Putting the "Art" in Artificial!

First of all...sorry for the lame title. But just know I was very close to calling this post "Pat-TRASH-a ART-quette." So consider yourself lucky.

Anyway, Keith and I have been doing/seeing a lot of stupid things since our arrival in Tokyo...

...so today I wanted to change gears a little bit and try to do something with a little bit of culture. Tonight, we will be dining at a high-end, fancy sushi place, and for our day-time adventure, I managed to score us some very exclusive tickets to opening day of a brand new museum on the island of Odaiba!

According to Wikipedia, Odaiba is a man-made, artificial island...and a little more research will show that this is an island that is made from a foundation of garbage.

Yes, garbage.

But atop that floating garbage heap is a pile of crazy, including Japan's own miniature version of the Statue of Liberty...

...because obviously.

To get to Odaiba, we took the train to the Tokyo Teleport Station...

...which seems like an oxymoron. But whatever.

Keith and I then found our way toward this new museum (via a weird Toyota showroom thing) where I was ready to present my very exclusive opening-day tickets...

...which apparently weren't as exclusive as I thought.

The line may have been long, but we were only in it for 45 minutes.

Of course, during those 45 minutes, I began to spiral. What if this thing is terrible? What if we hate it? What is art? Who is art? We are on Garbage Island--what if we become The Garbage? Would that be art? WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO US?

In my defense, I may have still been drunk from the Park Hyatt Hotel last night.

...

Did I mention how amazing the toilet was there? Because holy crap.

Anyway, before our grand entrance into the museum, a very nice docent gave a very long speech which we didn't understand one syllable of...

Pictured on right, me. And also Keith.

Please note: We did not rent shoes.

...but we could assume it had something to do with this overall message:

Finally, the curtain was pulled back and were allowed to enter our destination: The brand-new Mori Building Digital Art Museum: Epson teamLab Borderless experience.

And then...our minds were blown.

We walked into a fully-immersive digital world filled with gorgeous lights, scene-work and mind-blowing digital trickery. It was, quite literally, breathtaking. I would go so far as to call it breadthtaking.™

I've never seen anything like it. Words really won't do it justice... (not even "Breadthtaking") ...and the pictures won't either, but here are some anyway:

After the initial jaw-dropping room...

...we found our way into the "Crystal Room," which was made up of a series of mirrors and colored lights that you'd really have to see to believe...

Perhaps some video will help...

...perhaps it will not.

There were other experiences to explore here, too, including a room that felt like it was spinning, but was actually just an optical illusion that made both Keith and I nearly fall...

...and a super-fun slide...

...which also made me nearly fall.

Speaking of falling, there was also a very real rope bridge to cross over a digital space field...

...which, again, created much falling.

All in all...

...the museum was filled with gorgeous gorgeousness, like this room filled with ridiculous bouncing light-up thingies...