Chocolate house

Before Christmas, I bought a chocolate house kit, like a gingerbread house, but made of chocolate.However, I didn't have chance to work on it until a few days ago. It was actually much harder to make than I expected, and I needed a lot of help from Hunty as with one pair of hands either the chocolate glue set too early, or it just fell apart. The whole house fell apart on me several times, and one wall is currently loose, however, it's standing, and looks delicious. Lets see how long it lasts...

Let's get lost, together, at the Ghibli Museum

The key attraction in Tokyo (at least for me), and the highlight of our trip was a visit to the Ghibli Museum. Our dates in Tokyo were chosen around the dates when we could get tickets. If you're not familiar with Studio Ghibli, they are a Japanese animation studio, kind of the Disney of Japan. I have a post about their movies in the works; for the time being, suffice it to say that Studio Ghibli has produced some fantastic movies, with the most famous being My Neighbour Totoro. Totoro is very big, rather cute, and pictured below.

The Ghibli Museum is a little difficult to get to. The museum is incredibly popular, and tickets are also very cheap (about $10 each). Thus tickets must be pre-purchased well (months) in advance. Not only this, but the tickets are not just for a day, but also a time, and entry will be refused if you are more than half an hour late. Thus I was rather overexcited and dragged Hunty out of bed a fair bit sooner than necessary for our 10 o'clock (first entry of the day) tickets. As it was, we successfully navigated the trains and had plenty of time for a pleasant stroll through the park on the way to the museum, with me jumping eagerly at every sign that we were getting closer.

From the first sight, the museum exceeded my already high expectations. The building complex from the outside is a whimsical combination of different styles which together add up to wonderful world of childlike fun.

Poor little sootballs

Totoro the gatekeeper

Enthusiastically, we queued up for entry, Hunty keen, me bouncing on the spot with excitement. Stepping inside was like stepping into a wonderland, with little Totoros everywhere. The ceiling in the entry hall had a wonderful mural with characters from a number of the most popular movies hiding between the vines and flowers. From there, the museum continued to surprise and delight. The attention to detail was incredible. I'm sure that no visible part of the museum was left to a default, everything was carefully selected, and mostly specially made, from the lift and the spectacular ceiling fan/propeller blade, down to the door handles and tap fittings. Many of the windows contained spectacular stained glass designs. Even the bathrooms had more than the usual amount of though put into them. It was like no museum I've seen before, and I suspect I'll never see anything like it again. Inside the museum, photos were not allowed, so you'll just have to go there yourselves one day to see how wonderful it was.

The main hall re-enforces  the whimsical nature of the museum. The main building is three stories high, and the top two floors both have a large opening so that you can see back down to the bottom. From the second floor, a narrow bridge spans the gap, just because. Towards the back of the first floor is a tightly wound spiral staircase going up one and a half floors. Having climbed reached the top, you need to duck to get through the tiny doorway which leads back to the main staircase where you can either go half a floor up or half a floor down. This makes the spiral staircase pointless, but that's just part of the fun.

On the roof, a "life-size" robot from Laputa stands sentinel over the grounds. A staff member was up on the roof with the robot, and I thought that he must be there to prevent people taking photos. However, I decided to try my luck, and he said it was fine to take photos outside the buildings. I literally jumped for joy. Repeatedly. Then I ran up and gave the robot a big hug.

Also inside the museum is a small theatre showing short films not available outside the museum. We arrived just before the showing, and had to sit on the stairs, but the stairs were surprisingly comfortable. The film we saw was The Day I Havested a Planet. It was subtitled, which was a plus, but the subtitles were for the hearing impaired, not for the language impaired, and so they were not very much use at all for us English speakers. Despite understanding only a small portion of what was going on, it was beautiful and enjoyable. I only wish it would be released to DVD so I could watch it subtitled and actually understand what was going on.

There were a number of other displays which I won't describe, but I'll simply repeat that our time inside the Ghibli Museum was absolutely magical.

Nikko - The mountains

On Christmas Day, after a couple of Skype calls, Hunty and I caught a bus up into the Nikko mountains to find ourselves a "White Christmas." There wasn't a thick blanket of snow up there, but there was snow, which made me excited. When we got off the bus, it was lightly snowing, which made me even more excited, which made Hunty laugh.

