Japan - Day Twenty-Three
You know, it's almost been a year since I took these pictures. Aahhhh.... the memories.
So, Wednesday, June 10th (2009) was my class' next fieldtrip. This time we were heading to the Ghibli Museum. By the way, this is definitely a must-see destination if you're ever in Japan. It was absolutely amazing. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I took a couple of pictures on the train. Because I can. Sleeping Japanese salarymen beware!!
I also took a picture of this older guy using his smartphone. I dunno, it just seemed incongruous with my visit to Japan, thus making it remarkable.
Now, there's two ways to get to the Ghibli museum and thus two stops that you can take. There's the well-known route which is to take the JR Chuo like to Mitaka station and then from the station take the community bus to the museum.
There's also the lesser-well-known and more picturesque route that we took. We got off a station early, at Kichijoji, and took a stroll through Inokashira Park. We stopped at a local Family Mart right on the edge of the park to buy bento and had our lunch in the park, which was amazing. Andrew-sensei also brought a co-worker with him named Anna-chan, who just happened to be a huge HYD fan. Fangirly squee!! She had the LE of the movie which she later lent me. <3 <3 <3
Here's some pictures from our walk to the museum:
Pretty to look at but walking up these stairs wasn't as fun...
There was a pretty lake/pond in the park...
My sensei took pictures of tree bark for texture references. He's the owner/director of a small independent studio that does a myriad of projects from animation to music videos. We were really lucky to have him as our professor because of the contacts that he had. Because of him we had a lecture by Cartoon Network's Asian division's director and we were able to tour Madhouse animation studio.
And more pictures of the park...
After walking for maybe half an hour or so, it almost seemed as if we came across a refuge in the middle of all this greenery.
And just for the boys who read my journal hoping to see girls in their school uniforms:
If you know anything about Miyazaki, you know that many of his movies have environmental messages. He really wanted to blend his manmade museum with the surrounding park. In fact, his museum's considered rather out of the way (and his studio, as well) but he insisted on having it somewhat in the countryside because he wanted to be surrounded by nature.
On the top of the museum is a garden and it's guardian is a rather familiar figure:
To get up to the roof, there's a small stairway on the outside of the building. Also, it's free so you don't need a ticket to see this part of the museum. Here I am in front of the stairway...
The iron giant was a really popular attraction...
I even had to wait in line to take a picture with him... XD
What's great is if you walk around to the other side, you see this...
Of course I want you to focus on the grass growing out of his side, not his butt...
Behind the iron giant is another little clearing and in the middle of of it, I found this:
Of course, me being the sacrilegious person that I am, I had to take a picture with it...
Inside, you're given a ticket and a small piece of film from Ghibli's library of animes. I ended up with a bit of film showing Old Baba. Maybe I'll try to scan it and update this post later. But I probably won't due to my extreme laziness. (^_^;; )
We're not really supposed to take any pictures inside the museum. But of course I did. I took pictures mostly in the upstairs rooms, though. So I'll just have to tell you about some of my most favorite parts of the museum. In the first room that you enter is this huge stop animation carousel that speeds up and slows down so that you can see each individual figurine. There's layers upon layers of figures from Totoro and when they spin fast enough, it's just like you were watching an animated film. But in 3-D. It's amazing.
There's also a movie theater that films Ghibli shorts that are not available anywhere else, supposedly. I think you can buy them in the giftshop, though. So maybe someone has ripped them and posted them somewhere. The cute short that I watched was full of onomatopoeia and there really wasn't any dialogue. It was about a girl heading out on a hike and her backpack is stuffed full of all the things that she might need for the trip, especially a load of apples. She ends up leaving apples everywhere for the little forest and river gods. It's really quite cute and very well done.
There was also a gallery of Miyazaki's latest work, which happened to be Ponyo. He had original sketches and clips of different scenes playing for viewers. There was also a larger than life-sized Ponyo statue that was rather cute. I'm not a big fan of Ponyo, so while it was interesting, it wasn't my favorite part of the museum.
That was reserved for the upstairs rooms. They had the original sketches from different movies hanging on the walls, and I loved seeing the original concept sketches for Sophie and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle.
These rooms were also recreations of Miyazaki's work areas... they were absolutely fascinating. I could have spent hours in them discovering new things.
Sorry for the poor quality, I took the above with my cellphone. It was the only way that I could take pictures. And even then, they're kinda rushed because security people were all around. XD
The second floor also had this amazing stained glass window. I didn't take a picture of the whole thing, but here's the portion with Kiki.
There was also a children's play area with a catbus. How great is that?
Going outside again, there was this patio with tables and chairs where one could sit and eat. The food was overpriced, though. Glad we ate in the park. This is the view from my table.
Below the patio was a handpump that you could use to wash your hands. Of course I had to do this as well. XD
In case you're wondering, the sign says: You can't drink. This museum was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. I really enjoyed it and if I get the chance, I'd love to go back. (^_^)
When we went through the park, we stumbled across some kids catching bugs. Adorable. So I took pictures.
They even stopped and posed for me :D
Outside the station, there were these cool looking guys just sitting on the curb and hanging out. So of course I took their picture. The funny thing is, I'm the only one in the group who asked, but after they said that it was okay, 3 or 4 of the other girls popped up beside me to take their pictures too. I bet they were surprised. I was laughing about it all the way to Nakano Broadway. XD
Nakano Broadway, by the way, is my new favorite shopping mall. It has EVERYTHING an otaku's heart could desire. There's a store there called Tria III (I think?) that resells male idol merchandise! I picked up an old AU poster of Ohno there for Liz and I found an Arashi bentobox there for myself. The only bad thing about Nakano is that it's far too easy to spend money. I always walk out of there poor and still wishing I could buy more things. (T_T)
Oh, and you can also find school uniforms at Nakano Broadway.
There's also a cosplay shop where you can buy used cosplay outfits. But they're still terribly expensive. (T_T) And they only have tiny sizes. I'm not as skinny as I once was, but I never considered myself to be too big. Still, they didn't have my size either at the uniform store nor the cosplay shop. It made me kinda sad. Actually, I've never felt as fat as when I was in Japan. And I even lost weight there! (>.<)