Friday, January 31st, 2014
It was not really ideal today. We are only here in Tokyo for two days so it left not a lot of choice when it came to setting up a visit to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. First, let me explain what it is: This is a museum devoted to the works of Studio Ghibli - A Japanese animation company whose founder Hayao Miyazaki is much revered in Japan. The films have been warmly received outside of Japan as well with John Lassester, founder of Pixar, known to be a huge fan and promoter of Ghibli’s work which includes Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Porco Rosso, Ponyo, and Spirited Away (if you have not seen any or, indeed, all of these it really is worth checking out with English-language versions readily available - they are all magnificent works of art, direction and storytelling). The museum itself was built for the people of Japan to visit and enjoy the output of Studio Ghibli and is very much aimed at children and the child inside every adult. We paid a visit the last time we were here but just had to go again - It is quite impressive and a lot of fun. It is, however, difficult to get into with tickets required well in advance and it is because of this I figured that booking a Friday might be easier (avoiding the large groups on weekends) but this did mean visiting the day after we arrived despite the understandable jet-lag we would both be suffering.
I suppose it was not THAT bad. I knew we really wanted to visit the museum very close to when it opened at 10. We WERE both tired in the morning but managed to get up and make our way to breakfast in the hotel. We generally like to get out of the hotel to eat as hotel food, while good, is not really what you might call “local” but today we thought we would start the trip off right with an easy trip to the third floor for the breakfast buffet in the “Chef’s Live Kitchen” restaurant despite not actually knowing how much it would cost…which did make us pause slightly at the door: 3,500 yen. Ouch. Oh well, we are on holiday (and mother is paying for the meals) so in we went.
The choices on offer were very impressive: Along with the standard western breakfast offerings (sausage, bacon, hash browns, fresh fruit, eggs, bread/toast, croissant, sweet buns, orange juice, fresh ground coffee, etc) there was also more local dishes including a good assortment of fish (including a rather daunting pile of what looked like small white noodles until you looked closer and saw they all had little eyes…), eggs cooked to order, and soup (including, of course, miso). The restaurant itself is quite nice with a great view - We seated ourselves near the window which looked out through a small assortment of evergreens into the harbour with the Rainbow Bridge in the near distance. It was quite pleasant enjoying the food and reading the English-language newspaper we found hanging in a bag on the door handle this morning though it was somewhat skimpy on actual news focusing instead on local civic matters.
We chatted away for a few minutes over our meal then mother signed the bill to the room only to be questioned as we left whether she was actually staying in the room (having a name of “Watkinson” while I have a name of “Rice” no doubt confused them).
Packing our rucksacks for the day we walked to the train station.
I have been a bit nervous about the travel arrangements so visited the travel office in the station to pick up our tickets for Tokyo to Kyoto (on Sunday) then for our onward trip from Kyoto to Nagano (a week from today). It made me feel a bit more at ease knowing this has been arranged and that we have assigned seats on a particular Shinkansen. The lady at the travel agency was very friendly and helpful speaking English well enough so that it was not a problem. It is not the train to Nagano I wanted (which was a direct train with no transfer - there is only one of those a day) but it is later in the day and will probably be more relaxed.
We caught the busy train to Shinjuku station a bit to the west of us where we were still getting a hang of Tokyo transport so started down the stairs only to realise the train we wanted was actually on the platform immediately adjacent to where we had arrived! The train to Mitaka on the JR Chou Line is very pleasant as it quickly leaves behind the large hotels of Shinjuku and takes you through suburban Tokyo with it’s narrow alleyways (we cannot figure out how people would have a car if they wanted one - the streets between the houses seem so narrow…) and wood houses festooned with television aerials and electrical wires. Each station on the line is like a small village with tall buildings, restaurants and shopping centres but between stations the houses return.