Tokyo TWO

What's that you want to know more about that wonder of wonders, that city of cities, that den of sin which is known to the world as Tokyo? I suppose I can indulge this desire, dearest reader, but just this once (I'm only playing coy this will take several more posts to eat through). Having awoken in our incredibly budget hotel, we ventured forth into the blinding sunlight to pound out another day of touristing. Well, we would have, if there wasn't a typhoon going on; as such, we ventured out into driving rain (this is the moment when I finally broke down and bought an umbrella, my jacket having finally proven insufficient beyond the level I was willing to admit such a thing) and touristed COMPLETELY UNDETERRED. We had plans by Jove, and Mother Nature could take her typhoon and shove it up her nose. Our MAIN EVENT of the day was the Ghibli Museum (explanation forthcoming), which we had tickets in advance for. It was waaaaay on the other side of the city, though, so we planned to hit a spot halfway before continuing our journey. This spot happened to be none other than Meiji Jingu, the shrine dedicated to the eponymous Emperor. There was a lot of Nationalism around, making me vaguely uncomfortable. They had the biggest wooden Torii in Japan (= the world), though, so that's pretty cool. The shrine itself was goodly sized, but pretty chill compared to Heian Jingu. It used regular shrine architecture instead of pretending to be a mad old school Imperial Palace, though, so that might be biasing me. This is Chrysanthemum time, and as that is the flower of the Imperial family, there was a gigantic exhibition of flowers on display all along the walkway before the shrine proper, which was nice. Also, under a little makeshift roof which was also nice. In probably a bad decision, but based on 'come on we'll never be back ever again,' we bought the tickets to enter the gardens, which I'm sure would have been absolutely gorgeous had the wrath of the skies not been intent on exacting recompense for our sins by eradicating all non-aquatic life. Not everything can be perfect!



So we slogged out of there and hopped back on a train for a good long while until we arrived at the GHIBLI MUSEUM. You know how Disneyland seems to a child, back before you can see all the wretched, bloated greed underlying every single piece of invented Americana, pining for your wallet and overcome with elation at every extra dollar they extract from you in exchange for living an ideal that they themselves created with this very end in mind? Yeah well that's how I see the Ghibli Museum. For those of you who aren't all into the children's (though they have produced some very serious older-person movies too) films of other countries, Studio Ghibli is the animation studio begun by Miyazaki Hayao, and responsible for some of the greatest animated films ever made. They're probably best known for Spirited Away (which remains my favorite) in the US. They also made My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, and whole bunch of quality quality stuff. One thing that these films do best is capture a sense of innocent wonderment, reminiscent of a time when you could believe wonderment was a word. For only a one-time, reasonable admission fee, you get access to a building that has exactly the same feeling. Everything about that place is fantastic- it is constructed like something straight out of a child's dream, all whimsical, curving adobe with a wrought-iron external spiral staircase to get to the rooftop garden. The inside has 3 stories, with a giant open central atrium which makes the initial entry a really special feeling. The exhibits themselves were interesting- my only complaint is that they focused (really can't blame them, with limited space and given the timings) on Totoro, which is having its 20th anniversary, and their new film Ponyo. One room was exhibits entirely about animation in general, which I honestly learned a lot from. The coolest thing was a big glass box with a maybe 3 foot rod in the middle, which had several layers of spokes coming out of it. Each spoke had a character from Totoro in the process of a repeatable action (i.e. the cat bus running), and this action advanced a 'frame' for every spoke. Every 30 seconds or so, the whole contraption would spin up, and a strobe light inside would turn on making it appear as if all the characters were suspended in the box doing their thing. VERY COOL. Admission also bagged us free admission to a screening of one of the special shorts they show only in the museum- I was worried because obviously they would see no need to provide subtitles, but it turned out to be one of those movies that had no words at all. It was super super adorable though.. I'm wasting so many words on this so I'll simply say I never thought I would find a spider cute, but this made me. The other highlights of the museum include a life-size plush cat bus from Totoro (children only..) and walk-through dioramas of Miyazaki's offices, which I could have spent daays in. Each office was set up like it was when he was working on a specific project- seeing the stuff he used for references, the sketches, storyboards, giant piles of cigarette butts- it was very special. ANYWAY I am done being enthralled for now, I will avoid mention of the gift shop because it will only make others feel the same disappointment I did when I realized I had not enough money to get gifts for everybody, much less myself. Oops I just did there uuuuuuh



Next, feelin pretty good, we traveled back into the heart of Tokyo, to the Ginza area, to look at neon lights. There were neon lights! We were happy. We attempted to visit a '100% chocolate cafe,' but they were apparently having a private party who gave us really dirty looks. Avoiding them deftly, and still a little bit in childhood mode from our previous experiences, we traversed a famous 6-story toy shop, which was pretty fun. They have cool little robots, but everything is absurdly expensive! Welcome to Japan. That done, we began to hunger and seek out dinner (lunch was eaten at a train station at some point in there, Japanese Spaghetti which is an experience but not a particularly interesting one).



