We slept in, and it was a very good call. Our morning was spent doing a second run through of Akiba, where I visited my first Don Quijote and discovered the trap of claw machines.
My first impression was that it was going to be hard to win, but I wasn’t sure how it would be hard. After positioning the claw perfectly a few times at a cost of 100 Yen each, it seemed to me that the items were too heavy for the claw, the claw arms were too loose, or it was simply rigged to not function most of the time.
So I headed over to something that looked lighter – a fuzzy Detective Pikachu wallet. It’s so fuzzy it looks like a stuffed animal head with a zipper. Then the sun in the clouds broke through and the claw machine gods gave a blessing and suddenly I was the owner of something from a claw machine. I was surprised when this happened and wondered if it was easier than I thought. Several coins later, I concluded I had gotten lucky.
Lunch later was something I had been looking forward to – omakase. One after another we got served delicious sushi that our chef made right in front of us. The fish tasted like sea salt and the ocean and dreams realized. I had so many favorites for that meal. My foodie friend AC envisioned this as only the beginning of a (progressively expensive) omakase journey, of which I will probably not take part. I’m the sort that spends heavily on vacation for amazing food but otherwise eats bagels.
With happy stomachs we go to teamLab Borderless, a state-of-the-art futuristic tech-y sort of projector-art exhibit. I had gone to something with a similar concept – the Pace Museum in LA – but this was on a whole other level and a different scale. It was dark and like a maze, and with the shifting art pieces that constantly disappeared and reappeared, it was unreliable sometimes to depend on the art to figure out where you were.
We wander through rooms of lamps, of rolling hills of mini trees (my favorite), of projected warriors, projected water, interactive displays that allow you to dictate what happens next, of strobe lights and mirrors and mirrors. Our last room felt like a stage at an edm concert minus lasers, with lights on each wall and fog and colors and music. After inhaling fog machine fog and gazing at the sights, we eventually had to stop because our eyes and heads got tired. Regardless, the hours we spent there were magical.
That evening we took a step into a piece of Spirited Away by visiting an actual bathhouse! It was a really cool experience; everything was really organized and there were pools of different temperatures, plus a massage area and foot stone therapy thingies. In the center of it all was this cool food court with arcade games and a traditional Japanese eating area (floor pillows and low tables). It was incredibly relaxing and a huge treat to our sore feet as a midpoint of the trip (good timing creds to VP, per usual). Yukatas (traditional bathrobes in our case) are super fun as well and really makes you feel like an authentic part of the environment.
We relax super long and end up taking rideshare back (glad to know it works in Japan when you really need it). This was definitely my favorite evening so far of the entire trip.
Adventures 