Trick Me Once

We've been to Mt Takao numerous times before, but it's strange I never really noticed the Trick Art Museum, a VERY short walk directly across the road from Takaosanguchi station (Keio line). Haven't done much this New Year's break so a good reason to get out of the house.

The museum has predominantly an Egyptian theme. I love optical illusions, so it's definately in the highest part of my top five museum exhibits. They encourage hands on, so it was quite a bit of fun to pose directly incorporating yourself as part of the art.
They allow photographs. Actually you HAVE to bring your camera to get the full effect. Somehow seeing it directly takes a bit more to fool your mind, but in a photo it looks pretty amazing. If you've ever been to the Leaning Tower in Pisa and taken a photo "holding it up", this is the place for you!

The only real negative is that the place is quite popular and now that it's holiday time, it was FULL of kids, so taking that photo was sometimes frustrating and ruined a good illusion. Go when it's as least busy as possible.

A discount ticket can be printed off from the website. You'll get a free drink token for the vending machine outside the entry on your way out.

We wasted a lot of time in the museum so we didn't have as much time as we liked to go up Mt Takao. We usually hike up. Ironically being winter it would've been the easiest time to walk up, but as time was cutting it fine, we took the chair lift.

This is a first for me. I thought there was only the cable car. Chair lifts are MUCH more fun. Brings out the kid in me.
We only had less than an hour so it was almost time to go down not long after we got to the top. I managed to take a photo of Tokyo in the distance. Now it's finished it's quite easy to identify the Tokyo Sky Tree as part of the skyline.

If you want to do both the museum and Mt Takao it's a good idea to leave as early as you can. Both highly recommended!