10 Tips for visiting teamLab Borderless Digital Musuem Tokyo
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| Forest of Resonating Lamps |
TeamLab Borderless Digital Museum is really worth visiting. It is a really unique visual experience – something I’ve never seen before. You enter a maze of rooms that have vastly different visual experiences – from a flower garden, to waterfalls to rooms filled with glowing lanterns. It’s done with lights, which move and seem to interact with human movement and contact. It’s good for kids of all ages to do and great for a cold rainy day in Tokyo.
We were there from about 11am until 4pm so you can
certainly spend a long time inside. TeamLab Borderless
opened up in June 2018 so it’s still rather new. I now see that these types of
Digital Museums are popping up all over the world as they are so popular.
Apparently no two visits to teamLab Borderless are the same either – so it’s
good for a revisit. Here are my tips:
1.
There are Two Digital Museums (at least!) in Tokyo.
Note (at press time) that there are two Digital Museums
in Tokyo so make sure you go to the correct one that you book for. The one that
I describe below is for the Digital Museum in Odaiba called teamLab Borderless.
The other one is called teamLab Planets and is in Toyosu.
2.
Buying Tickets
You
can get tickets on the day, however it is strongly advisable to get tickets
ahead of time as they do regularly sell out. Even a few days before the website
indicates there are ‘few’ tickets left. I would recommend purchasing tickets at
least a week in advance so you can choose your day.
Note
that the Museum is closed on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of
every month.
At
the time of booking online you will need to pay and book in a date. You will be able to
attend at any time on that date. As tourist attractions get busy in Japan on the weekends, I
would strongly recommend that you book a date during the week. The website to book
is: https://borderless.teamLab.art/
Adult
prices are classed as ages 15 and over (which is good if you have kids).
Children between ages 4-14 pay child prices. Under 4 years are free.
You
can also purchase tickets from Lawson Tickets and Seven-Eleven stores – but it is easier to purchase straight from the website.
3. Email Confirmation
Once
booked, you will receive an email confirmation. It is a confirmation only not a ticket. On
the day of your actual booking your electronic email ticket will have a QR code
attached to it and that is how you enter the Digital Museum. I just took a
screen shot of the QR code and just used that for entry. The QR won’t be
visible until the actual day (midnight actually!).
4. Getting there – catch the
train to Aomi Station
TeamLab
Borderless is located next to the entrance to the giant Ferris wheel (just look
up). From the Aomi train station turn left and you actually go through
the MEGA WEB building (a large Toyota car exhibition hall). There
is actually a great deal to look at in the Showroom (from new cars you can test
drive, to car simulators and more) but I would save looking at the showroom
until after your visit to teamLab.
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| The station you want is U10 Aomi |
5. On the day – get there
early
TeamLab
opens at 10am every day (check website for any changes), but I would suggest
get there as early as possible. Even with the pre-purchased entry ticket there
is a queue to get in. For us whom arrived on a Monday morning at 11am – the
queue was still about 30 minutes long just to get in. I don’t know what the actual
delay was – perhaps the actual processing of the tickets, but expect a delay
getting in. The queue will only get longer as the day progresses generally
however I have also read that the queue disappears later in the day too (but
that means less time at teamLab too).
6. The Rooms – have a list of must visit rooms
We spent most of the day at teamLab, so allow plenty of time to explore. There are many rooms and displays - some in enormous rooms and some in much smaller rooms. Make a list of the rooms you wish to do (look on the official internet page) so that you do not miss any rooms when you are there. There are no maps or guides, you kind of make your own way. There is an app however you can download (we didn't do this however). Inside teamLab it is a bit of a maze and is mostly in the dark between rooms.
Some
rooms actually require you to queue to get in. For us there were two rooms that
had a wait of 30 minutes. Forest of Resonating Lamps requires a wait – but do
not miss this room as its one of the best rooms. Once inside, your visit in the
room is timed for about 5 minutes only so make the most of your time there. It
is definitely worth going in though and is one of the most popular rooms.
