Tokyo, Japan: teamLab Planets, a pig cafe, a ninja dinner and Golden Gai
Two runs at Tokyo: wading through teamLab Planets and a micro pig cafe on the first, then a ninja dinner, a monster show and Golden Gai on the second.
Two runs at Tokyo, two years apart. The first was cold, bright and mostly about light. The second went looking for the strange corners, and Tokyo had plenty in stock.
February 2024: the first visit
Our first Tokyo was a winter one: cold, bright and completely uninterested in easing us in. It was all contrast. Knee-deep in projected light one day, knee-deep in Shinjuku crowds the next, with a mountain detour in between.
teamLab Planets in Toyosu: trousers rolled up, wading through a floor made of light along with everyone else.A micro pig cafe. You order a drink, a pig chooses your lap, and time quietly stops.Kabukicho by day, where the Samurai Restaurant billboard does the shouting for the whole street.Mid-crossing in Kabukicho, where every building is a stack of signs and someone is always filming.Dinner at a Shibuya counter: skewers arriving in waves, the chef two metres away, a purple drink under investigation.
When the city got too loud, we took a train into the mountains to meet the snow monkeys of Jigokudani. Highly recommended as a Tokyo palate cleanser.
We liked it enough to do the whole thing again in the heat.
June 2026: the strange corners
The first time here was a freezing February. Two years later we came back at the start of summer, and Tokyo had a whole new set of tricks ready. It’s the same city, in a completely different mood, and the heat sends you indoors at exactly the right moments.
Nintendo Tokyo in Shibuya. We queued with people a third of our age and don't regret a minute of it.Harajuku at full volume: a candy-coloured monster show where the performer taught us the pose. We did our best.A ninja-themed dinner where the table vanishes under dry ice and someone hands you a sword between courses.The best free show in Shibuya: a window seat above the crossing, watching a thousand people not collide.Center-gai after dark. Every sign is fighting every other sign, and somehow it works.Golden Gai, where a bar seats about six and the sign answers the only two questions that matter: no charge, cash only.
Photos from Tokyo
A longer look at the four days that filled the camera roll: a monster show in Harajuku, a maid cafe in Akihabara, a very dark dinner in Otemachi, a race car in Ginza, and a lot of Shibuya.
