Click here to see all the photos I took on this day.
Today was the day to use the tickets we bought in August for the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Foreigners must purchase tickets to this museum before they enter Japan, as they limit the number of daily visitors and the tickets sell out months in advance.
Erin was still having stomach problems when she woke up, which unfortunately wasn't a contingency we had planned for. Still, the tickets were for today only and she wasn't about to miss it, so we decided to proceed as if things were going well.
First we had breakfast in our hotel's restaurant. The buffet was a combination of Western and Japanese breakfast items. Even some of the Western foods were not quite as we were used to. The scrambled eggs seemed unnaturally orange and very runny, but they tasted normal. There was bacon, but it was short and fat. There was also a container of poached eggs, cherry tomatoes, and some tiny potatoes. On the Japanese side of the buffet were salmon, miso soup, tofu, several different kinds of pickles and some white stuff labeled "shirasu", which I took to be some pickled white vegetable. I got some of each kind of thing I didn't recognize to try.
When I got to the table I noticed something about the shirasu. Each little piece had eyes. I went ahead and ate them. It sort of tasted like someone had set a few sardines on a bed of rice, then taken away the sardines and had me eat the rice. As I've since found out by searching the web, they are indeed baby sardines. They were actually quite delicious and not crunchy at all.
Leaving the hotel, we headed down the Chuo line subway entrance to find the train to Mitaka. We couldn't see it on any of the maps. A tall American girl asked us if we needed help, but it turned out we were trying to do the same thing. When we talked to the station attendant, he basically said, "You can't get there from here" and directed us to the JR line station.
As we walked, I asked this girl and her friend why they were here. She said she had won a contest in California to come see Radiohead play in Tokyo. She had only had a week to prepare, and admitted she was probably even more excited to be in Japan than to be seeing Radiohead.
We ended up wandering around quite a bit before finding the JR station, which we would have found if we'd have known to simply cross the street and go straight after exiting the hotel. At any rate, we finally got to Mitaka station and headed down off the platform. Thanks to Google Earth, I already felt like I knew the area and we set off in the correct direction.
Almost immediately, though, Erin said she needed to sit down and asked me if I could try and find her some medicine. Right in front of us was a sign for a pharmacy, which I mistakenly thought was on the second floor of a building, but finally found on the basement level. I walked up to the pharmacist and put both hands on my lower abdomen and said, "iite" (ouch). He tried to ask a few clarifying questions, but eventually handed us a bottle from behind the counter, which we bought. Erin took one of the pills and we walked on.
If I lived in Japan, a community like Mitaka is where I would want to live. Narrow streets full of quaint houses and neighborhood shops, with lots of mothers driving their cute children around in the front basket of their bicycles. Several of these children waved at us, and one -- after her mother made an abrupt stop right in front of Erin after rounding a corner -- gave Erin a big toothy grin that really made our day. Her blue eyes seem to be really fascinating to these kids.
I found one of the rare vending machines that sell Dr. Pepper and bought one for Erin which she drank and started to feel a lot better. Eventually, after a pleasant walk of about half a mile, we saw Totoro manning a ticket booth and knew we had arrived.
Photos aren't allowed in the Ghibli museum, so I only got exterior shots, but the place really was pretty amazing. The first room we entered had some fantastic models of Hayao Miyazaki's studio and examples of how animation works. The most amazing thing was a sort of huge carousel with identical characters all around it, each one was in a slightly different pose. Suddenly it started spinning. After it reached full speed, a strobe light came on and everyone gasped. It was like watching a real life clay animation. Satsuki and a blue totoro swung a jump rope for Mei while the big totoro jumped in time in the background. Bats flew by overhead and a small white totoro ran up to the tree in the center. Words can hardly describe it. It was like a stroboscopic flip book made out of three-dimensional models.
Upstairs was a room filled with inspirational pieces and walls lined with the actual pencil and watercolor designs and storyboards for the films. Outside on the roof there was a statue of one of the robot guardians from Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and down in the courtyard was a restaurant. As I stood in line to order a hot dog it began to drizzle. No sooner had I felt a drop than several motorized awnings stretched out from the side of the building and covered the queue. The hot dog looked normal enough, but when I took a bite of it I noticed that it had coleslaw underneath it on the bun. It tasted fine, but I certainly wasn't expecting it.
I couldn't get Erin to eat, but she wasn't letting her stomach problems get her down. After buying a ton of stuff at the gift shop and using the tickets we were given to see a cute short film about a pre-school class imagining they were on an expedition to capture a whale at sea, we headed out toward Inokashira Park, which was right next door.
There were many muddy, spider web covered paths we decided not to travel down, so we kept walking until we was a clear path to the pond. On our way down we ran into a small shinto shrine and saw a woman walk up, toss a coin in a box, ring a bell, and pray. Each shinto shrine generally is famous for granting a certain kind of luck. I'm not sure what this one is for, but I have heard this park is a famous place to ask someone to marry you...but that may just be because of the swan-shaped paddle boats. ;)
The clouds were very thick and we were afraid we'd get caught out in the open without an umbrella. When we heard thunder and felt a little sprinkle, we took refuge under a shelter for a bit. Here is where Erin took the camera from me and got some proof that I was on this trip. She also needed to rest a bit, and was still feeling ill.
After the rain never really got going, we continued on. There was a bridge where lots of people were buying tubes of bubbles and blowing them out over the water. One small girl started crying because she couldn't get to them. Erin spotted an orange cat with a twisted-up tail and tried to approach it. As soon as she sat on a bench (which we noticed was dedicated in memory of a Japanese person who was killed on 9/11) the cat climbed into her lap and didn't want to leave. This was tough, because Erin also doesn't like to leave cats.
I bought a Mitsuya Cider from the vending machine and eventually pried Erin away from the cat and we headed further through the park. We watched a father and his two sons get their paddle boat tangled up in some low hanging tree branches, with the kids cackling the whole time. We saw a woman very systematically walk up and bow at a tiny fox shrine by the water. There was a zoo, but it was dinky, so we kept moving. Finally, climbing up a staircase out of the park, we ended up in what felt like part of the real, everyday Japan. The kind of suburban life you might find anywhere in the country. There was graffiti and run-down little shops, but it still felt safe and homey.
We went into a couple shops and were shocked to find that not only were they not running their air conditioning, but they had the HEAT on! It was over 70 degrees outside! I really don't understand these people, temperature wise. No matter the weather, they always seem to be wearing several layers of clothing, too. But I digress.
At this point it really did start raining. We tried to wait it out under an awning for a bit, but we eventually gave up and made a break for it. We didn't have to go far, though, before we ran into a Seven Eleven and were able to buy a nice clear umbrella for 500 Yen. We then walked under it until we reached the train station and headed back to the hotel.
Erin couldn't make it any further, so even though it was 3 PM we called it a day. We watched some hilarious variety and game shows on the TV, including a quiz show designed to make pop stars look stupid, and another show in which comedy acts would come out, do their bit, and then be yanked off stage on a conveyor belt red carpet while a cast of celebrities judged them.
Erin went to bed early, and in fact ended up getting between 13 and 14 hours of sleep. I don't have time to write up what happened on day four yet, but I will tell you that Erin woke up feeling fantastic and felt well for the rest of the trip.
Glad to hear Erin was better. Probably the time change had her out of whack.
Mikata sounds really cool. If I go to Japan again, I'll have to get details from you so Jim and I can go.
Carrie
Posted by: Carrie Carter | September 16, 2009 at 07:20 PM