Day 4 begins with a really sketchy meetup just outside Tokyo Station, with a tour guide who’s holding a pink plushy heart for us to identify her by…

I was actually concerned enough that I shared my location with the gang on Discord, and my sister in the “Find My…” app.

Suffice to say – the tour did start off shaky, but we were ok! We were underway to some destinations near the foot of Mt. Fuji – at this time of year, it was too cold to go up the mountain itself and in fact it’s banned for tour groups at this time of year due to how risky it is. Experienced climbers would have to privately organise their own climbs if they wanted to.

About 90 minutes out from Tokyo, we started to see signs of Mt. Fuji – and honestly, it’s gorgeous. I didn’t expect it to affect me, but seeing such a huge mountain physically in the distance from me is very different from looking at a picture of it.

I can see why the ancients worshiped this mountain.

There were four destinations we’d be visiting – taking us about 12 hours for the day:

• Gassho Village
• Oishi Park
• Oshino Hakkai
• Arakurayama Sengen Park

There was a slight change in the destinations due to one of them being under maintenance after some weather damage. Still, we were promised that there were still plenty of beautiful locations and photo opportunities for us 🙂

Gassho Village

Our first stop – there was a nice crisp gentle breeze – interestingly there were stands and stalls with Fuji apples, Taiyaki, and other goods for sale. There was even a Halal uh… Kebab shop available! 😅 We were definitely in a tourist trap. It wasn’t horrible, but I at least, personally felt a bit silly with the village. I twas nice to look at the layout of the village – but our tour guide let slip that it was a rebuilt village after being destroyed by a large landslide in the 90s; so now no one was allowed to live there, only work there as a tourist spot.

Still, we weren’t going to discount everything and it was nice to see how things “used to be”.

We took a look around, and ended up buying a couple snacks – a Taiyaki, and a Fuji apple (because of course, Fuji apples at Mt. Fuji!)

The apple was, ok! It actually hit the spot – although it didn’t feel as nice texture wise as the Fuji apples we get in Australia 😂

On to our next stop!

Oishi Park

This was by Lake Kawaguchiko it offered honestly GORGEOUS views of Mt. Fuji – but was PACKED with people from other tour busses. I managed to pick up a souvenir for my sister (a Fuji-san Carabiner Mug) and Annie and I managed to take some lovely photos together.

And of course, for a laugh – I had a “senior moment” and accidentally snapped myself with a selfie shot while trying to use my phone camera…

Our group was doing pretty well, and our next destination we would be able to stop by for a bit, and have lunch! So we were pretty eager to move on…

Oshino Hakkai

Oshino Hakkai was a another traditional village area – with a more modern part attached where people actually lived this time round.

The village itself was home to several aquifers that were fresh spring water sources, fed by the snow melting from Mt. Fuji and more. It was apparently safe to drink (we didn’t try) – and there were beautiful ponds with Koi as well.

Again, there were so many people here. So many tour busses and it was impossible to not notice that the overwhelming majority of the tourists were people speaking Mandarin.

There were a couple restaurants and eateries that were available, but the pricing was ridiculous (Sydney restaurant prices for very small plates of what looked like food I’d make back in university). So we opted to grab some snacks to power us on to dinner from the nearby Lawson.

Filled bellies, and a little stressed from the insane crowds of this place – we headed back to the bus a few minutes early. With so many people in the way, I can only imagine how frustrated the locals are. Multiple times a car had to move through the main street and hundreds of people had to move out of the way, same with the small farm workers nearby having to see all of us plaguing the area of their beautiful village, it made me feel a little bit self conscious.

I hope they continue to have and enjoy their beautiful region, and tourism doesn’t ruin the area.

We moved on to our next destination, and honestly we were pretty tired at this point. Meet up was at 7am, so it was an early start, and we’d done a lot of walking around!

Arakurayama Sengen Park

We actually stopped by a shrine, and observation deck here – and again, it was in a residential area. I couldn’t help but feel we were really intruding.

Annie and I were pretty tired and really just wanted to go to the bathroom, so we made the climb to the first level – and BOY it was a steep climb. Exhausting!

We were also greeted by the most horrifyingly dirty toilets we’d ever experienced in Japan, hands down, without question.

