Trip to Korea and Japan: Day 23 - Studio Ghibli Museum and Love in Shinjuku

(Click here for first day, yesterday and all trips)

Saturday was dedicated to the Studio Ghibli Museum, a whole building where everything is themed and specially designed around the artwork and worlds that Hayao Miyazaki created together with his team. It is located in Inokashira Park reached via the JR Chuo line. Get of at the Mitaka station, follow the alleyway next to a well situated and almost posh houses down to the park. Afterwards it is nice to walk through the park with its lush nature, ponds and bridges, a petting zoo and small picturesque Shrine and then exit at the northwest end and take the train from Kichijori station.
OBS!! You have to book your tickets beforehand to be sure to get in. When we got there just a hour or two after opening it was sold out and I believe thats usually the case.
What surprised me the most about the museum was not that it was so well designed in every small detail, but that it was actually a very instructive and fascinating lesson in how movies in general and animated movies especially is done. From sketches and layering, colors and work procedures, to how light is reflected and lenses are created, and still paintings become fluid motion pictures. All this done in playful and humorous settings. Even the toilets were fun to visit.

Getting closer...

Gated community? Not quite, but the most affluent area we had seen in Tokyo. Ironically the one looking the most typically westernized also, which was worth thinking about one and two times as I really like Japanese more laissez-faire way of city planning.

The museum is below center to the left.

Actually it wasn't Totoro checking our tickets...

OK, so no photographing inside, so one had to take the chances one had.

Inokashira Park is well worth strolling through afterwards.

If you have not tried a shrine visit before, here you have a very nice spot to do it. Wash your hands and take a sip of water. Light some incense (that you can buy for 100 yen). Throw a coin into the box at the top of the stairs and clap your hands together and pray for something (or just contemplate that you are actually in a shrine in Tokyo, Japan...), and then ring the bell.

We stopped at Shinjuku on the way home which really had its share of skyscrapers which seemed to compete in some kind of powerful display on who could show the most cool but restrained architecture.

This one I had to visit as I have seen it in Japanese drama series.

Yeees, there is some "hidden" symbolism here, as you who are aware of my circumstances at the moment know. I am actually not quite sure about what I mean but that love is complicated.

Garret popcorn to end the evening, really nice.

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