Borderless

Our second day in Tokyo starts with a trip to the station - via the Azubadai Hills complex where we want to buy tickets for TeamLab’s ‘Borderless’ exhibition.  We’ve tried booking online, but failed, and actually finding the gallery is a problem in itself. Eventually we do, and manage to book tickets for later this afternoon. 

It’s fair to say that while I’m loving Tokyo, I do find it confusing, and I’m quite happy to leave G to plan roots of the metro. He seems to have mastered the system of routes, colours and numbers, but even so actually finding  where to go takes time. Still, we get to the vast halls of Tokyo Station where we hope to book all the trains for the rest of our time here. Eventually we locate a booking office, but there are also machines outside to which we are guided by a delightful young Japan Rail assistant. She patiently takes us through each route - times, seat reservations etc - and before long we have a complete set of tickets which will eventually return us to Tokyo  at the end of our two weeks. 

As museums and galleries are shut (in lieu of opening in yesterday’s public holiday) we take ourselves off to  Meiji-jingu, a temple complex in the middle of a large forested area. This is Tokyo’s main Shinto shrine and is very popular with the locals as well as tourists - they clearly outnumber us in the groups of people making their way through the Tori gates towards the shrine itself. Like many seemingly ancient buildings in Japan, the shrine is relatively modern. It was completed and dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken in 1920, eight years after the passing of the emperor and six years after the passing of the empress. The shrine was destroyed during  WW2 but rebuilt shortly after. 

Emperor Meiji’s significance is he was the first  emperor of modern Japan. He ascended to the throne in 1857 and during his time, Japan was transformed from a feudalist inward looking state to a country able to take its place in the modern world. This goes some way to explaining the display of fine French wine casks on display, the colourful display of sake barrels slightly less incongruous! 

In complete contrast to the peace of Meiji-jingu, we return to the busy streets of Tokyo and the ‘must-see’ or rather ‘must-experience’ Sibuya Scramble crosssing - reputed to be the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world with as many as 3000 people at a time using its diagonal as well as straight crossings. First problem is finding it - there’s a lot of redevelopment work going on around here - but eventually we do. I suspect it’s more interesting by night, and suspect there are many ‘crossings’ in Hanoi or Saigon that are busier, but we see it, cross it in every direction, and photograph it, even going up to Starbucks to get a more elevated view. It’s really a little underwhelming. Most interesting is the fact that many pedestrians seem to be tourists who are videoing their crossing! 

Next to the crossing there’s the statue of a dog and a long queue of people waiting to take photos (we’ve discovered that the Japanese are even better st queuing than the Brits, amazed at the orderly queues that form at metro stops where people waiting to ride the escalator from the platform.) The dog in question is Hachiko who apparently used to wait at the crossing for his master coming home from work each day, and still waited there  for 9 years after he had died. Not surprisingly, he’s come to symbolise enduring loyalty. 

It’s now time for us to return to Azubadai Hills and our ‘Borderless’ experience. Room after room of wall to wall, floor to ceiling, moving images and mood music ranging from beautiful flowers, to mono abstracts, to an aquarium where if you touch the brightly coloured sea creatures, they seem to react and swim away from you. One room involves ascending a small mound then watching the scenes unfold around you and beneath you. Immediately I feel totally disoriented such is the illusion of movement created ; I feel I’m going to fall over and just about manage to dismount the platform and turn away to safety. As usual in galleries, G and I have separated  - had he been there to cling to I might have stayed longer! 

The whole thing is deliberately maze-like, so it’s hard to find each other, but eventually we do and visit ‘Bubble Universe’ together - a room filled with illuminated spheres of various sizes - and mirrors, which are everywhere, adding both to the beauty of the creations and to my sense of confusion.

It’s all quite mesmerising, but it’s getting late, I’m feeling exhausted and we really need to get back to the hotel. At least today I manage to walk back to another evening in the Executive Lounge and an early night. 


My main today’s a shot from Borderless - The Bubble Universe, with a shrine collage, Shibuya Crossing and two others from Borderless.