Gibli Museum!

We're going to the Gibli Museum, yaaay

This way!

Oh, hello, Totoro. Two tickets please


Vine covered spiral staircase outside leading to a trail nearby



The robot from Castle In The Sky, one of Miyazaki's first films with studio Gibli (even older than Totoro!)





Lots of staircases all over the place. When we first walked in, we went up a narrow spiral staircase that made me a bit dizzy and claustrophobic. I liked the light in this one


The outside of the museum was almost as neat as the inside


goodbye, robot from Laputa!

goodbye, Totoro!



spider we saw on the way back to the station

cool old house




**If you are wondering why we have no pictures of the inside, its because we weren't allowed to take any inside the museum! Lame! But on the inside, there were whole rooms of storyboards, sketches, and hande painted pieces from many movies, as well as conceptual photographs and objets, statues, stained glass windows depicting characets and scenes, and a basic explanation of how animation works (in Japanese though =/). There was also a catbus that kids were crawling around on, and a just-for-Ghibli-museum short film showed in a mini theater. There was also a room full of mobile objects, where by using rotating pieces, complex gears, and tricks of light, they created an illusion of movement. I wish I could take pictures! Unfortunately, I will just have to say, if you ever get the chance, you must come visit its totally worth 10 bucks and the walk from the station is actually quite nice!**-bret

We nearly got stuck with THIS CAR

The guy in the photo is Chris, the person who I will basically be replacing next week in Shikoku. Thanks to him, we don't get stuck with this beast, which tops out at 45mph!

Update

We just talked to the HR rep from our company to discuss final departure details and the status of our work visas. It seems we are going to have to go to Korea either in the next couple of days (!!!) or during our Christmas break to complete processing of the visas. I'm looking forward to the trip, both to Shikoku and Korea (particularly since it's all expenses paid) and hoping that we'll be able to visit the consulate in Souel later rather than in the next week.

I can't wait to start working! These past few weeks have been fun, but a bit restless. After the grueling ordeal of obtaining drivers licenses, we were in sit and wait mode, checking our emails 10 times a day for updates and details of our impending jobs. I'm ready to have a schedule again. Bret and I miss everyone and hope everyone is doing well!

Starting the Goodbye Tokyo Countdown! Currently have 8-9 days left

Things that are different in Japan, a work in progress

There are bicycle parking lots.

Mail gets delivered on Sundays (regular mail sometimes doesn't, but all foreign mail and packages do). Additionally, if you aren't home to recieve a package they will come by your house as late as 9:00 PM to re-deliver it. "Who's ringing the doorbell at this hour? Oh, it's the post man!" Dedication.

Most streets and intersections have speakers on their lamp posts and telephone wires to broadcast public service announcements but more often they just play a variety of music. Especially in the high traffic districts, it can get very lively.

You can smoke ANYWHERE. Except the subway. Restaurants, cafes, bathrooms, malls, arcade parlors, museums, etc are all fair game.

There is a highly efficient public transportation system. Our train station is a mere 7 min walk from our house.

When on the train/subway and you see a notice that there has been an accident on a particular train line--it usually means someone jumped. There were a lot of accidents during the rainy week we were here.

On a driver's license, it lists the issue and expiration date by the year of the emperor, not the calendar date.

Circus music plays in grocery stores

People cut in line. A LOT. Actually, I'm not sure they even believe in the concept of the line here. It's a big country full of cutters

Techie prefecture + animation studio

I guess we're in the Tokyo Anime Center here! Go us! Amazing what you can find when you wander into random buildings...

A big cardboard cutout featuring UP! I don't know if the studio or company collaborated with Pixar in producing the animation featured in the film...we didn't really understand much about the exhibit/room with people and pictures in it or what they were doing there. We just took pictures of the colorful stuff...

A big pink robot and myself. There were a lot of life size models in the exhibit area.

We only chanced upon this studio, we didn't really know what we were looking for or what the attractions were, but a whole lot of people were there looking at a screen that wasn't playing anything special enough for me to remember. It looked like a bunch of clips from an anime we didn't recognize, but it had random bits and commercials playing as well. We were there for about 20 minutes and nothing changed and no one did anything. It was a mystery.