We were buggered, and I ended up not actually taking any photos of Mt. Fuji from the shrine’s view. I did however, take a photo of the Shrine. I’m not particularly religious, but I am spiritual, and didn’t want to do what I felt might intrude on what people might feel about this place. So I took a quick snap from a distance, and we went back to the bus to wait in the warmth (at this point it was VERY chilly in the wind, and I think Annie might’ve chilled herself and caught a cold 🙁 ).

Finally, it was time to head back to Tokyo – it was becoming late evening, and I think everyone on the bus was snoozing quite a bit 🙂

Back to Tokyo (Tokyo Station)

Once we got back, it was a pretty lovely evening view of Tokyo Station – admittedly it was SUPER COLD (about 3°C) – and we were hurrying around looking for something to eat.

A Journaling Shop!

On the way, we found the Traveler’s Factory Station store in Tokyo Station; and it was amazing! I spent so much money there, picking up just about everything to explore the product line. I’m very much into journaling (particularly bullet journaling, and logging my life like with this blog! 😂)

It’s a fairly recent hobby and only started around Christmas time in 2020. Although to some varying degree, I have been blogging on this site in one incarnation or another since 2016. And earlier than that well… it’s all lost to the void. I’m trying to piece together things from earlier, but really it’s a project that’ll be ranted about in another post for another time 🙂

I was a bit absent minded from exhaustion at this point in the day, and forgot to take photos of the cute little store itself, and only managed to snap a couple shots of products (despite buying nearly the entire store).

I ended up spending something close to $380 AUD on stuff from Traveler’s Factory.

Dinner: Kamukura Ramen

We stopped by Kamukura Ramen – finally ticking off something the list that I wanted to show Annie 🙂 it’s a favourite amongst the Only Snacks gang – so it was great to try it out in Tokyo station, the seating was comfortable and the food was soothing. 8.5/10

We were pretty buggered, and the winter chill had finally started to get to us, so that was the end of Day 4, we headed on back to the hotel for a big rest 🙂

Day 2 continues! This is definitely the highlight of my trip – oddly enough, I don’t consider myself a massive Harry Potter fan, but I do love the movies and the universe, products (merch) and experiences tied to it. In the same way that I’m a Star Wars fan – Harry Potter is a franchise that has captured at least part of my imagination!

Just a word of warning – this blog post is definitely photo and video heavy! Please enjoy ♥ everything in it is clickable for a larger size photo

Straight out of the station, we were greeted by a Patronus, so we knew we were in the right place!

The gates were tall iron gates too, keeping out the riff raff. Security was surprisingly tight at the studios – I suppose because of all the authentic, original set pieces, etc.

Walking in, we had to go through metal detectors, bag searches (strictly no extended selfie sticks allowed) and a few other checks, which was very surprising actually…! All under the watchful eye of a dragon (it’s the one that chased Harry, I forget what it’s called)

The tour was actually suggested as being about 5 hours long, which at first, was difficult to believe, but they really meant it when they told us – the tour is FULL of stuff to see, and learn about. To quote the celebrities in the intro video “It’s a love letter to all things about creating the movies and stories from the Wizarding World”.

Beginning the Tour…

There’s only an intro cinematic we’re all forced to watch where they go over some rules about photography (there’s a couple of zones we can’t take photos in) – and then the tour begins. You start by watching things on a cinema screen (which you can’t record of course) – then the screen moves up to reveal the ACTUAL doors to the Great Hall in Hogwarts used in the movies – I asked a nearby staff member and these aren’t the actual doors from the movie sets, but the Great Hall beyond it, IS one of the two actual Great Hall sets used. It’s even real sandstone, I was gobsmacked.

And it was obviously gob-smacking walking through this… (no YouTube upload this time!)

There was a strong focus on the architecture of the movies – with such grand vistas, and epic set pieces, of course – there were SO many whitebox concept models and other things that helped directors, actors and crew alike visualise how they were putting things together, or framing shots, etc.

It was incredibly fascinating checking everything out and there’s FAR too many photos to show off. Here’s a select few especially surrounding the magical staircases at Hogwarts’ student accommodations.

The house common rooms – consisted of actual pieces from the sets – these were NOT recreations.

Annie and I were sorted into house Slytherin actually, so it’s been interesting seeing parts of it across the sets, and merchandise, etc.

