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