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| Forest of Resonating Lamps |
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| Forest of Resonating Lamps |
Another
room (which we did not go in) is called ‘The Nest’. This also had a 45 minute
wait to go in – but by this time we were exhausted and over stimulated by that
stage so we ended up giving this room a miss.
Note
that most of the rooms have no queue to get in – these are just very popular
rooms mentioned above. The Nest was a little hard to find. If you do need directions – ask a
staff member on how to get there.
My
personal favourite room was the one with the giant colour changing balloons -
the ‘Weightless Forest of
Resonating Life.’ Very colourful and I thought it was just lovely.
Weightless Forest of Resonating Life
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| Weightless Forest of Resonating Life |
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| Weightless Forest of Resonating Life |
My
11 year old daughters favourite rooms were the trampoline ‘Multi-jumping
Universe’ and the drawing room where your artwork is displayed ‘swimming’
around the room. There was another area where you could slide down a ‘slippery
dip’ that had very interesting images/colours and effects indeed as you rode
down the slippery dip slope. All these rooms were located near ‘Athletics Forest’. She also
enjoyed the ‘Balloon room’ and the games room adjacent to the Balloon room. The games room consisted of 'games with light' that reacted to your movements.
The
Athletics Forest has a lot of entertainment options here for kids including
trampolines and huge life size moving images of humpback whales (on the floor and walls).
The slippery dip that changes the floor as you slide down
Flying Pikachu - Kids draw the pictures and they are then scanned and can be seen swimming around the wall
The
rooms also change over time. The Crystal World room (lights look like falling
rain) for instance – changes colours regularly and every now and again goes all
shimmering white (a wow moment and crowd pleaser).
Crystal Room
Memory of Topography (The Rice Paddy room) is another room that changes too – especially as you move through it. Like its name suggests - the topography changes. So make sure you do linger a bit in each room to absorb all the room changes.
There
is even a room with the ‘Black Waves’ that look a little like a Japanese Wave
Painting and also a Bamboo Grove.
Wave Room
Bamboo Forest
There
is a lot to see – make sure you have a list to check off. I have deliberately not provided you with a list as I suspect, over time, this list will change.
7. Bring your own food snacks
There
are break out rest area rooms where you can bring in your own food and eat (I would
recommend this – as there otherwise isn’t anywhere to purchase food other than
a tea room). These rooms are also a place to rest your eyes for a
while from the constant stimulation of lights. The tea room inside teamLab is
where you can buy a tea for 500 Yen that changes colours. However, if you want
real food – bring your own. There was a large shopping mall near teamLab
Borderless or pre-pack your snacks/food.
8. Uneven Flooring
There are warnings everywhere that there are uneven
floor areas within teamLab – and I was not entirely sure what to expect from
these warnings - but really the floor is uneven for only one area (Athletics
Forest) and there is enough light for you to clearly tell where the ground is
uneven – just look for where the kids are playing. So it’s not the whole teamLab
experience that has uneven flooring.
9.
Have a meeting place for lost family members
We lost members of our party a few times within
teamLab. The corridors between the exhibition rooms are dark and once you are
inside an exhibit – well let’s just say it’s very easy to get lost as there are
many different pathways to go and you can’t always see what’s directly ahead as
there are objects in the way. Our house rule was to not leave a room until we
were all ready to leave as a group. This seemed to work for most of the rooms.
Most rooms had only one exit – but many paths to get there.
10.
Make sure you visit the Toyota Showroom on the way back to the Train station
Even if you are not a car enthusiast, it’s hard not
to be impressed by the cars of the future, where you can test drive new cars
and do car simulator rides. And it’s right next door to the teamLab Borderless
– and free to visit!
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| The Car of the future!! |
I hope you enjoyed reading about my
tips for visiting teamLab Borderless. If you would like to comment please do so
in Comments as I would love to hear about your experiences and or feedback.
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Until next week,
KJ
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KJ
I am also on Instagram www.instagram.com/sotaram1
Twitter: www.twitter.com/sotaram1
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