Japan Day 13 - Part One

So day 13 was Ben's day and he'd arranged a Studio Ghibli tour, let me start by saying this tour was whack! We got a train from our hotel to a hotel in Shinjuku, got picked up by a tour guide who hailed a cab so we could meet another tour guide at a bus depot and then this tour guide, traveled with us on a train where we had to travel back past Shinjuku in order to finally get to the studio ghibli museum...if you followed that you're amazing, if you didn't don't worry, neither did I!

So anyway before our tour we decided to make use of our time in Shinjuku and hit up the metro building that offers the best views of Tokyo for free. I was a sucker last time I traveled to Japan and paid for the privilege :P BAH, don't pay, go to the metro building :)

Early morning view of Tokyo!

So we then went to a swanky hotel to meet what we thought was our guide for the day

If was a nice nostalgic moment for me because this was the very first place I stayed in Tokyo, all those moons ago! Nothing like feeling rich, on company's money!

50 dollar cab fare later and we're at the bus depot thinking we're about to hop on one of those big fancy tour buses, decked out with studio ghibli nerds, but no, we get dumped by our first tour guide to find ourselves sitting around waiting to meet our next one... turns out we were the only peeps on the tour too!

We all know how this story ends, a few train rides later and we arrive in Mitaka City

we hop on the studio ghibli public bus

And literally travel a few metres down the road to the museum :)

The way our tour guide was selling the museum to us, was that we would literally get lost in the museum as there are many trick passageways and that the map provided upon entry is all false...intrigued...we walked in and she tells us to go to the fake entry cause totoro wants to sell us tickets :P

As much as I was a horrible girlfriend and told Ben way too many times he got ripped off, our actual tour lady was pretty cute and made the museum more interesting

You're not actually allowed to take photos inside the museum, boo to you ghibli 

*thumbs down* so I'll just share the ones we took outside

despite not being able to take photos inside, Ben and I did rebel, until I suggested Ben go super sleuth and hide his camera behind his mask to take photos...that was a pretty stupid suggestion and security came and chased us away. And by chased I mean casually walk over and we ran away, or maybe I ran away :P

We did get this sneaky shot though! They had lots of pretty dioramas set up...

has definitely inspired me to make my own!

So what exactly was inside the museum, not a lot and I feel "getting lost inside" might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but what there was, was of awesome quality. 

There was a room full of various animation contraptions, there was another room full of their hand painted background scenes *dies*,  there was a little cinemas where we got to watch a short film, there was..... mmmmm, not too much more, lol

I was incredibly inspired though and came away with a whole new appreciation for ghibli! Our tour guide also said something interesting, that they start the story telling process first by the backgrounds and then they add the written word, which to me totally explains why there stories are always so whack but so pretty!

So after our wandering, where we definitely spent more time getting to the museum then at the museum

We hoped back on the train and headed back to shinjuku

I couldn't resist snapping this shot on the train, this guy with chains and tatts carrying a cute deer bag! Ahh Japan how I love thee!

We said our goodbyes to the tour lady and decided to walk back to shinjuku and check out the observatory again...sunset shot over Tokyo perhaps!

I got myself a cute panda snack!

hung out with some ladybugs

wandered through the park and then back to the metro building!

Stay tuned for part two

read more "Japan Day 13 - Part One"

Japan Day Two

So this is where I last left you guys, the sun did rise

And I hit my second wind, or maybe that was Ben, who greeted everyone at 5am with a very genki good morning
"ohayo gozaimasu"
people were amused to say the least

We wandered the burbs of shinjuku and eventually stumbled upon some sort of concerete park.  It was here Ben decided to sleep on the water feature

whilst I decided to sit in some sort of delusional sleep deprived state

I nodded off a couple of times, eventually was woken by the morning dog walkers, damn you dog walkers!

So we kept wandering, trying to kill the hours until check in at 3pm

we stumbled into a pretty park

homeless cat man! We're just like you minus the cats!

Anyway we wandered around shinjuku until it was late enough to catch the first train to ueno. This was part of my itinerary which went something like "if tired sleep at ueno park"

So that was the plan. The photos after this get a bit sparse but let's say that, the Ueno park I remember, i.e. the lush open grass spaces for cherry blossoms picnics, were now patches of dirt and few and far between. We eventually chucked down our $2 ponchos in some inappropriate spot and preceded to sleep

As we nodded off we had the delightful discovery of finding out we were right in the middle of these homies

Gosh do Crows make a bloody racket, we eventually relocated where we maybe got 3 hours sleep all up and then simply decided to make our way to our hotel...way before check in

And it was here our luck turned, the lovely hotel man let us in, no questions asked!

We headed straight for the hot shower!

ahh look at you beautiful ryokan carpet

us after our delightful showers! Look how happy we look, all clean and refreshed, ahhhh!!
and of course the obligatory lame yakata tourist shot!

So we must of had a third wind by this stage and actually spent the evening arcading, eating gyoza and feeling happy that we had somewhere to sleep that night!

Learn from us though and make sure you have somewhere to sleep every night :P

read more "Japan Day Two"

Japan Day One

I guess all stories start at the beginning and even though this beginning ain't that exciting, I've got to start somewhere!

Our plane journey was not without it's hiccups. Ben burying his skateboard in the airport gardens after being told he couldn't take it on the plane due to it's weapon like appearance 
Was not a good start to the trip!
Ben also was lucky and got stopped for the explosives test, whilst I got to re-package my already zip locked packaged toiletries into different zip lock bags! Ben's camera also decided to not work but then magically fixed it self once we were in tokyo, ahhh light at the of the tunnel!

A happy thing was the plane being empty, and us getting the whole middle section to ourselves, woot a toot, apparently after the earthquake + nuclear disaster the rate of tourists significantly dropped!

our masks!! Yes we decided to dress like cats and to name our art project "love cats"
I was the lion, ben was the leopard

Nine and half hours later

and ta-daaaaaaaaaa we're at Narita Airport!

First stop, vending machiness

Ben got way too excited over coke with screw top lids :P

An ill informed book I had read, previous to the trip, told me to get our money changed at the airport, as it offered a better exchange rate..no no no! Don't listen to that bad advice!

After being screwed money wise, we went and waited for our train. I'd already looked up the cheapest option, a train that only ran ever hour and we had just missed one. The tickets people freaked out and the train master freaked out about us waiting for so long and I realised....ahhh I'm back in the land of the worriers! DAI JOBO (aka don't worry in Japanese...useful phrase that one!)

still fresh faced waiting for the train

the exchange rate place did offer free origami, I guess that made it less bad :P

Since it would of been around 11pm when we actually got into Shinjuku this post is going to end quite abruptly but I will show some peaks into what we got up to DAY TWO! I've also got to point out we had no accommodation planned for day one. Looking back I was quite the idiot for thinking we could last 33 hours without any form of sleep, but I remembered my giddy excitement when I first came to Tokyo and I thought that could sustain us...mmmm

dinner at 1pm

temple hoping, ben posing, actually it quite surreal when we saw another soul at this hour, he was visiting the temple and praying to the ancestors or whoever they pray too!

we also went park hoping, which is wear fatigue started to set in for me, just looking at this picture makes me want to crawl into a warm bed and sleep for ages!

I did stumble upon a cute pink toilet and ben found this poster

Ahhh welcome to Japan!

Stay tuned for when the pain of tiredness really set in :P

read more "Japan Day One"