Our first full day back in Tokyo was one of the days I was most excited about when building up to this trip. Back in May, I booked tickets for the Studio Ghibli Museum (you have to book in advance, and can do this through companies in Britain. You then exchange the voucher they send you for tickets at the museum). For anyone who hasn’t watched any Studio Ghibli (apparently it’s pronounced zhibli) the films are basically Japan’s version of Disney films, but about a million times more magical. I would recommend starting with Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle to get the full magic effect.
Anyway, I digress. We headed to Mitaka, where the Museum is based on the train and when we finally arrived, I couldn’t contain my excitement.
Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the Museum, so you will just have to visit yourselves. But it was magical. There is a little cinema screen, where they do showings of a short film featuring Mai, the catbus and Totoro from My Neighbour Totoro and it almost made me cry. There are other exhibitions focused on how the films are made, with loads of original story boards and artwork. We also went up to the roof garden of the building and got our only photo with one of the robots from Laputa Castle in the Sky.
After all the excitement, we were very hungry and stumbled upon a great noodle place, where they were very helpful with us being clueless foreigners who couldn’t work out which buttons to press on their vending machine to order food. We ended up with some amazing noodle dishes – Hugh with a ramen noodle soup, and me with some kind of very garlicky udon noodle stirfry.
It being our final days in Japan, I wanted to get some shopping done for gifts and for myself. So we agreed to split up for the afternoon – me heading to Harajuku, and Hugh heading back towards Akihabara to play on arcade games.
Because it wouldn’t be very interesting for me to blog about a shopping trip (I spent hours wandering round Harajuku) I thought I would share with you some of the character I came across on my trip, and give you a little introduction to them.
- Funnassyi
Funnassyi was created as a mascot for the Funabashi area of China, but he has become really popular in Japan and is often used in celebrations in the Chiba area of Tokyo.
His parents are both ordinary pear trees, his favourite food is peaches and he likes heavy metal.
2. Kapibarasan
Did you ever learn about capybaras at school? I did, and they are giant guineapig-type creatures that live in South America. Anyway, Kapibarasan literally means ‘Mr Kapibara’ and he was apparently created to build the popularity of capybara in Japan. Not sure why that needed to happen, but whatever. He lets his siblings ride on his back and have naps there. He also has a range of friends including ri-zento kun ‘Regent Boy’.
3. Gudetama
Gudetama is probably the most popular character in Japan right now and was created by Sanrio (the makers of Hello Kitty). People in England have interpreted him as representing depression. You can make your own mind up. He is an egg lacking in motivation with a very negative and defeatist attitude. He believes that one day he will be eaten. And that can only be true! As well as making hundreds of toys, keyrings, stationery etc. out of him, you can also buy custard puddings (see right pic) featuring Gudetama.
I’ll leave it at that for now. But there are tonnes more of these characters.
In the evening we met up again and Hugh took me on a tour around Akihabara – the gaming and electronics centre of Tokyo.
If you want to go to a Maid Cafe, this is your place. It was slightly disturbing seeing these very young looking girls trying to lure people into their cafes from the streets. For those who don’t know, a maid cafe is where you can go for a drink/some food and the waitresses will literally treat you like royalty and as if they are your maid. It would certainly be an experience, but I think we’re going to stick with cat cafes….
I also went on the capsule machines. Most of these cost between 200-300 yen and you choose which variety of toy you want. It’s then a surprise which one you get. I went for mamegoma (seal character) but am going to collect a few more as we go along.
We finally went for some dinner, which was delicious! We had little sardines grilled on our table and I had a massive tuna steak. We also had chips. Yes. Chips.
Rice ball count: 0 (getting sick of them….if that’s possible?)
Historycatz 