Ghibli museum

We took the Chuo line to Mitaka station. We found the Neko-basu with no problems and bought our roundtrip tickets for the Ghibli museum. Alas, the Neko-basu was filled up so we had to take a regular looking public bus to the museum. ^^; Since we came on a saturday, there was more people then when I went several years ago. The museum was just as exciting and wonderful as I remembered...and I'm happy to say that I will go several more times so I can see all the museum shorts. ^.^

We received a little piece of film as our 'ticket' to see the short and souvenir. The film I received was of the orange plane from Laputa (I think it was) and animemiz got the pic from Kiki's Delivery Service. Sugoi desu ne! Then we ventured all over the museum. There was a special Ponyo exhibit which had lots of details about how certain scenes were animated via cel coloring and layers. We also headed up to the roof where the Laputa statue and stone was. Now that I came with someone, I was easily able to have pics taken of me. ^^; We took pics with the robot and even of the stone from the movie. One thing about the stone: it's hot! I sat on it for several seconds and felt myself baking upon the heated surface. ^^; It was absorbing the heat from the sun...or maybe the stone was just enpowered by the return of the princess? Who could the princess be? lol

After our visit to the 'garden', we went to the museum giftshop and lost ourselves in the throng of people. I contemplated the nearly 1600 yen sootball...but decided against it once again. It was too pricy two years ago, it's just as pricy now. ^^; I really REALLY wanted to get the white Totoro...but decided against it. *adds it to list of things to buy in the future* I'll pick it up upon one of my returns to the museum. ^^; I decided to buy a small sootball clip for my bag. Animemiz bought several things including the cd single of 'Piece' by Agaraki Yui which had a beautiful PV animated by Studio Ghibli. The music was beautiful as well. ^-^ She also bought several Mei and the Catbus things including a book about the animated short and a cd since she won't be seeing the short anytime soon. After shopping, we headed to the food area and shared a chicken sandwich which was overpriced, small but quite tasty. (We decided against eating more until we get to Odaiba. ^^;)

After making our way through some parts of the museum again, (and looking sadly at the giant Cat Bus play exhibit for kids-sad since we can't join in) we headed to see the museum short. It was the same one as I saw several years ago...the girl traveling with apples. Giving away any more information would be revealing the entire thing since the movie is only 12 min. so there isn't much of a complicated plot. Still fun to watch though. ^-^ We decided to leave afterwards. But not before we took some pics with the giant Totoro-in-ticket-booth outside. We were able to ride the Neko-basu back to the station. ^.^

on to Odaiba

We met up with my French-drama loving roomie at Shimbashi for the Yurikamome line towards Odaiba. (Something new about animemiz that I learned during her stay with me: she loves trains so I thought it'll be good for her to see the monorails of the Yurikamone lines. ^.^) We walked towards Fuji TV and exclaimed over the high winds. There were some escalators at Fuji TV and so we decided to ride it to the top and see what we will discover. Nothing much actually besides alot of wind. ^^; It was pretty late by that time but we got some awesome pics of the ferris wheel and the bridge.

We walked over towards Aquacity...and suddenly caught sight of lots of balloons going up in the air. My French friend started rushing towards it since she discovered a camera on a crane. Maybe a drama is being shot there? There certainly was alot of people around. Animemiz and I went to take pics and see if we can discover anything...but all we got were alot of crappy shots (since we decided against flash in case someone will stop us.) The bride threw the bouquet and they took a picture with everyone in the bridal party. We still couldn't figure out which drama it was. Then they left and we finally decided to ask someone about it. I asked one of the people who was operating the camera which drama they were shooting...and got the answer that it was an actual marriage. o.O Such a small crowd of guests? With balloons? And a camera on a crane? The person added 'promotion' in katakana eigo which makes me wonder 'for what?' lol I don't think we'll ever know. However, if we do find out, I'll let you know! ^-^

Hungry as we were, we grabbed some quick pics of Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower and the State of Liberty before heading into Aqua City for food. The menu of the evening was yakisoba for animemiz and I as well as cheese curry pan (which was not as cheesy as I thought it would be.) Both animemiz and my French roomie bought McDonald's sets as well and animemiz and I each had ice cream crepes for dessert. As full as we were, we talked sooooo long about drama that they closed the food courts. Since it was still 'early' being just after 9pm, we stopped at Starbucks for a drink (I got hot matcha latte which was yummy) before heading home.

At different stations, animemiz began to instruct a slew of Cantonese tourists about the ticket machines and a Korean tourist asked me for directions. ^^; lol Animemiz and I stopped by the 100 yen store so I could do some grocery shopping before we hopped on the last train for home. ^^;