Day 4.

phew! back earlier than expected on the fourth day of our trip!

today, we took a trip to Studio Ghibli, museum housing the wonderful, amazing work of Hayao Miyazaki!!! :D i've been wanting to go to this place since FOREVER. i'm so so thankful i finally managed to go today!

we spent the morning getting a bit lost here and there, but eventually managed to make our way to Mitaka station, thanks to the basic Japanese i know. ever since i've come to Japan, i'm really thankful that i'm able to read katakana カタカナ, and speak basic Japanese to get directions to places and ask about stuff i wanna buy. (like my SHOES HEHEHE.)

we took a shuttle bus to Studio Ghibli and already, when we were there, there a looong queue waiting to go in. (despite the museum having just opened) but all the waiting, the pushing, the shoving and all the nonsense was reeally worth it. the museum was as awesome as i could've ever imagined.

the whole museum has a very cosy feeling, and everything's made of wood. it looks a little vintage and antique-ish, everything's bathed in a soft orange glow, there's wooden chairs, tables, stained glass windows, and huge metal cage encasing a metal staircase leading up several floors. even the toilet was soo elaborately decorated, with vintage tapestry, cushy chairs, olden-looking lights... many people didn't realize it was a toilet, resulting in several men accidentally wandering into the Ladies and emerging, looking rather sheepish, several moments later.

there was a permanent exhibition area that featured models of how Miyazaki does his magic in animation, including a strobe light display similar to the one at the Pixar exhibition. it's difficult to explain, but just know that it was really cool :D the galleries displayed things like his original sketches, concepts, character designs and scenary designs. there were hundreds of paintings of scenes, in either watercolour or acrylic, and they were all simply gorgeous. he paints A LOT.
(anime animators usually paint their backgrounds and animate their characters over the backgrounds using transparent sheets. most of the background isn't drawn on computer, most of the time. or at least, in Miyazaki's case. different anime producers use different techniques)

they shipped in a replica of Miyazaki's work table with a completed painting of a scene from one of his many many films. the work table was a really comfortable place to work in, cosy and antique, everything within easy reach--sweets, reference books, wooden action doll to help with poses, lamp, many pots of paint, and stationery all over. it looked like a really nice place to work at.

one of his work tables had a light box in it. this was probably the table he used to draw out his animation frames. the light box renders ordinary paper transparent so you can draw over a slightly different image over the original image. this is a technique used by animators. pretty common sense and basic, haha. he also made use of transparency sheets like "layers" in photoshop. like real life 3D layers to create depth in his drawings.

that dude has created soo many films, and he's still producing more! i think my favourite's possibly Spirited Away, though. :) i have an urge to go watch all his films and have a Miyazaki marathon! :D

the Straw Hat Cafe at the museum sold really yummy-looking (but also VERY EXPENSIVE) cakes and food. and there's a perpetual long queue just to enter the damn cafe. thankfully my parents got bored early and went in early, so they managed to get seats. i had no idea the cafe was so popular.

i also bought something from the souvenir store--a dustball keychain! :D (yes those little black fluffy things from Spirited Away) i wanted the Kiki's Delivery Service cat soft toy, but it was a little too expensive... i settled for the keychain instead. it's still super cute ^o^

we had lunch at a soba restaurant, and we were so hungry i forgot to take photos of our lovely lovely food! D: (we only had a bit of bread early in the morning to set off for the museum) but the food was really good, Japan really serves the best soba, katsu-don, and negitoro-don in the WORLD. :D

also, this is random, but we passed by a cake/bread store called Kinokuniya, while the real bookstore was directly one floor above. HAHA. the book store has a HUGE section dedicated to manga ALONE. man, this really is Japan, HAHA.

after Mitaka, we decided to head to Shibuya for some shopping. unfortunately, everything there was SUUPER expensive and branded, so we headed to Harajuku instead, though we intended to go there tomorrow.

on the way, we saw a double-deckered TRAIN. i supposed it's meant for long journeys so that all passengers can get seats to rest. but wow, it was quite an interesting sight! xD

as for Harajuku 原宿, just being in that place is awesome. we headed to Takeshita-dori, a one-way street lined with numerous shops! there are a lot of foreigners here, but of course, even more Japanese! lots of Caucasians and African-Americans. one of the latter was even manning a stall i visited, some hiphop street wear stall that wasn't cheap at all, since they claimed to be selling real DCs and Supras. which are, duh, not cheap. but OMG the Supras were GORGEOUS. expensive, but EXPENSIVELY GORGEOUS. *eye-gasm*

first thing i did here was to buy asymmetrical earrings. HAHA. oh and bright yellow big hoops. ^_^

passed by several shoe stores that were half-ravaged by me LOL (my mum is so sick of me looking at shoes already) that offered very good discounts for their local brands. i.e. brands we haven't heard of. haha. so tempted to buy again, but i didn't today.

one store even had the orange and metallic purple DC high-cuts i wanted, but for around the same price. T___T LOVELY SHOES LOVE TO TAUNT ME.

another thing i really love about Harajuku is the people's DRESSING. although it wasn't Sunday (Cosplay day, where cosplayers all over Japan flock to the bridge at Harajuku to meet with their fellow cosplayers), we still saw many Visual K (punk, metal, rock people) and Lolita cosplayers. they had all kinds of hair--green, bright pink, bright blue, bright red, mixtures of several colours, but mostly BLONDE. it's probably the most popular hair dye colour here. their dressing was equally awesomez. lacey dresses, platform boots, huge puffy skirts, layers of crazy stockings, lots of dress styles...

we even saw a crossplayer! (Cross-player = cross-gender cosplayer) he was this dude wearing a long gothic lolita dress OMG damn epic. he didn't put make up like a girl, he was clearly a dude, in a dress. with frills. and lace. and ribbons. super awesome.

there's also a four storey Daiso in Harajuku! SO BIG. but somehow i think Singapore's is a little better. hmm...

still haven't managed to buy much stuff back for everyone! D: it's more difficult than i thought to buy gifts here in Japan OMGG i shouldn't have been so geh-kiang and asked people what they wanted, lol. really don't wanna end up disappointing them!

at least tomorrow's rather free, in the sense that there's nowhere to rush to in particular. maybe i can catch up on my souvenir shopping for everyone. I HOPE.