It’s Totoro time!
We headed to Mitaka to visit the Studio Ghibli museum. Studio Ghibli is an animation studio best known for their movies ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, ‘Spirited Away’, and more. Mitaka is a much quieter part of town, with cute architecture and smaller streets.
The Ghibli Museum is just inside a park, a perfect Ghibli-esque setting.
Inside are 3 floors with various exhibits on the history of animation, different animation techniques used by Studio Ghibli throughout the years, and lots of original art from their movies. Outside is a cafe, a small garden, and a Laputa Giant statue.
Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take photos inside, so sorry for the lack of photos! Outside the building it’s okay to take photos.
Visitors are also given a ticket to see an original animated short featuring Mei and the Catbus from ‘My Neighbor Totoro’. The ticket has a transparent film frame in it, and makes a nice souvenir. The movie was really cute, and simple enough to understand even without subtitles.
Everyone’s favorite part was the ‘Animating Food’ exhibit. There were plastic food models portraying all the delicious food from the movies, whole storyboards dedicated to how characters would cook and eat, and lots of mouth-watering looking artwork. We all left with rumbling stomachs.
Unfortunately for foreign tourists like us, there’s not really any English descriptions on the exhibits. It’s still very cool to see original sketches, paintings, and storyboards. Definitely worth a visit if you’re a fan.
If you want to visit the museum, you have to reserve a ticket in advance. Getting a ticket is quite the process, here’s a link for more information.
Inokashira Park and Mosquitos
Kuniko had told us that Kichijoji is for cool hip young people. Because we’re so young and hip we walked there via Inokashira park. The park has nice walking/biking trails thorugh a wooded section and a small pond. Along the way we spotted lots of mushrooms; Chris has a really good eye for them. We also got destroyed by mosquitos; James in particular gets large welts from bites. Of course it was the one day we forgot to bring repellent.
Kichijoji, Curry and Taiyaki
We got out of the forest alive and made our way to Kichijoji! Near the station there’s tons of cute shops and restaurants. Definitely a hip place to be.
We found a small underground cafe that served curry and waited a bit for a table to open up.
All four of us ordered curry and coffee sets and patiently waited, stomachs growling. Three curry plates appeared. James sat eyeing everyone else’s delicious curry, hoping his would show up soon. When everyone was about halfway done he realized his mistake, he had ordered only 3 curry sets! Waving down a waiter fixed the situation. If you’d like to visit, here’s the cafe’s website.
Afterwards we walked around, looking at all the delicious food and interesting shops. May found a Taiyaki shop and had to get one.
Taiyaki are fish shaped cakes filled with red bean paste or other fillings. Jessica even got a magikarp shaped Taiyaki! Taiyaki are always a treat, with a crispy outside and yummy soft filling.
Meiji Shrine
Next we headed to Harajuku Station to visit Meiji Shrine. This was Chris’s first visit to a Japanese shrine and what a way to start. The trees surrounding pathway to the shrine help you forget that you’re in the middle of the Tokyo metropolis. The sun was setting and light rays were peaking through the trees, softly lighting the path and the many torii gates.
The main shrine is a simple square pavilion with places for fortunes and votive tablets. Shortly after arriving security guards started motioning for us to clear the square–there was a wedding procession!
On our way out we had some fun with the light rays.
Youth Fashion at Takeshita Doori
Just a short walk from Meiji Jingu is Takeshita Doori. This street used to be a center for youth fashion. You can still see many clothing stores, dessert shops, and the occasional style victim. Most of the dessert shops cater to Instagrammers, with super cute designs and sections specifically for photo taking. Nowadays the main street has become overrun with tourists and isn’t as hip as in years past.
Because it was so crowded (we weren’t helping of course), we ducked away to a backalley. Just one street over the atmosphere is way quieter, a nice relief.
May spotted a shiba-inu cafe but they were all booked for the day 😞
If you’re interested in Japanese fashion trends, check out
droptokyo or style-arena.
Looping back around to the station, we headed towards home.
First Ramen of the Trip: Ippudou
On the way we decided to finish the day with our first ramen of the trip: Ippudou. They’re a chain known for their tonkotsu ramen, which comes in either a ‘white’ or ‘red’ options. We tried both with an onsen-tamago: soft-cooked egg. We also ordered bite sized gyoza, pretty good. Red VS White? Red has a deeper flavor but both are really tasty. No clear winner.
May still thinks Ichiran has better ramen – we will have to see what everyone else thinks once we get to Osaka.
A packed day but really fun! Time to get some rest and prep for even more ramen tomorrow!
