From Ramen to Pork Pies

Day Four: Thursday 13 April 2006

After waking only had time to pack and spend half an hour on the free hotel internet before we had to make our way to the airport. I sent a group email to friends with a short description of our Tokyo stories and checked out my flickr page and saw Kklarence's comment on my ferret saver photo. Took the 1 hour local rapid JR train to the airport. Spent our last remaining yen on a present for Maddog - a set of sake shot glasses with erotic japanese illustrations. Checked in without hassle and boarded our first BA leg, 1.00pm flight to London. Not too impressed with BA though. They gave away my vegetarian meal to someone else, and had to prepare another one for me. And I had to sit next to a very obnoxious Nigerian businessman who stuck his elbow into me for the entire flight. He also thought he was being discriminated against when I got a random customer survey form and he didn't. He wasn't even sitting in his allocated seat - he should have been in the row infront next to the couple with a child. I watched movies pretty constantly - Pride and Prejudice, Transamerica and The Producers. Only managed to get in a couple of half hour naps, so it was a long 12 hours.

Landed in London at 5.30pm local time, but it was much later according to our body clock time. Tube to Maddog's place in Clapham North. We bought our first London lager and sat outside the Clapham North Pub to wait for the Dog to show up after work and take us back to his place. Drank more beers and caught up on all the news. Gave Maddog his present, which he loved, and we listed to the CD I bought in Tokyo - "Pussy Cannibal Holocaust". He had a present for me too - a pack of pork pies! Which we all shared while drinking away the rest of the evening, till we crashed around 10pm.

Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Tokyo

Laputa Robot, originally uploaded by haruspex.

Day Three: Wednesday 12 April

After breakfast we took the train out to Mitaka to go see the Ghibli Museum. The building itself is incredibly funky. The outside is all rounded walls in coloured render with stained glass windows of Ghibli film scenes. We had booked our tickets before we left from a Japanese tourist agency in Melbourne - as they limit the number of people who can visit each day.

Inside, the main hall was open 3 stories up to a skylight and central propellor fan. Rooms to the side had exhibits - recreated animation studios and sets from the films, and there were many nooks and cranies to explore and narrow spiral staircases that ascended inside a metal cage. Tiny doors led to tiny rooms with a sole tiny stool. And throughout was wooden floors and staircases with iron balustrades. It was awesome and thrilling to be there.

On the roof is a life size robot from Laputa, and we got in the queue to take photos of ourselves with it. The only disappointment was that only little children were allowed to play inside the life-sized Catbus. The entrance ticket included a viewing of an exclusive Ghibli animation short. The one we saw was very apt - a girl hiking through the countryside, leaving gifts of apples for the nature spirits. The sound effecs - of rain, wind, running water, eating and gulping - were all made with vocal sounds.

I tried not to go too crazy in the gift shop - I bought some stickers, a soot sprite pin, a little white totoro keychain and some postcards. Also bought 2 pins (a Kiki cat and a Laputa pirate - to send as presents to M and M). After soaking up the atmosphere a little more and watching the adorably cute tiny Japanese children go crazy, and taking dozens of photos (of the outside allowed only), we sadly left, visiting the giant Totoro in the gatehouse on the way out. Walked back to Mitaka Station along the side of the canal through Inokashira Park and had lunch in Mitaka at their "Freshness Burger" chain.

A couple of train stops away was Kouenji - which had many little streets and laneways full of boutiques and vintage clothing stores. There was also, weirdly, the highest density of hairdressers that I'd noticed anywhere in Tokyo. If you wanted a rockabilly haircut - this is where you would come. The most awesome store was called "Ugly". They had loads of mexican wrestler t-shirts and stuff. There was on shirt I wanted soo badly - but I restrained myself. Across from Ugly was "Chocolate Chiwawa", which had crazy toy dispensers out the front - one which had plastic poo and the other had dismembered body parts. Other shops we checked out were Trick STar, Base ( a punk record store where I bought a CD of all girl punk band Anadorei, titled "Pussy Cannibal Holocaust". Another cool punk record store was called Boy Records - which was up a tiny staircase in a triangular shaped building in Zakaya Alley (bar alley). Baroque was a bit like Polyester in Melbourne for one one half of the store, and the other half was full of Japanese porn DVDs.

It was getting dark and the tiny bars looked inviting, except we were still shy about not speaking the language. So we headed back to Ueno and went to our favourite local noodle bar for gyoza and miso ramen.

Our last full day in Tokyo. Three days is definitely way too short - we'll have to come back again some day.