On my last day in Japan I try to sleep in. I know I should make the best of it, try to see and experience as much as possible, but I am tired. And anxious.
But I can’t sleep, so eventually I get up. I pack my stuff. Liquids and foods here, electronics there and at 10 AM I am finally ready to check out. I leave my luggage in the lockers provided and farewell the dinosaurs.
I have tickets to teamLab Biovortex at 11.30 AM, so I don’t want to go far. I see Shosei-en Garden nearby on the map and decide to walk to it.
Watching the trains enter and leave Kyoto Station makes me wish I’d got up earlier and gone down to Uji or elsewhere. Too late now.
The garden, which costs 700 yen for an adult to visit, is pleasant without being especially special. There are a number of reception halls and a tea house, but none of them are open for use, such as a tea service. A few areas are also under maintenance, such as the wooden Shinsetu-kyo bridge.
Most visitors are elderly Japanese photographers with big lenses.
I am in a bit of a rush anyway. After completing a circuit I walk back to the other side of the train tracks to the teamLab Biovortex centre, a low big grey building on a backstreet.
This is the second teamLab exhibition of the trip and my fifth overall. Each has a different theme. Biovortex includes elements of each of the other indoor centres and adds some unique new exhibits.
There are walls of projected flowers, others where, if you touch a kanji character, it explodes into its meaning, such as rainbows, trees or butterflies. The hanging LED strips on the mirrored floor and ceiling are familiar, but I love that sense of infinity, as if you could be looking at many worlds from one place.
The vortex room is a highlight, clear plastic balls that swirl around you, gathering in vortices, dispersing, lit up with varying colours. Another room has clouds of soap bubbles foam. You can purchase disposable rain coats and shoe covers if you like. I didn’t bother.
There are other rooms of baubles and another with bigger inflatable balls.
Wear sensible covered shoes. A room has a thin layer of water in it with a vibrating floor that causes the patterns to scatter rainbow light.
I don’t don boots for a walk through colourful oil, but it looks like those who do have fun.
There are monoliths surrounded by moss gardens with light and water effects. Two sketch areas where crayon drawings come to life in the sea and on the land. There are physical activities, some restricted by age. I didn’t find them that fun, but younger kids might. Some of these are familiar from the temporary teamLab exhibition in Singapore’s ArtScience Museum when we visited.
Overall, I would still rate Planets and Borderless over Biovortex, but perhaps there’s an element of novelty missing for me now. It is still worth visiting.
It is only a short walk from Biovortex to my hotel to collect my luggage. I’ve got about an hour left before I catch the Haruka train to Kansai International Airport.
I just had a bowl of mandarin almond jelly for breakfast and it is almost two thirty. But with my flight nerves I am not particularly hungry. I buy a couple of buns and a small Bento box to eat on the train.
This is it, my last train in Japan for this trip and it’s the Haruka. I can’t be bothered to count the number of journeys I’ve had on it during the past few weeks but it’s a lot. This is an older train without power to the seats, which is a pity because my devices are running flat.
I half pay attention outside, eat some of my bento and throw the rest, sleep, write, sleep, stare. Looking outside just reminds me of how much more I want to see and experience of Japan. But I also want to go home to see my family. I just wish there wasn’t a flight in between.
