When I first mentioned TeamLab Borderless to my family, no one knew what I was talking about. This just does not exist in America. The closest thing we have here is MeowWolf, but it does not come close to TeamLab. Yes, I, personally, look forward to MeowWolf's opening in Denver in 2021, though I already know it's not going to be like TeamLab. So what is this TeamLab Borderless about, anyways?
It's an immersive art experience. It's a futuristic art show. A museum with endless, borderless light effects, psychedelic sound effects, installation art that challenges all your senses. In darkness. Yes. In the dark, where the other participants do not matter, only you and the lights exist.
There are currently 4 permanent exhibitions and 1 restaurant in Japan with more locations planned on opening in the near future. The one I visited was in Odaiba, Tokyo. Odaiba is a popular shopping and entertaining district on a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. There are shopping centers (Tax-Free available), an Edo themed Hot Springs, a huge Gumdan robot, the famous Rainbow Bridge that lights up at night, 2 museums, a Ferris Wheel, and TeamLab Borderless. There is free shuttle bus on Odaiba that takes you around. We got on a free shuttle at Aquacity and it took us to Venus Fort next to the exhibition.
The exhibition has 2 floors. Order tickets online ahead of time because of entry restriction. When booking, you need to choose the time of entry. Be there on time (very important) and enter with a group of people who have the same time slot as you. The main floor is for check in, locker space (no backpacks and purses allowed), wait area to watch a short video presentation, exhibition entrance and exit.
The video is mainly a warning about safety and how to navigate once inside. After the video, you walk through a black curtain that leads to a short tunnel and either go to the room on the left or on the right to start. We picked the right and started our tour from the Butter House. TeamLab is a combination of many different rooms: Butterfly House, Universe of Water Particles, Future Park, En Tea House, Forest of Flowers, Sculpture of Light, Athletics Forest, just to name a few. Most of which are interactive, especially the ones on the second floor.
It's almost a very psychedelic experience with flowers, crows, wind, lights, colors, and different sounds coming from all sides. While each room is better than before, Universe of Water Particles on a Rock is where people gather for photo ops. It's a waterfall coming down with thousands flowers and hit the huge rock (like a tilted platform) underneath and you can see the streams just expands everywhere. You are free to climb onto the rock for photos, just no selfie sticks.
There are just so many things to see!
On the second floor, the first room is the weightless forest filled with giant color balloons. The balloons change color every minute or so. Blue, green, red, yellow, orange, purple, sometimes mix of colors.
Pass the giant balloons, there are these hanging steps kind of like a jungle gym for climbing with flocks of color birds flying underneath. It was kind of fun to climb around for a bit.
The next room is a large playground for children, even a giant slide with light effects when children slide down. That did look very fun. Quite bummed it was for kids only.
However, there are some other interactive rooms that grownups can go to - with their kids, of course. A musical wall, a room for drawing, a futuristic aquarium. Kids really go wild here.
Pass the Future Park, we were headed to En Tea House in the back. Pass the restrooms, a vending machine area for Dads waiting for their wife and kids to be done, another dark and short corridor, and then there is a small entrance on the right. Walk down toward the reception desk to check in with the tea house staff. The lady showed us a list of tea available after confirming our reservations. She asked us kindly to walk down another narrow and dark corridor to wait for our table. It wasn't a long wait. We didn't know what the tea house was about. Judging by the table and the tea in front of us, we thought it was just a place to take a break. Then something happened.
There were flowers blooming inside the tea cup. Almost every cup is different. We thought maybe it depends on what kind of tea you ordered earlier, but really we had no idea. So, the next thing you do is to drink the tea, but once the tea cup is removed, the flowers start to float away.
The petals slowly float away in the dark and disappear. These petals below were from the same flowers in the cups above. How many times does it happen? The flowers bloom when the tea cup is on the table again and once the cup is removed, the petals float away again. It keeps going till there is no more tea left in the cup. How do they do this? How do they know? We really have no idea. But, it was really cool.
There is also seasonal exhibitions, information on its official site.
Tickets to TeamLab is 3200 yen per adult, that's around $30 dollars, and an additional 500 yen for En Tea House.That's $5 dollars extra. You don't have to go to En Tea House if you don't feel like it, but in order to go, you have to purchase ticket for TeamLab first. There is no separate entrance for En Tea House because the entrance is inside the exhibition. I don't recall seeing any gift shop after. Before you leave, don't forget to get your personal belongings from the locker. There is also a TeamLab app that offers guided tour for download. Because there really has a lot of things to see.
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