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.