Teamlab Botanical Garden - Osaka

The previous post in this series is here..

Right after checking in at the Tokyo Inn in Osaka Namba, we went to the room, dropped our luggage and came down in 20 minutes. We had booked tickets at 7PM to see the light show at the Teamlab Botanical garden. It was supposed to be a short train ride but we were still new to the train business in Japan. You come 20 seconds late and the train is gone! These guys are very very very very punctual.

Also the same train station has many entrances and exits and if you don’t listen to your smart kids and haven’t figured out Japanese coins, buying tickets can take time at every machine.

We did barely manage our ride to this place and walked a good 20 minutes to the entrance of this Ngai botanical garden. We thought we were late but turns out everyone gets a 7PM ticket for night light show. There were 200 people ahead of us in the line. We joined the moving line and walked through the light show.

It was fantastic! Thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are the pictures..

After the light show our jet lag started to show. So we walked back to the train station. It was a beautiful and pleasant evening. We took the train back to Osaka Namba. There was still leftover food from what we had packed. So we ate that and went to sleep.

A video clip of the Team lab visit..

The next morning we had to wake up early for breakfast and catch a train. Every day was going to be packed after this..

Global Winter Wonderland

This year we have a new Christmas attraction that is local. A "Global Winter Wonderland" in the parking lot area of the Great America Park in Santa Clara.

Guess they bought all the props from the Beijing Olympics at garage sale prices and set it up in Santa Clara. The whole thing was like a Chinese Christmas celebration with "Chineseized" doll displays of American icons including Disney themes!

The "Global" was thanks to the following displays and they were all very impressive.

The ticket prices were a rip off considering there was separate tickets (3$ a ticket per kid per ride) and an entrance ticket of 9$/person on discount! There should have been no entrance tickets for the kids and that would have come close to being fair. Nevertheless, we had already promised the kids that we were going there and we had no choice in the matter once there.

We made the most of a very cold evening and spent a good 3 hours wandering around the light displays, taking photographs and having the kids go on a few rides and try some of the carnival type attractions.

The kids were happy and tired enough to eat a speedy dinner and go to bed fast. So from that stand point it was a good deal! Next year we will be back to Christmas in the park. For all we know, might still take the kids there one of these days.

Some snippets of the three hours caught on video..

Next year if this attraction is still there, might go only if there are some discounted tickets... then again the rest of the family thought it was okay for the price we paid.

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