Day Two: Ghibli Museum

I slept for 11 hours. I think I was a little tired.

I had my ticket for the Ghibli Museum booked for September 6. It felt like a nice, easy thing to do on my first day here.

Of course, this meant having to figure out the trains again. I headed out around 10 am, long after the rush hours ended, so while the stations were still filled with people, the trains themselves had enough space to sit.

There are, from what I can tell, two types of trains you can catch: one you can use your prepaid card (I have a Suica) on, which requires you to tap to open the gate and tracks your start point, and tap when you leave, which charges you the fare for the distance you travelled, which is honestly pretty neat. The other is a JR line, where it still has the same type of gates that look identical to the others but where your prepaid Suica won't work. Those ones you can use with your JR Rail Pass, and the easiest way to tell that they're the ones you can use your pass on is whether there is an office to the side with a person in it. For those, you show your pass to the person in the office and they wave you through to get on, and to get out, you show your pass to the person in the office and they wave you through. So honestly I like the JR lines because I already paid for my rail pass, that's making it more worth it every time I use the line.

So I hopped on the train, made my way to Mitaka, and walked fifteen minutes to the Ghibli Museum. It was a really really nice walk, although it was incredibly hot for someone who just came from "high of 21" (it was 32 degrees already 11 am). There were buildings on the right, which made sure I could walk in the shade, but to the left the road was bordered by a little creek surrounded by trees - the whole way along the road. The whole walk was accompanied by the sound of cicadas buzzing, which easily overpowered the small amount of traffic there was on the other side of the creek.

A rather brilliant thing they had was for the roads that turned onto the one I was on, they had mirrors for the drivers to easily see if there was any oncoming traffic.

No blind left turns for these drivers!

You aren't allowed your camera inside the museum, so I don't have any pictures of the exhibits, but if you're a fan of Ghibli films, I 100% recommend it. The ticket you get is a little bit of microfilm from one of their movies - mine is from Howl's Moving Castle, which I love because it was one of my favourite books as a kid and it's such a great movie adaptation.

They have a movie showing of a film exclusive to the museum. I believe it rotates films. The one I saw was about a boy who grew a tiny planet from a magic seed, and even though I don't speak any Japanese, it was easy enough to follow the story, and it had all the hallmarks of a Ghibli Film - stunning backgrounds and an intense attention to detail. The only issue I had with it was when I sat down, the person to the right of me cringed away as if I smelled bad (which I didn't!). He practically recoiled away when I sat. It was super weird.

You are allowed outside pictures, so I took a few.

Absolutely sweltering up there, though.

After the museum, I bought a bottle of water and wandered around the little park the museum is situated in.

Admired a little shiba inu who wanted to smell me as he trotted past as his owner biked by, was impressed by the man who was probably around 80 jogging around the running path in the 34 degree heat, and bought a second bottle of water because it turns out you should probably spend your entire time outside drinking. Just non-stop. Chug that water.

On my way back, I saw a couple of rugby mascots.

I think they're bears in capes?

And then I went back to my hotel. Got back around 4pm and took a nap. Woke up, realized I hadn't eaten all day and that I was too tired to find somewhere to eat, so I just went to the 7/11 downstairs and grabbed some food, as one does in Japan.

Surprise standout: the coleslaw. It was super tasty, crunchy vegetables, creamy tangy sauce. The corn was a delicious addition.

And then I went to bed at 8 pm. And woke up today at 5 am. I have regressed to the sleep schedule of a small child.

The plan today is to go to Nikko, since I got an email from the Tokyo Consul letting me know a typhoon is expected to make landfall in the Kanto region tomorrow (which includes Tokyo), so if that happens I'm going to be stuck in a small area. (Don't worry, Mom, it's supposed to only be the edges around Tokyo, so more like our windstorms than what's happened in the Bahamas).