I am hungry and easily misled by my companions, who say 'here get on the subway we'll go to food.' UNSUSPECTINGLY I follow. UNWITTINGLY I get off at Akihabara. UNKNOWINGLY we go into a variety 7 story building which has an arcade, what is basically a department store, and a maid cafe. GUESS WHICH ONE OF THESE THINGS WE WENT TO WITHOUT MY FOREKNOWLEDGE.

If you guessed maid cafe, you would be right. If you don't know what a maid cafe is, you would be just like me on that FATEFUL DAY. Fortunately for you, you have me to tell you, and double fortunately, you aren't going to one. Imagine if there was a place where it would be a cafe, but the waitresses (NO WAITERS) are all "18 (read: There are strict child labor laws in Japan and honestly it is difficult to tell with Japanese women sometimes but I'll be damned if those girls were out of 9th grade)," dressed as maids, and selectable from the door, there is a $7 (I automatically convert from yens for your convenience!) seating fee, pictures are forbidden, and the maids regardless of which you picked fawn over you with wild and over-the-top cutesy abandon. Are you imagining? Is a little bit of vomit appearing in the back of your mouth? WELL now you know the situation I found myself in. Apparently this has become A Thing in Japan, driven largely by depictions of girls in anime and manga. It is basically prostitution, but instead of sex you get to participate in this absurd fantasy world of squeaky, strangely dressed women that like to talk to you. My friends were much more into it than I was (from an Academic standpoint, which I had a hard time activating over my desire to run away and cleanse myself in the nearest available volcano), and they happily participated in the hand-motion-chant we had to do to bless our food prior to eating, as well as shelling out the $5 each to take a picture with our maid. One even went so far as to pay an additional additional $5 to play a children's game with her, which he said was 'cool and kind of flirty' and which I thought was pretty embarrassing for everyone involved and this country as a whole. Before our 60 minutes (oh did I mention your $7 seating fee only lasts 60 minutes, after which you are kicked out) were up, we were supplied with our cards. OH yes a MEMBER'S CARD. Technically, it is a 'licence [sic] of your majesty (written in English),' certifying that I am a 'Lv. 1 MY MASTER.' On the back it has boxes for them to mark on our subsequent visits; after only 3 more one could become a Lv. 2 my master I suppose! This is one aspiration I do not have. Basically, all those things that everyone has told you about Japan being incredibly weird are true SOMEWHERE in Japan at least. Definitely not everywhere, but definitely where we went. My friends think I 'have a huge stick up my butt' or 'embarrass way too easily' or '[am] totally closed-minded' but I will never accept this as anything but a horrible symptom of a broken society (Disclaimer: Not saying that American society isn't broken too, but like I have the mental toolkit for dealing with our brokenness; this is just totally out of my ability to handle).

After that we went to a nearby arcade and played some videogames, which went a long way towards calming my nerves. I played some DDR, fortunately it was fairly late at night on a weeknight so there weren't many Japanese around to totally show me up. It was fun! We then returned home, and thus ended Day Two of the Fantastic Tokyo Adventure Fun Time Action Vacation Trip Week Extravagant Extravaganza.

Day Three is pretty boring because we woke up late, went to the Shinjuku Gardens (you can hear me talk about how incredible they are all day and you still won't understand, so I won't try), then wandered around that very same neighborhood (they have big buildings!) for a long long time, while my companions shopped and I was told to keep my grubby urchin hands away from the glass whilst I pawed impotently at various things. We also ate some really good tempura in a classy joint! Then we went to Shibuya, saw SO MANY PEOPLE AT A STREET CROSSING JEEEEZY CREEEZY and that statue of a dog (Hachiko! He has a wikipedia page if you want to know his story, I cannot tell it lest I display emotion and thus pierce the impenetrable facade of manliness I have maintained thus far in my life). By that time lights and neon signs were on, so I had something else (something sparkling, bright and wonderful) to be distracted by while my companions reveled in consumer culture (my one buddy bought what is basically no joke the sweetest jacket ever. I shouldn't be so sarcastic about the shopping because this really is the greatest jacket made by man (this is one thing I will be dead serious on: that jacket is the kind of jacket which a man will spill blood over. In divorce proceedings, by possessing this jacket a wife could concievably exchange it with the husband for uncontested custody of three to seven children, depending on the ages and constitutions of said children. Rather than lay this jacket down so a lady could walk over a puddle, a gentleman would take this jacket off, hand it to the lady to hold, and himself lay down in the puddle so she could carry herself and more importantly the jacket to the other side unsullied. This is a Sweet Jacket. (but then, you say, why did you not buy one for yourself? Well, it was like 200 bucks and hell if I pay that much for a jacket (why yes, if you boil it down, I did just value 200 dollars above three to seven children. Don't question it and I won't have to add any more parenthetical statements. Deal? Deal.)))).

Another successful day completed, we retired to the safety of home base and plotted our next excursion. Prepare For: Panasonic changes your life.. WALL, Post-apocalyptic wasteland, me being even more amazing at photography than you are used to (or ready for), and the Japanese one-upping the French's pathetic attempt at compensatory architecture by like 20 meters.