Ghibli

We had all been looking forward to going to the Ghibli Museum, Dan had got the tickets at an inflated price as they were all sold out, and we had to go and pick them up from a strange flat where I nearly got locked in the toilet. Because of all this, and also because we all love the Ghibli films so much, it was to be an important day out.

We walked through Inokashira Park to get there, which was really nice- we saw a great temple and also managed to see a Kingfisher which was being photographed by a man with a telephoto lens as if it were some kind of celebrity. We also saw more carp, their mouths coming right out of the water. Flo also nearly got run over by an old man on a bicycle- he could clearly see her but sort of ran into her on purpose which was a bit strange, perhaps it was something to do with respecting your elders but Flo couldn't have really moved out the way due to the size of the path. Perhaps he was just a git.

I think we were all a bit grumpy really, which is strange because we were also excited- perhaps the pressure of getting there at the exact time (they are very strict about when you get there as they have designated slots, and they only let 100 people in at a time) affected us, or maybe being together constantly just makes you a bit pissy, whatever it was we managed to get there early and then found the best cafe in the world (I feel I have been overusing this phrase a little on the blog- I can't help it) to wait in.

It was a bird cafe and had cockatiels flying about in the window. All the food was shaped like birds, look:

It was basically the perfect cafe to go to before going into Ghibli world. But it was soon time to go and see the main attraction- which you weren't allowed to take photos at. It was sort of a relief to be honest- it's nice to just experience things without needing to archive them some way, and it seemed important to just enjoy the museum for what it is, and to be fully involved. 

Well, that's what happened. I can't really describe what it was like walking into the magical building, everything is so beautiful- every fitting and lampshade and window has been thought about, it is like walking into a Ghibli film really.

Then into one of the permanent exhibition rooms 'The beginning of movement'. I had a very weird reaction to it in the form of bursting into tears, not uncommon for me really as I tend to cry at pretty much everything, but I was very affected by the brilliance of the exhibits, and couldn't stop crying the whole way round. The things which affected me most were the two zoetropes, one of the robot from Castle in the sky, which was spinning around with his arms lifted up and birds were flying up and around him like he was a magician (it was something to do with the angle of his arms really, I know that sounds a bit abstract), and also the Totoro 3D zoetrope which had characters from all the films also spinning around and jumping and dancing. They were both incredible, and you got the feeling that the people who had made them really wanted you to understand about the ingenuity and possibility that the museum represents- in every new room we come to there was something more magical than the last:

The good thing is that it has been designed with children in mind, there are tiny staircases that adults just have to deal with, and a maze and secret nooks and crannies for kids to hide in, but more than that, it has been made to inspire you- you really do feel as if you can do anything when you come out- that you should spend your life making magical things for other people to enjoy. Miyazaki seems to be a master of so many art forms, painting, animation, model making, a glance at a reconstruction of his office and also his actual scrap books shows you that he has spent his life improving on what he does, whether it is through reading or sketching or collecting shells and books on architecture.

I suppose the truth is that we can all work harder. I have spent the last six months writing my book, copies of which I found waiting for me when I got home from Japan- and this seems like a feat to me, an achievement of some kind. The difference is that this guy would have illustrated every page, and made a short film of every poem, probably in the same time. I wonder if he ever feels a sense of achievement, or if that even drives him? Making other people feel wonder is the real prize. If I can do this with even one poem I'll be happy, but I have a lot of work to do. 

I have thought a lot about why I cried that day, it seems a little over dramatic or something (I think Flo was very confused by it) but Dan said he also found himself crying and I think I can guess the reason. Walking in to the museum is a lot like walking back into your childhood, where most of the stuff is good and pure, if you're lucky. If you ever had a dream about a magical world when you were little then this is basically it, even down to the cafe which has massive strawberry cakes and smiley waitresses. 

It is a reminder that there are lots of brilliant things in the world still to learn and to work at. The whole of the Japan trip felt a little like this- it might sound a bit life-changing experience but it's true. Losing my Mum this year was such a difficult thing, I still think about her every day. But Japan was a wake up call as it is a place where everything is full of hope. We're so lucky to have gone.

Adventures in Tokyo

We did loads of good stuff in TOKYO. Here are some pictures and captions because I am too lazy to write proper stuff. These are all different days but I am jetlagged and confused so they are all together

We went to a huge arcade and Flo and Dan played lots of games. Then I went clothes shopping because I got bored. Haha. I did play Dance Dance Revolution though, I was crap because I was out of my usual dancing environment 

Flo Kart 

BumbaClart 

Everyone has see through umbrellas in Tokyo. It finally rained! Didn't break the heat though

So sexy

We stumbled onto the World Yoyo championships where this man was playing guitar. The whole thing was weird as hell

So many monsters at this amazing vintage shop

Then one day we went to the Monster cafe. It is owned by the director of Pon Pon Pon so was completely fucking weird. I have included it below for your viewing pleasure

This woman showed us to our table. Dan and I were both scared of her

Even the bathroom was good

This massive cake spun round and round

Dan had this, it was actually nice!

