Tokyo

    teamLab & Toyosu

    teamLab & Toyosu

    A day on Tokyo Bay, built around the city's digital art. teamLab Planets is not a gallery you walk through but one you walk into: barefoot through shallow water, across mirrored floors, into rooms where projected light reacts to where you stand. We spend two hours there before lunch at Toyosu, where the fish from the morning market is served a few minutes from where it was auctioned. The afternoon takes us to the science museum at Miraikan and then the Odaiba waterfront at sunset, and ends with a walk into Ginza as the shop windows light up. It is the most contemporary day in my programme and the one families with teenagers tend to remember longest.

    Who it suits

    Families with older children, photographers and anyone curious about modern Tokyo.

    Highlights

    teamLab Planets, seafood lunch at Toyosu, the Odaiba waterfront and Miraikan.

    Local flavors

    Toyosu market sushi or kaisendon: a rice bowl topped with fish and seafood.

    About tickets

    This day includes stops that must be reserved in advance (such as sumo, museums or workshops). I help you with the practical arrangements — you only pay the original price, with no markup or added fees on the ticket cost.

    Toyosu Station

    Toyosu Station

    5 min

    We meet at Toyosu Station on the bay side of the city, a short walk from the exhibition entrance and our timed ticket slot.

    teamLab Planets

    teamLab Planets

    2 hours

    Shoes off at the door. The route leads through a warm waterfall, a room of mirrored infinity, a floating garden of orchids and a hall where koi swim across the surface of the water you are standing in and burst into flowers when you touch them.

    Seafood lunch at Toyosu

    Seafood lunch at Toyosu

    1 hour

    Lunch at the market restaurants above the auction floors: a kaisendon rice bowl topped with the morning's catch, or sushi at a counter where the chef works an arm's length away.

    Miraikan science museum

    Miraikan science museum

    1 hour

    Japan's national museum of emerging science, hung around a six-metre globe of LED panels showing the earth in real time. Robotics, deep-sea research and climate data, all explained in English as well as Japanese.

    Odaiba waterfront

    Odaiba waterfront

    45 min

    The artificial island built out into the bay, with a replica Statue of Liberty, a beach nobody swims from and the best straight-on view of Rainbow Bridge with the city behind it.

    Ginza

    Ginza

    45 min

    We finish with a walk along Chuo-dori as the light goes. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons the avenue closes to cars and the whole street becomes a promenade.

    Ready to experience this journey?