Iwate and Sendai Trip Journal: Monday, Sept. 22nd

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In the morning we took the Shinkansen to Ueno. The plan was to then transfer to the Yamanote line for Nippori.  We wrote more quiz questions about our trip to our friends in Honolulu on the way. This is kind of a tradition. When they are in Japan, they send daily quiz questions to us, too. At the Ueno Station shinkansen exit, the gate ate our tickets as expected but then we realized that we were still inside the JR area and would have to board the Yamanote line without tapping in. That would be a problem because then we couldn’t tap out. Should we have purchased tickets from Ueno to Nippori? I need to figure out how to prevent this from happening again. Anyway, the agent at the entrance wicket was able to easily fix it by having me set down my phone on a console where he tapped a few keys.

As we were leaving Sendai, we paused to look at this sculpture which is reminiscent of the ornament on Masamune Date's helmet. 

Notice on the Sendai Shinkansen platform: Be careful of bird droppings.

We had considered a taxi to Nippori but chatGPT recommended against it. And it turned out to be not too crowded on the Yamanote line at 10:30 am. We got to the Art Hotel Lungwood (what a name!), and had them hold our bags until we came back to check in. When we finally did check in later that day, we found that they had carried our bags along with the two shipped duffel bags to our room. 

Nippori Station Yamanote Platform

Now we had to get back on the Yamanote line to meet up with our Tokyo friends. First to Yurakucho and then Yurakucho subway line to Tsukishima station. We arrived early and so did they. We had monjayaki and okonomiyaki at the Daruma main shop in Tsukishima. I think we saw at least three Daruma shops in that neighborhood. I drank Asahi Super Dry Zero and the others had beer while the waiter cooked our food at the table. The monja that we ate with little spatulas was cheese and tarako (cod roe). What a mix, but it was so good!

Daruma Main Shop

Okonomiyaki - my favorite!

Next, back on the subway to Toyosu, transferring on to the Yurakamome line, an un-attended rubber-tired elevated vehicle. We got off at the Shin Toyosu station. We were early for our reservations at teamLab Planets, so we went to Toyosu Jogai Edomae Ichiba - kind of a faux Edo era town-like mall created for foreign tourists during the last olympics. It was like San Francisco's Japan Town, only in Japan. It was indeed crowded with foreign tourists. We got some soft-cream and matcha-cream. It was kind of expensive. It was across the street from the new Toyosu wholesale market. I’d like to go there some day.



Then on to teamLab Planets. Our friends got us tickets that must have been timed, because we walked right by all the other people waiting in line. At the first exhibit you enter is a huge locker room where you have to leave your shoes, socks, and any bags you are carrying. The rules are for a good reason; you are up to your knees in milky water. If you drop anything, you will never find it again. But here’s the cool part. As you walk, animated koi fish are projected in the water around your feet. They look so real you wish you had some food to feed them. And they seem to interact with you and they can turn into flowers floating on the water. 

After that you can get your bags back. Many of the areas require you to take your shoes off, though, because you are walking on fabric. We tried to load their app for the catch and release of extinct animals, but we couldn’t get it to work. I told the staff and they just loaned us some cellphones, even though the sign said the cellphones were for rent. Maybe it was just an error in translation.  There was another room where you laid on your back and watched falling flowers. This made me dizzy. There was a totally mirrored room (walls, floor, and ceiling) with strings of multi colored animated LEDs. This was like floating in space. One room had animated butterflies on the walls. You could wave your hand and they would scatter. There were many cool works of interactive art, but it was easy to get lost and become separated. There were many foreigners working here. They spoke excellent Japanese. I’d sure like a behind-the-scenes tour to see what technologies they use.

Ephemeral fishes swim all around you.

The goal here is to cross this field of soft mushrooms, stepping on only one color. It's tricky, because the colors continuously change.

This installation outside teamLab Planets is called "Universe of Fire Particles Falling from the Sky".

And then it was off to a really nice Izakaya. They had some great musubi. We parted ways with our friends at a station along the Yurakucho line and headed back to Nippori to check in and then to get some sleep.