Studio Jiburi

Today we finally managed to make it to the Studio Ghibli museum, which, despite being a Japanese animation studio, is pronounced, "Jiburi."

Starting our morning off we ate a very healthy breakfast, composed of orange juice and donuts from a place known as, "NY Donut Plant." Let me assure you, if there was such a thing as a, "donut plant," then I would have already discovered it, placed many in my back yard, and would be working to secure my stay at home donut shop dreams that I've always longed for.

With a great supply of refined sugar energy we were off on the local Chuo Line headed towards Mitaka, only to transfer onto a local community bus which had the capacity to shuttle six whole oompa loompas at a time.

From the small bus we were taken to the small museum. Now, it was only ten dollars so I guess I shouldn't complain, but for some odd reason I figured that it would be larger. I would love to show you just how small the insides were, but guess what? You guessed it (or didn't) - you can't take pictures inside of the building.

Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of the studio, and the museum, decided that he wanted to create a magical place that would be experience with ones eyes, instead of through the lens of a camera. I guess that's his right, but I would have rather had some proof of being inside, you know, in case I forget the experience one day.

Inside of this cameraless world there were replicas of his workshop, walls plastered with sketches, shelves filled many colors of ink. Other rooms individual movies or highlighted the process in which animation is created, showing truly how long it takes for a single frame to be created.

Upon checking out each room we headed down to the Saturn Theater to view Ghibli short film entitled, "The Cat Bus Returns," which is an extension of, "My Neighbor Totoro." It was a great little short with a high animation quality. It also helped that Melissa and I watched the origional just the day before so all the facts were fresh in our memory.

Short, but great. I really enjoyed the musuem - almost as much as I enjoyed the second half of our day...Thunder Dolphin.

That's right, Thunder Dolphin, one of the best, if not the best roller coaster I've been on. Here is a run down of the cool features it had to offer:

• Height -262 feet (5th tallest continuous loop coaster)
  
• Max Speed - 80.8 MPH
• G Force: 4.4
• Defining Points - 80 degree vertical drop, Passes through a centerless Ferris Wheel, Passes through a whole in a building, Rides along the roof of a building twice.
  

We ended up riding it twice, once in the back, once in the front - both of which were great fortune seeing how you don't get to choose where you sit in Japan.

To see today's pictures click here

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Ninja Warrior!

Come with me now as we travel into a world that is the future. The buildings are strange, high school students roam the streets, even on a school day. Oh, and the weather is nice, the breeze feels warm, and it doesn't smell. Welcome to Odaiba - an area which was built to showcase the future of residential living in Japan.

If that is the future, then I'm sure that most people would have to be faced with culture shock. For starters nothing smells. Frequently in the other parts of Tokyo that are stuck with the rest of us suckers in the past there are rancid sewer smells.

This is the average scenario: "Look at me, I'm a respectable gentleman trying to enjoy a lovely crepe as I walk down the street." - Sudden, uncontrollable vomiting due to smell, resulting in the loss of a $700 suit. It's s shame, and explains why nobody ever eats and walks at the same time here.

Other than lack of smell there is another weird thing missing: adults. It's like a weird version of pleasure island - minus the donkeys. For the most part all I saw were high school students roaming the streets, with just a small dash of teachers and adults. Sure, there were plenty of adults on the train going in, I'm just not sure what happened to them once we arrived.

Putting aside the strange feeling of being alone, lost in a care free world, filled with hyper-enthusiastic children, chomping at the bit to try and practice last weeks English assignment, there two really fun things to do on the island.

The first, and possibly greatest thing, was a place called Japan Muscle Park, a theme park dedicated to fitness games. Sure, it doesn't sound like the most fun at first, especially seeing how one of the games allows you to pay to due a push-up, sit-up, pull-up contest, but it really was cool.

To start things off I tried to due the miniature Sasuke course - or as it's better known in America as "Ninja Warrior." As a whole I would have to say that it's hard - very hard. They start you off all nice and easy with a confidence booster having you complete a trip on a hand bike. Easy enough. Then they decide to have you dangle from a steel beam and inch your way across using only the tips of your fingers. Not cool. Afterward you move over to a steel pole laying horizontal on two steel poles, similar to a gunrack. You then must use the two steel poles to shimmy up three high racks. Sadly though I was too heavy for the bar and nearly snapped it in half. And last are the crooked rings, which combine that Windows plumbing pipe screen saver with gymnastics rings. This one I thought I had going for me, but that was an fail in a half, sending me flying off the course.

Other than Ninja Warrior we were able to compete in some great games, such as a Baseball punch out game, a soccer punch out game, and this really fun game where you have to stack blocks while a train goes around a track. It's one of the funnest games I've ever played, but I would have to explain how it works in person.

With all the musclefide fun that we could handle we headed off to the JOMSI (you know, the Japanese Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). Okay, so it's not called JOMSI, but it is a whole lot like a newer OMSI, but set in Japan.