This was the nicest cake in the whole world

One day we went to the Shibuya crossing. It was the busiest place I have ever been

Famous dog Hachiko who is honoured for his loyalty to his owner 

Real dog. This pet shop made me and Flo go mad with desire

More temple brilliance

Godzilla

This was very nice indeed. I felt sort of high on happiness and meat 

We bought flo a summer kimono

TEMPLE. This was my favourite one 

Next time: the GHIBLI MUSEUM which was so beautiful and I will write about it properly I promise ~ Emma

Capsule Hotel

Buried alive 

So funny that after the posh hotel in Mt Fuji that I ended up enjoying the Capsule Hotel about ten times as much. It basically cost about £20 each and was a tiny little box, but in the box was a TV and wifi and even better, I was ALONE for the first time in aaages. Not only that but the hotel had brilliant showers kitted out with shampoo and body wash and the bathroom bit had disposable toothbrushes and more potions and you got slippers and cool Kung Fu trainee type pajamas that all the other girls looked really chic in.

[As a quick aside, I have to say that all the girls here are very beautiful and tiny and stylish. It is nice, but I have basically felt like a giant the whole time I've been here, I am not the slightest of women anyway so I have felt sort of podgy especially with some of the puddings we've been eating. If I eat badly I basically put on a stone in about a week, which has happened here I think. I am sort of looking forward to home cooked food and going running again]

I had a shower for about an hour and then tiptoed through the corridors of pods until I found mine again (we were in a girls only section, it was very quiet and nice). It sort of felt like being buried alive but in a good way, if that's possible. And I had a really good night's sleep! Flo was next door to me and looked very cute in her pajamas, look:

The prisoner

Our bedrooms 

Beatrix Kiddo

I would really like to stay in a Capsule Hotel again, it was really easy and clean- no fuss or fixed meal times and you are right in the city centre too. London should get some, especially at airports- they would be so useful. Verdict ***** another win for Tokyo!

Fuji-Q, World of Queueing

We went to a theme park, which was unlike any I've ever been to. The roller coasters were ENORMOUS and I was too scared to go on any. But we did go on a few small rides, even the kids ones terrified me though. Here is our day in pictures:

Weird picture of a man eating spaghetti on a water slide

Flo inside a sharks mouth. This queue was about 45 mins so relatively short 

We finally make it. This was a water drop where your 'boat' smashes into the water and causes a literal tidal wave. The water splashed miles up into the air and completely soaks you. Dan got a bit wet even wearing his Walter White overalls

Haunted house. This queue was 2 hours long. We went in for about 10 minutes and then Flo wanted to leave as it was too scary. It was quite scary- it is world famous which is why everyone wants to go in there. I was disappointed after the long wait- by the time you get there you are really excited & your adrenalin is pumping. Maybe I'll get to go another time

Evangelion world. I don't really know what Evangelion is, but the exhibition was really fun  

Look

See!

It was very futuristic and well planned out, it felt like a film set really. 

Theme parks aren't really my thing to be honest, it is probably part of my not liking games thing, I think any time I feel obliged to have fun it sort of puts me off. But I still enjoyed it because it felt like a wonderland, and also the engineering that goes into the rides fascinates me, especially the roller coasters. The fact that someone has planned it out so carefully and made this huge construction just so people can have fun is brilliant. I would hate going on them though, I would be probably be sick as a dog ~Emma

Naked men

DAN

We set off from Kyoto after 4 night's stay. Like each of the places that we've visited along the way it felt like we left too soon. I looked at my list of to-dos from Kyoto and there are ancient castles, fan making courses, tea ceremonies, ancient samurai villages and a monkey mountain that we unfortunately didn't get time for. I hope that moaning about all the things we didn't get to do doesn't become too much of a running theme in this blog. I won't bring it up again. I'm just getting it out of my system, ok?

I expected the journey from Kyoto to Fuji to be pretty quick and easy. It's probably the same distance from London to Cardiff (I haven't checked that) so I thought it would take a couple of hours in the land of the bullet train. I was dead wrong. It's more like getting a train from Canterbury to some little village in mid-Wales, with three local, snails pace railways at the end of the trip. I think it took about 7 hours. The good part was that the last bit of the journey was through the Japanese Alps, so although the train to Kawaguchiko went at human running speed, the views of the lush mountain valleys were beautiful.

