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Today was the day that I had set aside to make a trip out to the neighbour hood of Mitaka (about 20 minutes away from Shinjuku by Train), home of the Ghibli Museum.

The museum is about a kilometre from the Mitaka station, which makes a rather nice walk, as the path is boarded by reserve. Totoro marks the way, and is also ready to take tickets once you arrive.

If only Totoro could take the tickets… Tickets to the museum are via a pre-booking, which can be done through travel agents, or through Lawson stores (similar to a 711 or IGA in Australia). Once you present your booking confirmation, they will give to a ticket for entry, which also allows you to watch a session of a Ghibli short film within the museum. The entry tickets consist of frames of film from Ghibli movies, such as Kiki’s Delivery Service, as seen in mine.

Mitaka is quite a pleasant part of Tokyo, whilst still hectic, it is a much more calmer experience compared to Akihabara or Shinjuku.

On the roof of the museum they have built a rather nice garden area, with a life size robot from Laputa. At the very bottom of the open, outside area they have installed this fountain, which everyone seemed infatuated with, but I am a little confused about its significance.

Soot spites make an appearance throughout the museum:

Due to a need to maintain interest in visitors travelling to the museum, they do not allow photography of the inside displays, which is why I don’t have any. Regardless, I was very impressed. They have a display dedicated to the craft of creating animation, including a device using spinning figures and strobe lighting, which was perfectly timed to give the allusion that the figures were running, flying, skipping etc. There were also large displays for Ponyo, an almost life-size cat bus for kids to climb on and even a display dedicated to Wallace and Gromit! Overall it is a very innovative and enjoyable museum dedicated to the Ghibli films.

Anyways, I’m worn out, time for a rest. Looking forward to possibly heading out to Roppongi tomorrow.