We were given the opportunity to meet the Asimo robot, which is the first to run, balance on one foot, and kick. It can operate on it's own, and can follow your instructions with you via voice commands. I really want one, but they cost 106,710,325 yen and can only be on for an hour at a time.

For me he was the highlight of the trip, but there we lots of great demonstrations and activities to look at, covering a wide spectrum of emerging sciences in the fields of quantum computing, health care, earthquake detection, and space and sea discovery. As I whole I would rate the place at 3.5 OMSIs.

For the days pictures click here.

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Mouuooonkeeeysu!

This was a very odd day today as we set out for the Inuyama Monkey Park. Before we get started though I think it's prudent that we take a stroll back into the trip planning phase of things.

Around December we were looking for things to fill four of the gaps in our trip, so we decided to look for a listing of zoos and aquariums throughout the country. On this list were a lot of the standard type zoos with a few specialty parks mixed in between. One of the specialty parks listed happened to be the Inuyama Monkey Park. Seeing how we both love monkeys it seemed like a sure fire winner, but if only I would have payed more attention to how simplistic their website was I might have taken a second thought.

Deep down we actually ended up liking the park, but there were times when I wasn't quite sure what I had us mixed up in. For starters the park isn't on a main JR train line, but instead is off of a local train line and then includes a rather long walk. Unfortunately I chose the longer way there - probably a three mile walk - up hill. It was beautiful though, winding around a mountain with views of the river and castles. Very helpful natives enjoying the warm weather pointed us in the right direction.

"Gouood Moraning," said a jogger as he passed us heading down the hill. "Springu Jougging," on the way back up. He was a happy man, as most people in the area seemed to be.

He was one of the last happy people we saw for a while. The park was at least 40 years old according to sticker we received about the park's monorail, and was in sad condition. That same sadness seemed to fill all the employees. I would be sad too though if I worked in the heat of the day in a park that had, at best, 40 people visiting it.

It was a barren wasteland, filled with dilapidated rides, and a very scary roller coaster. It wasn't scary though because of it's age, but rather due to the fact that it was jarring, had way too low of head choppers, and cost us 500 yen each.

Looking past the theme park portion of the park and into the zoological portion, things were a lot better. I'm not totally sure yet how I feel about the living conditions of some of the animals, some of which were very small cages with no natural environments.

I'm not an accredited zoologist though, so I can't say that a bunch of metal bars to swing from is any different than a tree. It just didn't seem right. Now when the animals were happy though they seemed to be quite so, especially seeing how we were able to purchase food to throw to them.

Clapping at your, making faces, jumping up and down; they seemed to do anything to get your attention when you had food in your hand. It was really a lot of fun watching how similar God made them to us.

The highlight of the day though is actually a dual highlight. The first part was an area devoted to ring tailed lemurs. Unlike your average American zoo this area allowed you to come face to face with the animals as there were no cages. At one point the zoo keepers threw a bunch of dandelions out causing a large group of lemurs to run across Melissa feet. It was the coolest thing I've ever done at just about anywhere.

The second highlight was a giant grey-back gorilla. When I say "giant" I mean it. Never have I seen a gorilla as large as this one. My best guess is that he was 9 feet long and over 700 lbs. It was amazing to be able to look at him.

With those two great experiences under out belt we decided to head on home - but this time the much shorter way as directed by the park attendants.

To check out todays photos click here

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Kannon, Tengu and Nio, Oh My!

Today we finally managed to make it to the Tokyo National Museum - yatta! Seeing how this was one of the major places that I had been wanting to go to I was rather glad to see that we were able to find a day to fit it in after our last attempt ending in failure. Things would be easier if buildings didn't decide to close on random days of the week.

As a whole the place can be summed up in one word - museummy. Sure, "museummy" may not be a word, but it's the best one I could come up with. Basically, if you love history, then this was great place to be. Thankfully I am one of those people, and I had a really great time.

Upon entering you are taking directly into a viewing of the history of Buddism and how it spread to Japan. There really wasn't much here that hadn't been see at other places throughout our trip with the exception the ability to see how the image of Buddah changed over time. Some of the works in Turkey were from the 1st century AD.

From there things slowly wound you around in a circle, giving you the chance to walk through the different stages of Japanese history, starting with the Jōmon period (1,600 years ago to 2,600 years ago). Through this early stage of the islands history we were able to see the oldest known pottery, and some pretty funky clay sculptures depicting everything from monkeys and cats to cactus looking looking people.

As things progressed things began to take on form of the more stereotypical Japan. Swords here. Kimonos there. Statues over there. Everything was beautiful, neat, and quite old. I would love to post pictures for today but we took around 300 of them, so I guess you'll have to ask me in person if you like to take a gander.

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Craft Shopping?

