Tokyo, March 19th: After eating a hearty breakfast of chicken with sesame oil, rice with chicken and scrambled eggs, tofu, and a rolled egg as well as fruit. The chicken with scrambled eggs are so good, the eggs are juicy and with the rice it created a great flavor. Soon after that, our tour started again. The first destination was the emperors palace, as in the descendant of the emperor of Tokyo. the architecture of the house is super surreal, you see NOTHING like it in America. Our tour guide was telling us how samurais are no longer and thing and vanished because of the modernization of Japan back in the 19th Century.

After 20 minutes of admiring the view and the house, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. This place is bustling with plants, we did go in a colder weather, so there weren’t as much Sakura trees. However, there was a greenhouse next to the park and that had a humid climate for many plants that couldn’t survive in the cold. There were some Sakura trees, but most of them bloom in April. It kind of reminded me of the butterfly palace that is up in Branson Missouri. Some many different types of plants were in the greenhouse, even cactuses which was a surprise to see in Japan. Sort of like seeing a palm tree in Japan. I highly recommend to come to this garden though, especially in the right time where there are many Sakura trees. Super Instagrammable and super pretty to just chill and have a picnic, which is what a lot of people were doing.

Seeing all of these people eating food and looking at the view also made me hungry. We headed towards Ahikabara (which is the section known for electronic stores and anime) and went inside the biggest electronic store, Yodobashi, which was 10 stories high filled from head to toe in TVs, fridges, iPhones, etc. The only downside were the amount of escalators you had to go up if you wanted to go to the top, which housed all of the restaurants in the store. The things about escalators here are people all stand on the left side and give people in a rush to have the open right side. Which I personally thought was super clever. We got some lunch at Soba Dining Rinya, (I hope that’s right) where I got myself some chicken karaage, that I shared with my little sister. (If I hadn’t explained before, I traveled with family and family friends). I got myself tempura rice (because I love my shrimp) and it came with a side of ramen, and my sister just got some ramen. After eating dinner and leaving the huge department store, after my little sister found a clothing store on the 9th floor and had a little shopping spree, we explored the grounds next to the store. There was a doughnut shop called Jack in the doughnuts that sold the cutest doughnuts in the world. I got a doughnut that had a layer of white chocolate over it that was mixed in blue food dye to create a marble effect.

I was stuffed after lunch and the sun was slowly setting into evening. Afterwards we found the Statue of Liberty when we were exploring a little bit more of Tokyo and that was a little bit of a surprise to me.

Realizing we were getting late for our appointment at Team Labs, which is this interactive museum to one’s wildest imaginations. I loved this museum. It was super fun and it was such a great place for photos with my sister, because honestly I don’t have ANY good photos of my sister. For this experience you have to be barefoot (no socks including) and if you want to come, be advice not to wear a skirt because some of the rooms have mirrored floors as well as long pants. Otherwise you would have to rent some shorts, that are free, but if you want good pictures those shorts would ruin the whole thing. The first thing you’re welcomed to is a hallway lit with blue lights. It slowly leads to an upward hill of rushing water. Which is why socks are not allowed. The hill slowly levels up to a floor with water, which is not that high barely surpassing your toes.

Afterwards there is a room filled with towels to wipe your feet with once you’re done. Later on when you keep walking there’s a room, we will call it Bean Bag room, that is a huge room filled with a fluffy pillow like floor, it seems as if you’re walking over a huge bean bag, hence the name of the room. Next you’re introduced to the Led lights that look like stars room. This room was one of my favorites for the room was head to toe filled with LED Lights that changed colors and created a little maze for you to find the next room. The room was surrounded by mirrors, which is probably why it looked like a huge maze when really it’s only a few paths to walk on.

After exiting this room there is a hallway that has different textures of carpets on the floor for your feet to have a little fiesta. This hallway leads to a room, fish room, FILLED with water up to your knees, that have fish and flowers projected onto the water to make it seem like a pond. This was one of my favorite rooms because of how warm the water was and how calming it was to see these projected fish swim past you. There were two doorframes, one leading to the next room and the towel room to wipe your feet and legs dry as well as another doorframe that lead to a room with water that looked like lasers.

Next up is the bubble room, a room completely filled with big bubbles to have fun and kick around. But don’t actually kick them around you could hurt someone. The whole room changes colors and when the room changes, the big bubbles change as well. It was nice to come down and prep for the next room, because this room was nothing to miss. In fact this room was so peaceful I laid there for a good 20 minutes. The next room is flowers falling in space towards you. It’s this room of flowers falling into your face as if you’re floating through space and time, honestly, it reminded me so much of the Artechouse in New York City.

Then you’re lead out and back into the locker rooms where you put your shoes away. However, it’s not over yet because there are two sides of the building, one leads to everything that I have described, and the other leads to another hallway that shows two other rooms. One of those rooms is the nice and cool mossy room that is located outside. The last room is a room filled with flowers that are hanging from the ceiling. There is this mechanism that moves the flowers up and down to make it seem like they’re swaying and when you first enter you have to crawl under the flowers and lay there and wait until the mechanism lifts the flowers up for you to stand.

After all the fun photos we took at Lap Planets, it was time to head back and eat some food. Again, there was a mall right next to our hotel, so we found a ramen place called Golden Ramen and ate there. It was some of the best ramen ever. Soon after that I fell right asleep in my hotel room and waited for tomorrow’s exciting morning when we would be heading towards Kyoto.