I definitely need to buy Annie a Slytherin school cloak 😏

For the Quidditch fans, there was a lot of stuff surrounding the games, and the brooms used in Quidditch.

There was an entire costume section too on the characters both from the Harry Potter series and the Fantastic Beasts series. I wish I had taken more pictures, but due to lighting it was nearly impossible to get photos without the reflections of everybody appearing in the glass. It’s truly awesome seeing the costumes and the styles they designed for various characters, factions and regions in the Potterverse.

Anyone that knows me, is aware that I’m a fan of books, bookbindings, and all such things. We got to see a few pieces in detail, as well as the set pieces used in scenes involving Hermione doing research at times.

And of course, there was an actual costume for He Who Shall Not be Named as well! (1:1 Ralph Fiennes mannequin!)

A break in the tour: halfway point & butter beer!

A brisk, swift walk through the creepy forest bit with Dementors, Spiders and Centaurs (none of which Annie appreciated haha) and we found ourselves at an intermission area, with Hagrid’s hut, and a quick chance to try out some “authentic” Butter Beer.

It was a nice little break! I got to drink Butter Beer, and collect a few mugs for some friends back in Sydney as well 🙂

After a short break – we were ducked into a hall – that had the Hogwarts’ Express. In full size, from the movie sets. Again, this wasn’t a reproduction either, and it was stunning to see at life size – the train itself isn’t actually at full scale of a real train surprisingly, this is one of the ones made for distance shots in the film. Filming and photography wasn’t allowed on board, sadly.

At the end of the train platform/yard building – you take a turn, and get gobsmacked with this…

This again, was not a recreation – but some of the set pieces have been adjoined together due to space constraints. This was part of the Ministry of Magic set, and honestly, jaw dropping.

Further beyond, we got to see Diagon Alley! Some parts of the set were brought in and assembled here too

The amount of detailing that’d gone into the sets, with signwriting, books, ALL the detritus in the film, all of it was made to a fairly high level of authenticity. It was stunning to see!

I’m an enjoyer of maps, coins, medallions, books – anything with sentimental “core memory” triggering properties for me, I try to collect. And now that I’ve seen the above photo of the Marauder’s map again – I think I won’t put up the one I have at home just yet, but rather I should encase it similarly to how it is here – so I’ll need an extra map or two.

The grand finale of the tour

You finally come to a large, darkened hall – and honestly it’s just… so impressive, there’s a full scale model of Hogwarts that they used for concepts and visualization. The model itself was used in the movies as well! This was the absolute finale to the tour, with a catwalk that spirals the model, before leading back to the main food hall, merchandising stores, and entry hall.

We made it! We saw the tour, and it was bright and sunny when we went in, and pitch black night when we went out! The merch store after the tour and the dining hall itself – is an additional hour, EASILY if you’re planning to buy stuff (we did) and look at stuff, in addition to eating food!

Highly, highly recommended, this tour was one of the two highlights of the trip for me (the other being a Mt. Fuji tour!) – and it was a joy seeing all the behind the scenes stuff. I hadn’t even included all the pictures for this of things like the VFX section, the Foley Artists section, sound and audio combinations, the animatronics, and more!

Truly a must see, if you make it Tokyo 🙂

The images in this post are all clickable to show a larger version! So please feel free to 🙂

Day 2 of our trip was busy busy busy! So busy in fact, that I’m splitting it across multiple blog entries. This post is essentially Day 2, Part 1.

We started our day heading towards the Azabudai Hills district of Tokyo – a new sort of “business park” full of skyscrapers and art; it was actually a stunningly beautiful, almost Cyberpunk 2077 vibe to the place.

Within a shopping complex attached to the station we found ourselves at our destination: TeamLabs Borderless – an art installation involving interactive, digital art pieces that provided a sensory experience to you! I had been to the TeamLabs Planets exhibition previously last year in May 2023, so I was very excited to see what was in store for us here. And straight off the bat, it looked like it was going to be special.

We weren’t greeted with some intense chlorine hammer to the head because of an introductory water feature (in Planets) — so thankfully we stowed our stuff away in the locker room, and proceeded into the project!

It’s hard to sort of capture how 360-degree the displays of art are. They grow, they change over time, some of them even move from room to room!