We got off the bus fairly high up, walked along the creek to Ryuzu Falls, and then down to Lake Chuzenji. The walk probably took twice as long as it should have, because I kept stopping to take photos of anything and everything, I was just so excited about all the whiteness.

The mixture of running water, snow and ice was captivating.

Ryuzu Falls

Along the banks of Lake Chuzenji were some amazing collections of icicles.

Lake Chizenji

Lake Chizenji

After a a few dozen icicle photos, I had to promise a shivering Hunty that I wouldn't take any more photos of icicles. Then I saw the tree below, and fortunately he let me break my promise.

When we got to the bus stop near Lake Chizenji, we had just missed the bus. There was a waiting room with a heater, where we thawed out for a while and feeling painfully returned to our fingers. This wasn't to last however, missing the bus was an opportunity, so I dragged Hunty out again to see the Kegon falls. By the time we caught the next bus, I was exhausted enough to sleep most of the trip back.

Kegon Falls

Nikko - The shrines and temples

After Tokyo, we went for a few days to Nikko, which is 2-3 hours north of Tokyo by train, depending on how much you're prepared to pay for your tickets. We left our luggage at the station, and set off in search of the information centre, which for some reason was not located anywhere near either of the two train stations, nor near the main bus area either.

When we finally found tourist information, we met a volunteer tour guide. She had just spent about half an hour trying to convince people to come on her free one hour guided tour, with no success, and had come back to the tourist information centre to warm up. She offered to take us on a tour, despite the fact that she should have been finishing shortly, and having had a great experience with a tour at Himeji, we enthusiastically accepted.

We walked together up to the Shinkyō Bridge, where the tour should have started. Legend has it that a priest and his followers wished to cross the river at this point, but were unable to. The priest prayed, and a bridge was formed from the bodies of two snakes, allowing them to cross. Later, the Shinkyō Bridge was built in the same location.

Shinkyō Bridge

From the bridge, we walked up into the temple and shrine district. In Japan, Buddhism and Shinto have coexisted mostly peacefully for a very long time, and most people follow a mixture of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs. However, Nikko is seen a particularly integrated city, with shrines and temples located very close to one another, and some places of worship being simultaneously Shinto and Buddhist, which is unusual.

One interesting thing we learnt was the meaning of the gate guardians, which we see everywhere. The one on the right, with his mouth open, is going "ah". This is the first sound of a newborn, and is also the first letter in the Japanese kana alphabet. The one on the left is going "n". This is the sound made by a dying person, and is the last letter of the kana alphabet. As members of the living, we pass between them to enter the temple.

n

a

Auditioning for a job as a gate guardian

After completing our guided tour of the 5 shrines/temples, we had some lunch, and set off again for a closer look at some of the shrines/temples, as we didn't enter any of them during the tour. Unfortunately my camera was playing up a bit, first user error (I had it on a strange setting, didn't realise it, and could only save photos to the internal memory as a result), and then the battery died on me, not improved by the icy cold weather. However, I did manage to get a few nice photos.

Last day in Tokyo - Part 2 (Shinjuku and Harajuku)

This is part 2 of a post, part 1 can be found here.

After lunch we split up. We were both coming down with colds (again), and Hunty was a day or two ahead of me on symptoms and needed to rest. Meanwhile, I needed to prove to myself that I could handle the Tokyo train system on my own, and there was plenty of Tokyo I still wanted to see.

First stop was Shinjuku, where I wanted to climb the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to get a view of the city. I successfully navigated my way to the Shinjuku Station, which I thought and achievement, and then left the station in search of the building. The way was reasonably well signed, however, as I walked, there were fewer and fewer people. I was walking through underground tunnels, and despite being in the most populated city in the world, there was hardly anybody around. It was creepy. However, nothing bad happened, and soon enough, I was in a lift full of Chinese tourists, going up to the viewing platform on the 45^th floor.

Back in the Kansai region, despite thinking of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe as large cities, every time I've had a high vantage point, I've always been surprised at just how easily I can see across them. The cities stretch into one another, but are surprisingly narrow between coast an mountains. Tokyo, on the other hand truly is a huge city with skyscrapers, or at least highrise buildings stretching as far as the eye could see in all directions.

