Mori Building Digital Art Museum

Mori Building Digital Art Museum by teamLab Borderless in Tokyo puts the Los Angeles immersive experience to shameeee… Anyway, at last, I have the time to write this post. Here is one of my many memorable experiences in Tokyo that I hope you will enjoy.

This building was inside Odaiba’s Palette town along with a shopping mall and a giant ferrous wheel. Odaiba is an artificial island in Tokyo. The town reminded me of a fake town in Disney Land or Las Vegas. I bought a backpack at the mall here because Japan has much better backpacks than the ones sold in the U.S. And since I was a tourist, they gave me a sales tax break, but I was not allowed to use the backpack while in Tokyo for tax reasons. I recently found out that the town, and the museum closed in 2022. The good news is teamLab Borderless will move to a new location, Azabudai Hills, and will reopen in 2024.

I ran into this museum by accident during the research for my trip, and I thought Wow! I have got to see this. It was new, and not many people knew about it at the time, not even my tour guides. I tried to buy tickets online. No luck. It kept declining my card. When I got to Tokyo, I asked my guide that if I reimburse her, would she buy us the tickets. She looked at me peculiarly, and asked, why don’t I buy it with my own card? I told her that I tried, but it rejected it. She said that I must be doing something wrong. So, she tried with several of my cards, and the site rejected them all. I told her that I think it’s because my credit card is not a Japanese card. She tried purchasing the tickets with her card, and it worked. This was pre-covid. Perhaps things have changed since.

 

Once inside, you take off your shoes, and walk through a dark hallway as you watch images move against the wall. The day I was there, the images were those of giraffes. After I went through a dark hallway, I walked into a room with a different imagery. If you notice, you will see that the giraffe from the first video fades into flowers in the second video.

So, what’s so special about this place? Well, the building is built for this type of art work, and it is a much larger experience unlike the one room experience in an old Los Angeles building on Sunset blvd. Also, the imagery is not just about the work of one artist. There is a large variety of artwork. My videos here and other people’s YouTube videos do not create the same experience as when you are there in person. The dark rooms, the music, the computer-generated images, and the lighting have a soothing effect on the mind, body, and soul and bring out different emotions. If you have plans to go to Tokyo, make sure you do not miss out on this.

As you go from room to room, and decide to go back to the first room where you started, you’ll notice that the moving images have changed to something else. They have interactive installations that touches on nature, perception, and how each of us view the world.

This room seemed as though I had stepped into the Avatar film and was walking through moving plants. It felt as if I was in a different time and space.

Besides the tea room, this was my favorite room. We sat on the floor along with many other people, just enjoying the waves. There were bean bags in the center for people to lean on. Others laid on the floor, and used their backpack as a pillow. It was completely relaxing, and I did not want to leave.

This is a room many do not know about, and hopefully when teamLab reopens, they will include this tea room. I think I ordered oolong tea with milk. It had a slightly sweet taste. After we were served, images of flowers showed up in our tea, and then the petals fell out of our cup onto the table cloth, and moved away. All I have to say is, you must try it. My tour guide enjoyed it as well.

 

Matsuo Bashō, the literary wanderer 😊, and Nihonbashi

 

I've been meaning to write about Bashō, the haiku poet, and Nihonbashi, the area where I hanged out after my visit, but never got around to it. So here it is. I hope that you will enjoy it.

On a rare occasion, I dab at poetry, but I’m definitely not a poet. I just do it for me, and oftentimes, I end up shredding it. But that doesn’t mean that I do not appreciate a good poem. And when I travel, I like to do something that deals with the writers’ world. Sometimes, I drop by a library or a bookstore. This time, I visited the sites where Matsuo Bashō, a famous Haiku poet, aka the literary wanderer spent time. My guide was surprised that I knew of him. I found out about Bashō by accident when I was doing research on some interesting things to do in Tokyo.

We acessed the area from Kiyosumi-Shirakawa subway station. Kiyosumi is a neighborhood in Tokyo's eastern Koto Word. There is also Kiyosumi garden which I did not get to see, but do recommend. We walked for a bit and found the Basho Inari Jinja Shrine.

 

 

 

This a Kitsune fox shrine as there are foxes at the gate, one with an open mouth, the other with closed. The open mouth fox guards the shrine and wards off evil spirits. The closed mouth fox keeps in the good spirits. You will see more of these creatures with open and closed mouths throughout Japan, and when I talk about the Nihonbashi bridge. Part of the Japanese culture, Kitsune are intelligent foxes with special abilities, and they get wiser with time.

Also here, there are stone representation of Bashō’s frogs. Matsuo Bashō was the master of Haiku, lived a simple life, and was a recluse. I have no problem living a simple life, but to be a recluse is not that appealing to me. I need my space, but I also need to connect with other human beings. His most famous haiku translated: An ancient (old) pond! 

An ancient pond!

With a sound from the water

Of the frog as it plunges in.

The above pictures are samples of Bashō’s Haiku. There are 12 of them on sticks, spread along a long walking path by the water. Even if you’re like me, and not good at poetry, you can still see the image Bashō has created. In a 5-7-5 syllable, he creates a vision of a weathered pond, existing in silence until a frog jumps in and disturbs it. You can almost hear the noise the frog created when it jumped in, and see the ripples in the water. Perhaps, when Basho wrote this, he was referring to himself as old. And maybe he was deep in thought when some noise, or someone broke his focus, and inspired him to write this. There has been various contradictory analysis regarding the meaning behind this Haiku which I will not get into. Sometimes when I read a poem or a good piece of writing, or admire a painting, I just want to enjoy it and not analyze it to death. As William Forrester tells Jamal in the film, Saving Forrester, one of the reasons he stopped writing was that he got tired of critics trying to interpret his words all the time.

The Basho Museum, situated near the Sumida River, display some of his writings, maps of his travels, and the type of clothes he wore. The explanations are in Japanese. So, you would need to go with someone who speaks Japanese or do some research before you go.

He lived in a cottage near this area where he wrote in his travel journal. As I followed Bashō’s path in Tokyo, I ran into many calm and serene areas that I would have never discovered otherwise. You can take a stroll by the Sendai-bori river, and get lost in your thoughts. I was told that this area is beautiful during the cherry blossom season.

There is a lot more to be said about this neighborhood. But then this blog would become way too long. You can easily take your time and spend half a day here. Sumida river is nearby with a nice quiet outdoor area, and more dedication to Bashō. You can bring a Bento Box and a drink, and picnic here.

After our Bashō excursion, we went to Nihonbashi, which means the bridge to Japan. It is named after the Nihonbashi Bridge which spans over the Nihonbashi river. This bridge was once a wooden bridge, and today, it’s made up of stones, supported by steel. There is an expressway that runs above it which detracts from the its historical beauty. There are plans underway to move the expressway underground. This area, save for the bridge, was burned to the ground after the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945.

Nihonbashi means the center of Tokyo—the point from which all distances in Japan are calculated. In the middle of the bridge, there is a zero kilometer marker, a metal plate from where everything is measured. To stop people from running into traffic, there is one like it placed to the side of the road. As for me, I just had to take a picture of the one in the middle of the road while dodging cars, and being reprimanded by my tour guide.

At the corners of the bridge, there are two pairs of Shisha, the guardian lion statues, and in the center, a pair of Kirin, mythical beasts. You will notice here again, the opened mouth male wards off evil spirits and the closed mouth female keeps in the good spirits.

We ended up with having lunch at Mitsukoshi, Japan’s first department store. The purple tea is lavender tea with a mild flavor. I bought a few packages for my friends and  family.