There were flowers that would shed their petals and float past us on gusts of wind, and you could follow the river of these petals flying past across different rooms. You’d see hints of creatures or little different animations here and there, it was a seriously “wondrous” experience that started prepping my mind for “what amazing things could happen” next.

The whole exhibition was very much a pleasure to see – even with all the people moving around, it didn’t feel overcrowded. They did a great job maximizing the space they had with a huge maze-like layout.

Some of the artwork had more than a connection to nature and took on more of a mystique – almost shamanistic symbolism used through pieces heavily inspired by calligraphy.

Definitely hypnotic – it’s like being immersed in a really cool screensaver (go 90s kids 😃😂)

Throughout the exhibition, you can hear crystalline sounds, in the background constantly, and you start to feel drawn to a centralised room that honestly, video won’t do it justice, but I’ll call it the “Lightfall” room. Reminiscent of a giant waterfall of light – the room changes and reacts to users standing in it, with lights, and patterns moving around them at times.

There’s way too many exhibits for me to run through – but there’s a few more highlights that were really awesome. The infinite marbles, the fish tank exhibit, and the tea house!

Throughout the Borderless exhibition – there’s heaps of nooks and crannies, with hidden doorways that lead to other exhibits and more – it’s amazing, and a very clever use of the space they have. The exhibition in total took Annie and I about 4.5 hours of wandering around to explore – and through one particular single doorway, we ended up wandering into this…

What could only be described as a clash of The Song of the Spheres meets a giant Rube Goldberg machine in a hall of mirrors that REALLY gave off the infinite hallway effect.

There was just so much happening all at once, everyone that walked into this piece, immediately slowed down as it was so disorienting. It truly evoked a feeling of being a small spec in a space that just had…. the universe happening around you!

I was gobsmacked. The spheres that moved around on rails reacted to when people were focused on them, lighting up or dimming as they moved around these rails. Staff were careful, and delightfully unobtrusive as they watched us all completely speechlessly spend our time here. Annie and I spent probably a good 40 minutes in this exhibit just following the orbs and looking around. DEFINITELY the highlight of the exhibit for me.

Occasionally, the shifting colours would dim to a sudden pitch black, for about half a second. And honestly that void would accelerate my heart rate – I have thalassophobia, a fear of the great deep endless blue ocean. This inky blackness somehow made my hyperactive imagination picture that there was some sort of dark leviathan in the dark. I would definitely lose my marbles (heh) in space.

We eventually made our way out and wandered to where a large number of kids and other attendees were making some noise. It was a cute sort of fish tank exhibit that seemed to be some sort of digital animation across it – very Spongebob-esque and a great change from the mystique of the marble madness exhibit prior.

The fish tank exhibit was a large room that showed off artwork that attendees to the display had drawn and filled out.

The artwork then gets scanned and you can watch it float around the fish tank alongside everyone else’s creations from that day!

Annie made a cute drawing of us as a Squid!

It was fun hanging out in the fish tank looking at everyone’s art pieces – I’m glad I decided to take the plunge and wait and actually interact with the exhibit, instead of just “looking at it” and moving on, which I tend to usually do. A huge thank you to Annie for egging me on to do it, it’s a core memory on the trip.

The teahouse – was phenomenal. It was a little dear for some icecream and some tea (about $20 AUD per head) – but the food is placed along a large U shaped counter that everyone sat at. A set of light tracked projectors overhead would find the food, and show botanical effects around the food.

Scoops of ice cream became seeds for plants, and bowls of tea became ponds for lilies and other flowers to bloom, their petals scattering to the wind when you moved the bowls to take a drink.

I have a few more videos with the effects but I’ve held off posting them publicly as they have conversation in them and we weren’t the only ones in the tea house.

Going to Japan soon? Check out TeamLabs Borderless!

It’s an incredible experience. One of the most intriguing experiences I’ve ever had – it’s as much a core memory of mine as the Village Bizarre exhibitions that The Rocks in Sydney used to have (this eventually grew into the event we now know as Vivid Sydney).

It’s a much more intimate, intense, and expressive exhibition than the city-wide Vivid expo, and the wonder, expression and passion of the artists and developers behind Borderless truly shines.

It was such an amazing experience, that I even forgot that one of the exhibits wasn’t even available due to maintenance – so I’ve got something to look forward to again in November, 2025 when I am back in Japan again 😂