This time I'll write about June 13th- my birthday! I started the day by calling home with Sherri's skype. It was wonderful to actually talk to Mom, Tommy, and Daniel, even if they were a bit surprised at the call (After careful calculations, they figured that Japan was one day behind California, and thought my birthday would be on the "14th"). The Browns also passed on a card from my family (with money! Thanks, guys!), as well as giving me a lovely card themselves.
After that, we headed down to the subway to go to my "surprise." After a long train ride to the other side of the city, we ended up in a suburban housing district, to my consternation. After a short walk, we arrived at our destination: The Ghibli Museum!
I was very excited at the prospect of visiting a place so full of information on movies that I have been watching my whole life (Though I will say that I did suspect this....Sherri had made an offhand remark mentioning Ghibli in Akihabara). For anyone who doesn't know, Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation company that has produced such acclaimed movies as Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Ponyo, etc (most of which are directed by Hayao Miyazaki). Unfortunately, pictures were only allowed in very limited areas (outside only), so I don't have many to share.
The museum was very nicely decorated; designed, I think, by Miyazaki himself. It had wooden floors, and a variety of rooms. The first thing we did was go to a little movie theater within the museum to watch one out of six animated shorts. A bunch of Japanese schoolchildren on a field trip shared the theater with us, and together, we all watched "Mei and the Cat-bus," a mini-sequel to what else but My Neighbor Totoro!!!
The animation was cute, and amusing. Mei (a five year-old girl) meets a small, 1-person cat-bus, and befriends it by giving it some caramel candy. That night, the bus takes her to Totoro's tree, where she sees a large gathering of dark, animal-like (sort of blob-ish) figures all arriving by cat-buses, cat-trains, etc. In the end, Mei watches as they all board a giant grandma cat-airplane, and fly away. The movie short was all in Japanese, and Katya and I understood all of it! (Granted, there was very little actual dialogue)
Then we moved on to the other rooms, scaling a charming, iron spiral staircase to get to the second story, which held a large collection of illustrated fairy tales (there was a lot of kanji, though, so we didn't get much from what was written). We also saw some previews for a neat-looking movie called Les Contes de la Nuit (The Count of the Night, in French). My favorite room had a plethora of original sketches and character designs from the different movies tacked onto the wall, as well as replica items from each movie (the room was designed sort of like Miyazaki's study). After that, we saw an exhibit on movie-making technique, and visited the gift shop.
After that, we all bought some lunch and went back into Tokyo to visit the Tokyo Museum (This time all about Tokyo, from its early origin as Edo to modern times). That was probably my favorite museum of the trip thus far, as it housed many fascinating artifacts and models, and we had an excellent tour guide giving us detailed and interesting information on all the exhibits. Katya got through the museum first, then waited for me to finish. Then the two of us, mistakenly believing that the museum closed at 5 (it closed at 5:30) nervously paced around while waiting for Sherri, as all around us, shops were closing and workers leaving. It worked out well in the end, though, as we all met up quite safely near the gift shop.
Next, we set off to the Department store in the subway station to secure some dinner. Katya and I ate some very yummy nikuman (steamed pork buns...very tasty), and then I ate a strawberry yogurt-thing for desert.
Anyway, my birthday was a lot of fun. A very enjoyable experience, by all means. :)
Next up is Nikko, my favorite place in Japan so far...I'll tell you all about it tomorrow!
(Since Katya insists, fine. We saw a cute Japanese boy at the subway station. I noticed him standing on the other side of the tracks, and pointed him out to Katya, who enthusiastically shared my sentiments. He really was cute.)
A statue of that one thing from Castle in the Sky (in sepia).
By the way, just so you all know, I have more pictures posted on my facebook account. Check them out!
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