Next stop was Harajuku. I wanted to see Meiji Jingu (a major shrine), but couldn't figure out which direction to go, so I decided to wander through the shopping district first. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen some pretty busy shopping at Shinsaibashi Osaka, but that was no comparison. There were more or less two streams of people, and if I wanted to look at a shop on the other side, I had to walk about 15m past the shop, then join the stream going the other way, and try and get past the people while moving with them. The shops were all packed with people as well. It was definitely an experience, but I just can't picture choosing to shop in such an environment. 

Harajuku is famous for its weird youth fashoins, particularly Lolita, but Sundays are the day to see them. Since we weren't going to be in Tokyo on Sunday, I kept my eyes peeled, hoping for something. There was definitely a higher proportion of multi-coloured hairdos, superplatform shoes and weird stockings (spiderweb, anyone?), but I didn't see any “poster child” types that you see in the guidebooks. Then, just as I was almost out of the shopping district again, I saw one. Pale pink wig, short dress with massive petticoats, socks up to the knees, and super-platform boots. I followed her up the street, and when she turned around, I realised she was a Westerner. We had a bit of a chat. It turned out she was from Adelaide, and was spending a few months in Japan, and was very much into Lolita fashion. Stupidly, I didn't ask to take her photo.

We parted company, and I figured out which way to go for Meiji Jingu, but was disappointed to learn that it had closed 20 minutes previously. Annoyed with myself for not having gone there first upon arriving in Harajuku, I decided that I might as well head back to the hotel. I got on the train, and managed to navigate my way back to the home station without any mishaps. Feeling very pleased with myself, I left the station by a minor side exit, and had a minor panic attack because I had no idea which direction the hotel was from there. I walked a little in one direction, but it didn't look good, so I turned around and walked the other way. Fortunately, after a little walk, I could see a major street in that direction, and a few minutes later I was reassured to be on (relatively) familiar ground.

A girl in the Harajuku Station

Last day in Tokyo - Part 1 (Ueno)

On our last day in Tokyo we did a bit of a general exploration of the various cities of Tokyo. Yes, Tokyo is actually comprised of 23 cities, which together form a super-city. We'd already previously explored Akihabara and Shibuya, so we left them off the list, and started in Ueno. Ueno has a huge park containing several museums, a zoo, a mini-amusement park, and a number of other cultural buildings. We intended to go to the National Museum, but somehow ended up outside the Museum of Natural History and Science instead, so we decided to have a look inside.

Inside the museum, they had a spherical movie theatre. You stand on a narrow bridge stretching the diameter, and a movie is projected right around you, giving you the impression that you are immersed in the environment. They showed us two short movies back-to-back, one about dinosaurs, and the other about the marine food chain. It was incredible. We couldn't understand much of what was being said, but it didn't matter, the stunning visuals were enough. It's amazing how easily the senses are fooled. As our view zoomed around, from sky high to ground level, back up, and then down into the water, I was convinced (on an emotional/sensory level) that we were actually moving. I found myself bracing when it looked like we would hit the water, and at one point a dive had me leave my stomach behind as if it had been real.

After the movie we went to see an exhibition about the life of Alfred Nobel, which was presented with full English, but otherwise wasn't that interesting. After that it was the more long term exhibitions. The one about the history of people in Japan, from the early hominids to the recent past, and also the one about dinosaurs and other fossils would have been interesting, but displayed only the titles in English, and the other displays (space, marine ecology, etc.), had not much English at all.

We left the museum, and went to see a shrine in the park, only to discover that what looked, from a distance, like an incredibly decrepit building was actually only a giant picture of an incredibly decrepit building, hung in front of said building while maintenance was being carried out.

Slightly disappointed, we headed back to Ueno station, where we had lunch in a Hard Rock Cafe. This was a first for me, and the food was excellent. I had chicken and pineapple quesadillas, and every mouthful (of which there were many) was a blissful experience, soaking up the flavours. I hate to say it, but I have yet to find any Japanese food that comes even close.

Part 2 is continued here.