TeamLab Planets quickly made a name for itself after opening its doors in 2018. It holds the Guinness World Record for the most-visited museum dedicated to a single group or artist, bringing in more than 2.5 million visitors from April 2023 to March 2024.
A popular second location in Tokyo, known as teamLab Borderless, focuses on digital art.
Both museums were launched by teamLab, an international art collective that includes artists, animators, engineers, mathematicians, and architects among its specialists. Together, they work to “explore the relationship between the self and the world,” according to the museum’s website, although global brand director Takashi Kudo said they have an even bigger goal.
“If these exhibitions cannot reach an emotional height, then we have failed,” he told The New York Times in 2024. “We have to reach people’s hearts.”
As is the case for many couples, travel has always been the magic ingredient that bonds my husband and me. We are both seekers, curious sorts bordering on downright nosy, so delving into a new destination is a shared passion.
During our honeymoon — my first-ever international trip — we traipsed through Rome, Florence, and Venice. I was absolutely smitten. In the years since, my husband and I criss-crossed the world together, with our son often in tow. But our globetrotting ways took a back seat when our kid started high school. Gone were the days we could simply pull him from classes for a jet-setting adventure, and he was still too young to be left home alone.
That son is now a college sophomore. He’s settled into campus life, while we’ve navigated our empty nest. As we approached our 25th wedding anniversary, my husband and I knew it was time to get back out there in a big way, together.
We first had a big decision to make
The first thing we needed to do was decide on our travel itinerary. This became an exercise in compromise.
I lobbied for Morocco: visions of dreamy riads, the desert’s golden light, and romantic scenes from the film “Casablanca” filled my imagination.
My husband had another plan, a complete 180 from what I had in mind. Japan topped his list, and for all the great reasons you’d expect: the food, the history, the art, and of course, the culture. The good news is all of those things interest me as well, so it didn’t take much to shift my mindset.
We immediately booked our plane tickets to Tokyo and planned a side trip to Kyoto. Morocco can wait; we’ll get there eventually.
Japan was everything we expected it to be
We marveled at the immersive, trippy art in Azabudai Hills, respectfully offered prayers at historic temples, and strolled through immaculate gardens. We savored an incredible 14-course omakase dinner. We survived the famed Shibuya Scramble and sipped green-hued matcha-infused beer at the top of Tokyo City View. We fumbled through buying our Shinkansen tickets at a busy kiosk, marveling at the views aboard the famed bullet train.
The author and her husband loved traveling throughout Japan.
Courtesy of Erika Ebsworth-Goold
Neither of us speaks Japanese. Throughout our trip, we relied on each other and solved problems together.
We were most gratified to realize we still enjoyed each other’s company.
We loved trying new experiences as empty nesters
While an empty nest might make for a quieter existence, it doesn’t necessarily change everyday household stress or schedules. Let’s face it: the daily grind can become tedious even for the most committed couples. But our holiday restored the shine that day-to-day routines tend to dull.
The drastic change of scenery Japan provided was a welcome jolt, giving me the confidence to step far outside my own comfort zone on our final day. When I discovered our Kyoto hotel had an on-site onsen, I decided to take a dip. For the record: my husband declined the chance to hit up the men’s facilities, but told me to go for it.
As is tradition, bathing suits are not allowed in the mineral spring spas. I had to take the waters just like anyone else, in the buff. I’d successfully navigated temples, shrines, mysterious foods, and massive crowds.
And guess what? I survived the onsen, too, in the nude. No regrets.
Being empty nesters redefined our relationship
I’ve come to realize that our empty nest is actually a wonderful opportunity. My husband and I have the time and freedom to redefine ourselves. The primary focus is no longer raising our child: that heavy lifting is pretty much done. We can now redirect a lot of that energy back to our relationship.
Travel has always connected us and refilled our collective tank; our journey to Japan was proof that it still does. It reminded me of all the reasons I was drawn to my husband in the first place. We remain a great team, especially on the go, half a world away.
Experiencing a new place with my best friend is a thrill, one that allows us to keep creating new life chapters and memories together.
I’m already itching to pack my bags again. Where to next?
After a two-week trip in 2015, my husband and I came home completely hooked on Japan.
Reliability was the baseline; trains ran with a clockwork precision that transformed the daily commute into an exercise in discovery. We fell for the profound sense of safety that allowed small children to navigate the streets alone, the atmosphere of the neighborhood shrines, and the level of public order that made everything back home feel chaotic by comparison.