Bret looking at some storyboards and first round sketches. We weren't familiar with the particular anime being showcased, but it was still interesting. There were some 3-d looking digital media stills that looked really cool.

Just a regular day in the neighborhood

When we were walking home from the subway, Naka Itabashi looked really nice in the sunset, very luminous and gold hued. We tried to capture the moment, but immediately after this picture our camera died. I'll try to recreate it later. ALSO in exciting walking home news, while I was approaching my front walkway, waiting for the motion sensor light to come on so I could see what I was doing, I saw something move underfoot. When the light came on I was delighted to see a big toad hiding in the grass! It was roughly the size of a baseball and had pretty black patterns on its brown skin. I hope Hop-san (the toad's new name) makes another appearance so I can get a picture!




Today was another great day in sunny Tokyo. It's not often that you can wear shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of October, but the weather here has been very warm and it hasn't rained in quite a while now. We went to Harajuku today with Holland so that Bret could further exlore a large park/shrine area that we had previously walked past. Most of the parks here are very nice, with lots of big gnarled trees and interesting plants. It was "sports day" here in Japan, so everyone got the day off. Most of them came to this park. It was a bit crowded but fun nonetheless. At the shrine Bret, Miyuki, Holland and I had visited about a week ago, Bret had aquired a bundle of incense that are meant for burning at shrines (in designated stone basins). He brought it along today wanting to use it at the shrine, but there was no incense area. At the end of the day he insisted we go to the fox shrine which is sort of close to our train station in Naka-Itabashi, but it didn't have an incense area as well. "What am I supposed to do with this now?" he said brandishing it about. "Take it with you the next time we go to a shrine" "How am I supposed to know when we're going to a shrine, you expect me to just walk around with incense in my pocket?" "Yes"

After the park we went to the shopping area of Harajuku. There were lots of people dressed up there. I haven't had much luck taking portraits of people dressed up (the last time I plucked up the nerve to ask a girl with long green hair in costume if I could take her picture it was at an video arcade and she waved me away with a nasally, "No picture on this floor" So sorry, I don't have many pictures of people in costume. It's a bit weird if you ask me. Most of the time girls pair up and dress the same, in petticoats or elaborite maid uniforms with frills and lots of skirts and head bands and parisoles. You've seen one maid girl you've seen them all, I say. And there are about a hundred in Harajuku at any given time :P



Here is a photo of a traditional wedding procession. There were a couple of brides dressed like this. The shrine square was very crowded with tourists and visitors.




I was zooming in on the bridal procession when THIS GUY got in the way. Yeah I see you! Now you're on my blog!


Bret, I want to take a picture of you, stand up! "Not right now, I have to limber up!"

close up of wine wall

for once i'm not taking the picture

TWINSIES

BARREL

It's hard trying to find what you want when you can't read any signs....

Wandering around looking for something in particular is often a difficult task. This is why we usually bring Miyuki, our city guide along, but yesterday had no such luck. We have to get Halloween costumes for the work party at the end of the month (dressing up for the kids is required), and finding a store that sells costumes isn't easy in Tokyo, where Halloween isn't widely regarded. Here are some pictures of building confusing building signs and other things we saw while circling Ikebukuro





The gaming parlors always look interesting. We've been to a couple with Miyuki to use the silly photo booths. This is what happens:



lovely. You take a few pictues in a big standing booth with lots of bright lights to bleach out most of your features, then pick the three you like, then draw on them with sticker art. Japanese girls LOVE this



Also on my list of things to get (someday): A Hello Kitty necklace! I love Hello Kitty! The fact that it is so celebrated gere is largely the reason I moved to Japan.


Just a nice building that I thought was cool







Vending machine ice cream! I want to find more unusual vending machines, but they are hard to come by. It's usually just vending machines for soda, coffee drinks and cigarettes (this is the first ice cream machine I've spotted) but I hear they have all sorts, like ones that dispense underwear, beer, frozen food, batteries, etc. I'm keeping my eyes peeled!