Prior to coming here Melissa had been reading up on all sorts of craft blogs - because you know, Japanese people have rich history full of crafts. She didn't have illusions of spinning silk for kimonos or fashioning a sword, but rather partaking in the new "kawaii" style of doing things. Because of this we thought it best to devote a day to searching through craft stores, but things didn't quite work out that way.

There was rather large laundry list of places to go, and just as it would be, all of them were rather far apart, but thankfully connected by one train line. First on the list was a crazy super awesome store called "Kiddy Land." The name may lead you to assume that it's a pedophiles dream, but there were in fact very few kids. Instead there were a lot of cutesy toys made for the child inside of every adult. Thanks to the lack of craft materials we were on a start to a disappointing day for crafts, but a great for shopping as a whole.

Next on the list was a fabric store located near the Tokyo Parasite Museum, but sadly I was unable to find an easy route there so it was skipped in light of another fabric store called, "Tomato."

Tomato would bring us for the first time into a calm part of Tokyo, where people are free to ride bikes and the elderly can wander safely. Due to hard to follow directions we ended up wondering though the back streets, through a market, near a school, and by a really neat car park that held cars above the ground in a ferris wheel style holder. It was a nice walk eventually leading us to out destination, which as it would happen to be was - closed. Up to that point I hadn't seen a store closed durring the day, but oh well, it was a Sunday afer all.

Heading on down the line we were to visit a mega-store called "Sunshine City." At one point in time the tower was the tallest building in Tokyo, housing a five story mall, a Cold Stone Creamery, and a rooftop observatory. Once ariving there we weren't actually sure how it was in any way craft related and after getting home I'm still not sure.

The observetory was awesome though, allowing you to see really how massive of a city Tokyo is. You actually can't see to the end, a haze in the horizion prevents it, but I can imagine that even if it wasn't there you still wouldn't be able to find an end. A bad side note - when trying to walk and look out the window I tripped over a large platform used for looking through a telescope. It messed up my knee, chest, and shoulder, but I'm fine.

With all of the views that we could handle we ate some Cold Stone, tipped the server to get a song (Zippidy Doo Da), and headed on home. Once again a great day, one in which Melissa managed to find two whole store devoted to Hello Kitty.

To see the pics click here.

P.S. - for the next day we simply rested and worked on a Gundam model I purchased. You have to rest sometime, right?

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Game Show!

So, one of my goals coming here was to try and get on a game show. I wrote every television station that I could find in Tokyo, which is quite a few, but never did I get a response other than an automated, "Thank you for leaving a massage."

Today was a good day though, as I was approached on the street by a game show crew. It was crazy. We were at a vending machine trying to purchase 500 ml Pepsi cans when a lady and a camera crew came up to us and wanted to know if we would help with a game show. Melissa didn't want to, but I knew I had to give it a try.

The gist of the game goes like this: a Japanese celebrity who was an actor (the guy with the bowl cut) was to try and use charades to explain to me that "something" in the "something" in 60 seconds Guess two words in 60 seconds - sounds easy. Wrong. The catch was that the actor had horrible English, which the hostess (girl with tie-die) was well aware of.

At first he said "A warrior in the air." So I said, "Superman." He said, "No, no, no. To infinity and beyond," while pointing in the air. "Oh Buzz Lightyear!," I exclaimed. "Okay, sounds like buzz, in the air." "Buzz Lightyear in the Sky?" "No, like Buzz." ...and the time was up. I was asked for my final answer, which was "Buzz Lightyear in the Sky." I was told by the hostess that I was actually really close. The answer was, "Bus in the Sky." Hopefully I can now bring laughter to generations of Japanese to come.

That was pretty much the highlight for the day. Oh, well that and buying a new Gundam Model. Woot. For todays pics click here.

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Giant Wooden Buildings Oh My!

This was a day of lots of firsts. It was our first time taking the Shinkansen (bullet train). First time outside of Tokyo. First time visiting a world heritage site. A good day in general.

We started out by boarding the Shinkansen in a risky move by taking an unreserved car. Fortunately we arrived at a very unpopulated part of the track and had no problems what-so-ever securing a seat.

At first it seems like just another train, but when they finally pick up speed you really start to realize how fast you are going. Buildings - blink of an eye. Whole farms - maybe two blinks. The best part though is when one Shinkansen passes another. The intense winds from the two trains passing causes the cars to buckle sideways. The feeling never gets old.

With a transfer at Kyoto to a slower city train we found our way in Nara, home to the Daibutsu, a 67 foot tall statue of Buddha.

For some of the people this was a sacred trip, filled with many hand clapping, hand washing, mouth rinsing, incense burning, and coin throwing. For most though it was a day in the park with a chance to see a World Heritage site and the worlds largest wooden building. Being Christian we were in the latter, and seeing how there was a gift shop selling "I Love Japan" shirts I'm not sure how anybody could be in the prior.