What began as a simple holiday evolved into a total life reset that would take over the next eight years of our lives. We decided Japan wasn’t just a spot to visit but the place we would raise our family.
We stopped saving for the “someday” dream of homeownership in New Zealand and instead invested in the present, putting our money toward several return trips to Japan to scout our new life.
In preparation for our move abroad, we researched local customs and dedicated ourselves to intensive language study. My husband and I enrolled in university-level courses, while we arranged private tutoring for our daughter to give her the best possible start.
We convinced ourselves that if we planned carefully enough, nothing would catch us off guard. By the time the move finally happened in 2023, my husband and I, along with my daughter, felt ready for anything.
We assumed the hardest part would be the logistics of moving and that first wave of culture shock. After two and a half years of actually living here, I’ve learned we weren’t even close.
You cannot plan for a change in identity
My husband and I spent almost a whole decade preparing to move to Japan.
Kerri King
I’ve always liked to feel prepared and in control, which is probably why it took me eight years to feel ready to leave New Zealand.
Before we moved, I researched everything I could think of, from how Japan’s specialized health clinics differed from our general practices in New Zealand to the specific paperwork required for city office registrations.
I watched vlogs of people sharing their grocery hauls in Tokyo, noting the prices of staples like milk and eggs, and read blog posts detailing a day in the life of expats in Japan.
Talk of culture shock and language barriers didn’t scare me, as practical problems often have practical solutions. What I couldn’t have anticipated was how living abroad would make me feel like an imposter.
On the surface, I looked confident and capable, sharing photos of our newest adventures with friends and family on social media. In reality, even small, daily interactions left me panicked and second-guessing myself.
My heart would race whenever someone asked me a question, and I couldn’t find the words to respond.
I felt embarrassed every time I had to rely on Google Translate at the supermarket or to make sense of yet another form. A parcel even sat on my bedroom floor, undelivered, for six months because I was too intimidated to figure out the local post-office process.
For someone who built her identity around independence, constantly needing help from others felt frustrating and humiliating.
Being the parent at school who needed things repeated, the customer holding up the line, or the one relying on her husband to translate slowly chipped away at my confidence.
Living without a support system is harder than I thought
As much as we love Japan, it’s tough to be far from home.
Kerri King
That same fierce independence I’d always been proud of also meant I didn’t prioritize building a support network when we arrived in Japan.
I assumed friendships would happen the way they always had — through school events, casual chats, and repeated proximity. I figured I’d naturally end up grabbing coffee with a few people, even if the coffee wasn’t quite as good as New Zealand’s.
It turns out friendships are harder to build when language and cultural barriers sit between every conversation.
So instead, I buried myself in work and told myself I was too busy to socialize. Our family travelled most weekends, which made it easy to stay occupied and harder to admit I felt lonely.
The few friends I have made, I love dearly. However, deep friendships take time, and life feels heavier when you don’t have someone nearby to lean on.
That absence felt sharpest when my grandmother passed away in 2024, and I couldn’t show up for my family. I wasn’t able to cook meals for my mum, sit with my grandfather, or say goodbye properly.
Grieving from afar isn’t something you can really plan for; you realize too late that a final goodbye is gated behind a 14-hour flight and a four-figure plane ticket.
Despite the small four-hour time difference, the geography of our new life meant I was out of reach when it mattered most.
Japan has made our lives easier in many practical ways. We save money, travel more, and have access to high-quality medical care whenever we need it.
However, all the convenience and travel in the world can’t replace community.
Even our best expectations didn’t survive real life
Japan gave us the frictionless life we dreamed of, but I’ve learned that convenience is a poor substitute for a sense of community.
Kerri King
Before we moved, we thought we’d covered the language gap: My husband completed a four-year Japanese degree, our daughter grew up exposed to the language, and I studied as much as I could.
We assumed that would be enough to get by, and from a practical point of view, it is. I can grocery shop, book appointments, and navigate daily life without much trouble.
However, existing within a community is not the same as belonging in one. At parent meetings and school events, conversations move too quickly for me to follow, and I rarely feel able to contribute anything meaningful.
Over time, I realized language wasn’t the only barrier to belonging.
Understanding the system’s gears didn’t mean I knew how to be one of them. I understood that Japan prioritizes the group over the individual, but adapting to this is a lot harder in practice.
Every time I asked school staff for an exception for my daughter — a quiet corner during assembly or permission for her to wear her noise-cancelling headphones during music classes — the smiles across the table turned thin and rigid. There was no argument, just a heavy, polite wall of silence that told me I’d stepped out of bounds.