The view from the train carriage

We arrived at the Ryokan a bit late due to the long journey, so we were hurried through to the dining room where a dinner with about 20 plates of food was sitting waiting for us. It was a bit odd as we were the only people in a massive dining hall, but apparently dinner is served strictly at 6.30 every day and we were well over an hour late. The dinner was really nice, but was a bit overwhelming. It felt like the kind of thing you'd want to eat for a special occasion, not every day.

The Ryokan we were staying at felt like something from another era that hasn't needed to change with the times because it's in high demand. It was quite a tourist sort of place in the worst way possible. It was obviously constructed to cram in as many customers as they could and made you feel a bit like you were going through the "traditional Japan experience" factory. There were a lot of Chinese tourists staying there and it felt like we'd been dumped in the "bloody foreigners" section a bit. I could understand why though as our fellow residents seemed to have developed a game where they sent their kids round to each door in the hallway to knock on it and run away screaming.

The Ryokan was a good experience though, because it felt like another side of Japanese culture that we got to see on our travels. The thing that struck me at first on going through the doors was that it was like the ward from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Everyone is dressed in Yukata and slippers and with the slightly wipe clean touristy nature of everything it gives you the feeling that you are in a hospital ward.

They also had an onsen communal baths in the Ryokan. This is a "hot spring" bath separated by gender. It's a completely nude bath too. I must admit that I've never been in situation where I'm naked with lots of other men in a big bath before, so it felt a bit strange. I had read that Japanese people sometimes consider westerners to be pretty filthy and will vacate the baths when one comes in, so I was ready for some major rejection, but thankfully it didn't happen. One thing that was even stranger was that there were children in there too. It felt kind of wrong, having come from a society where you would never be left alone, naked, in a bath with someone else's children, but it seemed perfectly natural to everyone else.

It was pretty odd to walk around naked and just take everything in. I was surprised that quite a few people were covering themselves with towels whilst walking around, because I thought that they must be used to the nudity. It actually felt quite liberating after a while. Also, the amount of soaps, hair and skin tonics they had in there was amazing. They even had acid that peels off a layer of your skin, I've never seen that before. I tried all of them out. The hair tonic was the best because it smelled like mints.

Every area of Japan that we've been to has started with some confusion as to where to visit first, because no matter how many attractions you read about or maps you look at, you can only really get an idea of where you want to go when you start walking around. From the offset the Fuji region felt like the most tourist place we'd been to yet. So it felt like we should probably just go with the flow.

Confusion - What does it mean?

We decided to get a tour bus of the area. It's kind of like a normal bus in that you can get off at loads of places along the way. The tour bus went to Aokigahara Forest, which is also called the "Sea of Trees". I've read about it loads for the last few years and I really wanted to visit, so I dragged Flo and Emma along.

Scary paths 

The Sea of Trees is famous for being a place that's haunted by a lot of spirits, as in the old days people used to abandon their elderly relatives in the forest if they couldn't afford to feed them. Recently it's become the place of choice for people in the surrounding regions who want to commit suicide. It's a forest that is dense with very small trees and gnarled roots, because of this it is hard to walk through it and there is almost no sound at all. It's so odd to stand in such a silent and sad place just after being in a hotel and bus that are crowded with tourists. It feels like the place is incidental and even ignored even though it surrounds all these tourist attractions which makes it even more special.

"Lava cave", which turned out to be the "wind cave", which had ice in it.

The forest also has a network of caves that run underneath it. It's odd because on some maps they are called the ice caves and on others they are called the lava caves. Well, it turns out both are true. They were formed by lava pushing to the surface from nearby Mt.Fuji, but for some reason they now keep their ice from the winter months and there are huge ice crystals down in the depths. It's certainly refreshing to visit on a boiling summer day. There is a famous "Ice Cave" there that we didn't get to go in because of the ridiculous queue. Apparently the queue was about 2 hours long, so we skipped it.

The lava cave 

A bat cave

Walking back from the cave down the forest road was pretty amazing. There was a row of cars queueing back about at least a kilometre, waiting to go and visit a cave filled with ice. I bet it was hell being stuck in that. The cars even stretched off round the corner and onto the main road, but we didn't go that way, so I was unable to see how far the queue went. It was like that scene out of the Simpsons where they leave for a summer holiday and instantly get stuck in a huge jam of cars the minute they get out of the driveway. That should give you an idea of just how crowded some tourist spots in Japan get.

A grave in the forest

On the way back we were going to actually try and climb some of Fuji, but the ridiculously early time limit on the Ryokan dinner and the general fatigue from travelling around Japan non-stop for two weeks got the better of us. Probably the only thing we missed out that was properly worth doing in Fuji was actually going up the mountain.

In the evening we sat by lake Kawaguchi and watched an eagle circle overhead while the sun made amazing patterns on the valley as it set. Nature definitely won over man-made attractions on this bit of the trip.

Tomorrow I'll write about the Fuji-Q theme park and the worlds largest (Guinness World Record) ghost house!