Ghibli, Rain and Skyscrapers
After a quick breakfast in Starbucks we took a train to Mitaka on the Chuo line, near the animation district and home of the Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli’s answer to Disneyland – if Disneyland was a concrete bunker designed by Escher and invitation only – is situated in a leafy Tokyo suburb, easily accessible by train. There seem to be 3 methods of buying tickets:
- Purchase months in advance through one online travel agency
- With an official Japan Tourist Board tour
- From a Japanese-language vending machine from one of the many Lawson’s convenience stores.
We were too late for option 1, so weighing up the choice of option 2 (costing £42 a ticket) and option 3 (costing £6), we opted on 3 hoping to get by on our mostly non-existent understanding of Japanese written language.
Guarding the Ghibli museum is the rather sinister looking Totoro; he seemed to be fairly happy with our tickets, so we joined the queue of soggy Japanese families to get into the museum.
Pictures are forbidden inside, but to summarise: the museum consisted of a number of rooms demonstrating the tricks and techniques of animation, disturbingly narrow walkways, bridges and spiral staircases, a restaurant, a giftshop, and a cinema, which today was showing the short film Mizugumo Monomon -- the unlikely adventures of a diving bell spider and a water strider. Nicola was quite impressed by the full size Catbus. I won't even try to describe that one. I did watch a small child climb out of its eye, but that was enough really.
On our way back from Mitaka, we stopped at Shinjuku, to climb to the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan building (observation tower 2). Alas it was too late in the day to get a view of Mount Fuji, but the sprawl of Tokyo was clearly visible as far as the eye could see. I wasn't going anywhere near the glass, but fortunately a handy bar was serving Suntory The Premium Malt's (sic) while Nicola took pictures and tested the limits of the glass windows.
Shinjuku was an interesting and lively place, home to Tokyo's tallest skyscrapers, biggest shopping malls, brightest neon adverts, and packed full of shoppers, salarymen and touts. We followed the Rough Guide's suggested route to the best of our ability, but Tokyo's lack of street names makes accurate navigation somewhat unmanageable. We did however wonder into Kabukicho, Tokyo's answer to Soho, offering such delights as Sexy Pub, rows of Pachinko parlours, and discount camera shops.
On the way back through the station we got to experience our first sit-on-the-floor Japanese meal. The food was very good (and pretty cheap), and fortunately service was quick enough for our dead legs not to get us down.