It left me in an impossible spot: I was fighting to get her the support she needed, but by speaking up, I was highlighting the very differences I was trying to help her navigate.
Japan has still given us the life we planned for, just not in the ways we expected. Now, we have to decide if the life we worked eight years to build is worth the community we’re living without.
Since moving to Tokyo last year, my friends back in New York have made a habit of sending me viral posts about Japan. That’s how I first learned about Punch, the baby monkey abandoned by his mother and now cared for by zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo, east of Tokyo.
Videos of Punch — a 7-month-old Japanese macaque — clinging to an Ikea orangutan have racked up millions of views on TikTok. The hashtag #HangInTherePunch has gone viral.
Javier Quiñones, commercial manager at Ingka Group, which operates Ikea stores worldwide, told Business Insider that Ikea has seen sales of the Djungelskog orangutan toy increase.
“The toy has long been one of our most sought-after across markets, and the story from Japan is now giving it a little extra love,” he said.
It took Hashimoto 2 hours to get there: three trains and a 30-minute walk.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
On a recent Friday afternoon, I visited the zoo
I expected other fans to be making the trek, but I didn’t spot a single rider headed for the zoo. The trains were packed at first — commuters with suitcases bound for Narita Airport, salarymen, uniformed schoolkids — but by the time we reached sleepy Ichikawa Station, most had cleared out.
Getting there took just under 2 hours: three trains and a 30-minute walk. The zoo-bound bus doesn’t run on weekdays.
Near the entrance, I began spotting both foreign and Japanese visitors climbing out of taxis, clutching monkey stuffed animals. It was obvious who they were there to see.
Admission fee to the zoo was $2.80.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
Heading into the zoo
I paid the 440-yen, or $2.80, admission fee and made my way to Monkey Mountain, passing a mosaic mural of animals along the path.
There were rows of people lined up around a blue iron fence, phones raised, waiting to capture Punch in action. Spectators oohed as other monkeys climbed the rocky structure to play with a silver chain affixed to the top.
The air smelled of manure. The enclosure itself was stark — rocky, with little vegetation, more concrete jungle than mountainside.
Both foreign and Japanese visitors were at the zoo.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
Some of the monkeys appeared thin, even balding
Punch, by contrast, looked healthy, his fur darker and thicker than the others’. Visitors laughed when he leapt from a rock to the monkey bars.
He isn’t the only baby in the exhibit, but he appears to be the smallest. Mostly, he keeps to himself, occasionally playing with a slightly larger one.
A woman from Canada, wearing a Yankees hat and visiting with her family, told me she’d seen Punch playing with his Ikea toy earlier and interacting with the others.
“We didn’t see any monkey fights,” she said. “We don’t love zoos and were a little concerned about supporting one if it doesn’t have the best enclosures. They could use some improvements, but it was better than I thought.”
A troop of macaques at Monkey Mountain.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
After about 10 minutes, the troop grew restless.
“Lunchtime,” someone nearby said in Japanese.
The monkeys scrambled upward. Punch returned to the monkey bars. A slightly larger monkey barreled into him, knocking him off balance, but he quickly recovered.
A group of heavily made-up girls in Japanese high school uniforms arrived, giggling. “Yabai,” they whispered. “Kawaii.”
Visitors at the zoo were holding their own stuffed toys.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
Notably, Punch wasn’t clutching his orangutan.
The toy sat abandoned on the other side of the enclosure.
At 2:50 p.m., the monkeys began clamoring for food, climbing the door and hanging from the rails. Then a young man in a blue uniform entered.
Punch immediately climbed onto the zookeeper’s leg as he circled the enclosure, scattering orange and yellow pellets. Within minutes, the food was gone.
The zookeeper returned with what looked like grass. This time, Punch perched on his shoulder as they made another lap before disappearing into a back room together.
Another zookeeper at the Ichikawa City Zoo.
Provided by Reeno Hashimoto
Around me, spectators wondered whether Punch would reappear before closing. Most were young adults — students and couples, some in coordinated outfits — clearly here for a photo.
I asked a zookeeper if he had time to answer a few questions, but he said the staff was overwhelmed by Punch’s popularity and too busy to respond, even to email inquiries.
Then an announcement crackled over the loudspeaker: Monkey Mountain was getting crowded. Visitors were asked to limit their stay to 10 minutes.
Punch’s fame was being rationed in 10-minute increments.
