side of broth. This is so you could put a bit of the rice and eel and then pour your broth and enjoy it that way. You could eat it this way or not, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way in this case. Overall, for a meal costing almost $25, it BETTER have been worth it and I am here to say - yes, yes it was. The eel had a great burnt/charcoal flavour to it and it had a great sweet sauce slathered over it. Then, the combo of that with the hot slightly savory broth was SO good.
When you’re finished with your meal (like with most fast food places, bring your finished dishes back to where you ordered the food - clean up after yourself!
Honestly, you can come to Odaiba with no set plan/itinerary because there is A LOT to explore. There is so much to see and do in this area, you could spend a couple days (or at least one) here just exploring. Like the 2 photos just above, we just randomly came across this old school car museum? There were a lot of old cars on display and they also made the whole area old school Japan vibes - it was cool to see.
VENUSFORT
VenusFort is a European styled shopping mall with clothing stores, food and even outlet shops. You can get between the different shopping areas by train or bus. I actually don’t have too much to say about this place because I didn’t have plans to shop here really but I will leave you with a couple photos I snapped in the area - it’s a cool aesthetic.
MORE OF ODAIBA
I just have a couple more things before I close off this blog post. I didn’t have a lot to say or have a lot of photos for these, so I didn’t want to create a whole section for them.
If you didn’t know, I have a bachelors of Science in Health Studies, so of course I find science interesting. My sister found this place as we were planning our trip to Japan and we decided to go here: National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. I will already tell you that this place was nice to see and experience it but I wouldn’t recommend going here - sort of boring. I feel this would be a good place to go if you bought children along though (though why bring children to ruin your trip? JOKING! I’m only joking (kind of because DID I LIE?)). There is a lot of small things to see and experience but it wasn’t anything big or exciting… and parts of the exhibit you had to pay an addition fee to experience. The entrance fee was about $15 CAD for adults by the way.
The only real cool thing I saw was this gigantic Earth:
There is a spiraling staircase that brings you around the world, figuratively or would this be literally? Because technically, you are walking around the world (lol). Anyway… not sure why this was particularly special though, it does look like the Earth is made of a lot of tiny screens or something - sorry, I didn’t research much into this.
We didn’t spend too much time here, we did a quick run though because there wasn’t much for us to do. I did go into the souvenir shop and picked up a enamel pin and a really cool 3D moon postcard (but like 2D). [side note: I wish Squarespace had a better way to integrate videos into my blog because the only way is for me to upload a video to YouTube and then embed it, which I don’t want to do…]
By this time, it was time for dinner! I am starving (as always). We didn’t have any cuisine in mind, so after walking around seeing what options we had, we just stopped by this hamburg place.
This place had some great options in my option (obviously not the place for vegetarians or vegans) - they have a lot of set options, add-ons and options for unlimited salad and rice. So if you’re looking for a decent place that is budget friendly, I’d say this would be your place.
Hamburg is a Japanese style of prepared beef - it’s not a hamburger (which is why I didn’t spell it that way) it has minced onions and things inside. I think the best way I could describe it is minced onions and ground beef made into patties. It’s actually quite juicy inside. I’ve seen some ratings for this place around and I’m not sure why people are hating? It really isn’t that bad - it’s actually pretty good tasting. Don’t expect it to be a hamburger because it clearly isn’t. I haven’t had the steak, so I can’t speak to that but for the cost and options, I think it’s great.
For my combo, I got it with a sausage (if you know me, I love sausages) and a thick cut of bacon. I also got the unlimited salad option and a serving of rice because as an Asian, I need rice to really fill myself up (lol).
This basically ended our day here in Odaiba. We rode the train home back to our hotels after. Though we did book a spot at a bar (it rained pretty hard as we were walking there, so that sucked). I don’t have much to say here either - drinks were good. Drinks are prices you expect… about ~$10 for a mixed drink or you could get wine… the usual things. The staff was nice. It was a CHALLENGE finding this place though - I do have to say. You need to take an elevator for a certain floor and then ride another elevator up a single floor to get there (lol) - it was so weird.
Anyway, that ends this blog post. I hope you found this one interesting. Again, I really recommend you go to a teamLab exhibit when you visit Japan. The experience is like nothing I’ve ever done before. If you have any comments/thoughts/questions, let me know! Until my next post, see you
-Thomas