Japan 2023 - Day 3

 The first order of business for the day (after a local bakery breakfast) was trying to coordinate when Emily and Tom would make it to the hotel after their arrival into Tokyo. We’d planned to head to Team Labs (hyperlink) once they’d arrived, but it was something of an unknown as to when they’d actually get to the hotel after going through all required steps to get there. In the end they made pretty good time and now with a posse of seven, we headed out to find Team Labs  to experience something a bit different.

We trekked our way out to the Tokyo bay area where team labs is and given the time of day, decided to find something to eat before we went through (given the recommended 2 hour duration to explore the experience).

Michael found us a place that did katsu which became the plan. We trooped in and were given a table that unfortunately only seated 6 people. Thomas was directed to a separate table. I took pity on him and thought I’d completely ruin it for him by making him suffer my company as well.

There was a Japanese woman and man at the table between Thomas and I and the rest of the family. They offered to swap but looked way too settled to disturb them to that extent given there was a divider between them and the rest of our family so we declined their offer. After a couple of minutes they asked Thomas and I where we were from. When they heard we were from Australia we began a very stilted exchange of words that certainly couldn’t be rated as a conversation which basically became a rundown of things they either knew of or had visited in Australia and we had to work out what they were … Koala, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House … you get the idea.

After a while they started asking about sake. We managed to work out they were asking if we were okay with drinking sake and when we said yes, a very large bottle of sake appeared on the table and was being poured. My prior very limited experience with sake saw it essentially poured into a shot glass (probably wrongly to) but this was a very large pour. I approached it with some trepidation because like most things, there’s good quality sake and poor quality as well. It turned out to be delicious. After a little while Sam joined in and actually had a bit of a conversation with them which resulted in us finding out another word they knew … present. They gifted the family three small bottles of sake to take with us. Throughout the whole exchange though it wasn’t quite clear whether the guy was trying to ascertain whether we thought the woman was attractive, trying to set her up with one of us or maybe just trying to sell her. Sam seemed to think that she was perhaps lonely, didn’t have a lot of friends and he was trying to help her out. We never quiet established what the relationship between them was. Again, according to Sam, they offered to show us around that night because they guy had grown up in the area we were staying in. We didn’t take them up on the offer as it would basically have subjected Sam to even more interpreting than he’d already been doing. Based on what we saw though it would have been a boozy night!

Having conquered and won at lunch, we headed off to team labs where we had a great time exploring the exhibits. 

I’d certainly recommend it if you’re in Tokyo and looking for something to do.

One of the things I’ve had on my list of ‘want to do in Tokyo’ is to go go-karting through the streets. A friend had done it around the time of our first trip and the Telfords did it during our last trip, but this was the first time that Emily has been old enough and licensed enough to do it. Unfortunately, because of COVID and the size of our assault on Tokyo, booking everyone in one go wasn’t ever going to happen. The most they’d take at once was four, so we’ve split ourselves over three groups. Today was the day for the first group; Michael, Olivia, Samuel and Emily. So after getting out of team labs we headed back to Akihabara to drop them off to go-kart.

While the first four were lucky enough to explore Tokyo on four very small wheels, the last three of us met up with a friend of Tom’s who was on his last day in Tokyo. We went through BIC camera quickly in search of some whiskey to bring home. That was accomplished and then we headed out to find some dinner ahead of the impending Rowland invasion. We found a ramen joint with zero English where you selected your meal outside and paid via vending machine to produce a ticket. It wasn’t the greatest meal I’ve ever had in Japan, nor was it the worse and it did what it was supposed to do and filled us up. Unfortunately Thomas’ friend had some sort of medical issue and after an extended trip to the bathroom announced he had food lodged in his throat and would need to seek medical attention! He didn’t appear particularly distressed, but at the same time, we were a little worried and sent Tom with him while Caroline and I headed back to meet up with the Rowlands who had made it to Tokyo.

We met them at the hotel and took them down the road for dinner at a local little family restaurant and the settled I for our first combined assault on the land of the rising sun. Oh and we did receive notification that Finn had managed to dislodge the food stuck in his throat without medical intervention much to our collective relief!