The statue and it's housing, although amazingly cool, wasn't the highlight of the park - no, that my friends belong to the deer. You see, all throughout the park there are "wild" deer that roam around, waiting for you to feed them food cakes sold by the natives. The Shinto people believe that the deer are messengers from their gods, but I believe they are just plain cute.

With lots of temples, lots of statues, and even more deer, we decided to head on home. Unfortunately we jumped on a local route instead of an express, which lead to longer ride. Then coming home we took a Kodoma Shinkansen instead of a Hikari Shinkansen, which stops more frequently and ends up taking much longer. Oh well, all turned out right and we made it home.

To see the pictures from the day click here

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Ye olde Nippon

Today was our first day in "old" Japan in the form of Tokyo district of Asukusa. Sure, there were large buildings all around, and they were doing construction -with scaffolding and the like - but it did have a different feel than the yest of the town.

Asakusa is currently one of the last holding out places for single story buildings with it's quaint open air market filled with many wooden shops along the narrow streets beckoning tourist from the Japan and beyond to taste their wares. Want a baby kimono? They have it. Want a wooden sword? They have it. Want a samurai wig? They have that too. In fact, if you want something something stereotypically Japanese you have no further to go than Asakusa. It's a haven for this kind of stuff.

Asakusa is not just for touristy gifts though; no there is a whole lot more.

Once you pass through the market, under the giant lantern, you are swept away to a land of temples, shrines, statues and fried bananas dipped in chocolate. Although in no way a spiritual part of the trip it was actually rather nice to have a chance to sit down and look at a time gone by. Buildings were several hundred years old, and some of the shrines looked even older.

It was a quiet day, with great weather, a lot of history. Tomorrow shall be the same, but instead we will be just under 300 miles away.

To see some of the wonderful sites at Asakusa click here.

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Disneyrandu!

"Disneyrandu, Disneyrandu, Disneyrandu!" - that is the sound of a train full of kids about to get off at Imahara Station, just outside of Disneyland. The Japanese language doesn't truly have the letter "L" or single consonants other than "N," which leads to a lot of funny words. So, with funny words we were led to fun times at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.



Like most days we started out a train, but this time we weren't so blessed as to simply catch one train and call it good. No, we had the pleasure of finding the Keiyo, which was a treacherous walk through the underground labyrinth at Tokyo Station.

Not only was a it a long and confusing walk, we were led down escalators that were steep enough that you could simply lean back and fall asleep and wouldn't have to worry about falling forwards. Seeing how Tokyo station is regarded to by locals to the be the most confusing of stations I find it rather cool that we managed to get to our destination on time. Oh, and speaking of cool things - ever heard us talking about how we think we have been blessed with good timing? Well, we happen to be here for the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland.

Pulling into the station you are immediately greeted by the wonderful site of the Tokyo Disney Hotel - it it's self a work of art. In fact the whole park is, thanks to the staff who are always in a rush to keep things neat. The employees are constantly keeping things cleaned (one person with a broom, one person with a dustpan - how's that for productive hours), constantly monitoring lines, constantly yelling "welcome" to you.

Other than looking great, having great rides, there are a few drawbacks.

1. Lines are crazy long. We're talking three hours a ride.
2. Estimated wait times are never correct. Seeing how perfectly on time their trains are it's very odd to see them have wait times be off.
3. Curry and black pepper popcorn. More of a plus/minus seeing how I like curry, but on popcorn...really?
4. Most rides are in Japanese.

Now the fourth one only makes sense, but it does take a tad bit off of the ride.

Despite any setbacks though we managed to have a great time hitting up many an awesome rides - including the amazing Tokyo Disneyland exclusive, "Pooh's Honey Hunt," which takes you on an adventure through the hundred acre wood.

Fast forward now onto the next day we continued our adventure by visiting Tokyo DisneySea, which in my opinion was the greatest theme park I've ever been too. As soon as you step through the front gate you receive this feeling that you have arrived at somewhere very different than your regular Disneyland.

A giant harbor sets in the middle of the park with a volcano jutting out of the skyline, spewing out real fire. Around the park are more themed areas, such as large scale city walls around Agrabah and a faux Taj Mahal, a Myan temple, Mexican marketplace, and an underwater city.

All of the rides, with the exception of the Tower of Terror, were original creations. Although The Tower was in fact my favorite there were many that gave it a run for it's money.

Journey though the Center of the Earth is a great case in point. It is a dark ride, where you travel though a steam vent down towards the earth's core. Along the way you run into odd creatures, lot's of hot air and real fire. The climax of the ride though is a fast exit through the top of the parks volcano.

Once again; great rides and some amazing times. Sure, there was a lot of walking and a crazy train ride, but I guess that was all part of the fun too.

To check out our photos of the two parks click here.

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