Every once in a while during your travels, you run into something that completely catches you by surprise — and you don’t quite know what to think about it.
You can’t miss the entrance to Robot Restaurant in Tokyo. (Photo by Michael Danser)
The subject of this entry is really weird and it is not intended to set the theme for this newly created blog by any means. But the experience of this show in Tokyo is so strange that I felt I had to share it with you.
After you’ve made a reservation at Robot Restaurant and head to East Shinjuku (you’ve now entered the city’s “red-light district”), you can prepare to be overloaded with shining colors, raging techno and the smell of bad food. But you’ll also be witnessing something you haven’t seen before.
Oh, and there are also a bunch of scantily dressed women and robots.
When you arrive, a live band will play the same song over and over while women play on giant robots. After getting inside, you go about two stories below the Kabukicho district for this lit-up, cabaret-like show.
As the dancers run around, men dressed in all black are in clear sight controlling the robots that take over the whole space. You’ll get a “lunchbox” of a meal. Just go ahead and eat before the show to avoid this odd-smelling assortment of meat and rice.
You have to go in knowing it’s going to be weird, but just go along with it. When you’re told to stay behind the chained gate, stay there. When you’re encouraged to dance with a glow stick in your seat, wiggle your heart out. It’s really weird, there’s no getting around it. Just go, take photos (performers act like that’s what they’re there for) and have a good time.
(Photo by Michael Danser)
(Photo by Michael Danser)
(Photo by Taylor Danser)
(Photo by Michael Danser)
(Photo by Taylor Danser)
(Photo by Taylor Danser)
(Photo by Taylor Danser)
(Photo by Michael Danser)
(Photo by Taylor Danser)
In full disclosure, we owe Anthony Bourdain the credit of getting us interested in Robot Restaurant.
Robot Restaurant
www.robot-restaurant.com/E/
1-7-1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
03-3200-5500 (As noted in my last post, you’ll need help communicating if you don’t speak Japanese. Just have your concierge at your hotel make the reservation for you. Reservations can me made within seven days before the performance.)
Performances are each day at 7 p.m., 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Cost per person per show includes tax and food. It is 5,000 Yen (that’s about 50 USD) but the price is set to increase in April to 6,000 Yen (almost 60 USD).
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