In the Shadow of Mt. Fuji

"Mt Fuji is a shy mountain. She hides her face with clouds because she has a lot of scars." Traveling to Japan has always been a kind of dream, and yet, here we are. These are my thoughts as we travel through this incredible country.

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Goodbye and Thank You

I know that this is primarily a travel blog, one that only gets touched every couple of years, but today the world lost someone that is kind of connected to this blog, in the smallest possible way, someone that helped inspire these trips and these amazing experiences. 

Isao Takahata died today.

As a founding father of Studio Ghibli, he directed a lot of movies for the company. My first experience with his work was Grave of the Fireflies, which is probably his most well-known film, and became a favorite Ghibli movie of mine. It’s a dark, hard to watch movie about a very serious subject and for some reason, I loved it. 

In 2014, Jason and I went to Ikebukuro on our first full day in Japan and caught the first showing of The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It was the first full length movie we’d seen in Japan ever and because we aren’t fluent, the small amount of dialogue was helpful. And then.. none of that mattered. The story and the animation captured every ounce of our attention and it wasn’t until the closing credits and the lights came up that I turned to Jason and discovered that his face reflected mine, all happy ugly-crying tears..

Jason always said that Miyazaki makes you fly, Takahata makes you cry - and in the best possible way. Takahata had a way of telling a story that punched you straight in the feels. 

Tonight, watching Kaguya again, the final climactic scene began and as soon as I heard the music, I turned to Jason and said, I don’t think I can do this, and then proceeded to sob for the rest of the movie. It’s an incredible film, a beautiful piece of art, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Takahata’s unique and talented vision. 

Thank you, Takahata-san, and rest well.

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Sorting Souvenirs

Wow, it’s already been 3 weeks since we got back and I feel like I’ve barely touched any of the stuff we bought. Truth be told, our suitcases are still waiting to be put away.

Today I just thought i’d share sme of the gashapon I bought during our trip. Most of these came from Akihabara, but some fo them I just couldn’t resist when I saw them in train stations in Kyoto or just randomly on the street next to a shop.

These were.. weird, I won’t lie. But the only reason I have these figures is because one of them is a nautilus and I love that animal. But, alas, earwax - just the geoduck and.. pretty spiral shell thing. 

Kitty! The left is a set from Nyanko Kitchen gashapon, The right I don’t know, it’s just cute. 

I like this one because it loks like the wood panel art from the Hotel Gajoen that we saw during our Ghibli tour.

Squishy Salmon don. The salmon is squishy! It’s not the kind of squishy that I particularly enjoy because it’s sticky. 

Moss plant. This is another case of getting the most lame of the set when you really want the pretty thing. I wanted the bonsai, got the moss. He joins my collection on top of the computer.

The cutest of the cute. This was a set called Lock and Key and I picked it up in the local station in Kyoto. I walked past this for a good week before I broke down and bought it. I kind of wish I’d tried for a “Lock” but with my luck, it would have probably been another key - though if the rest of the set is anything like this, I don’t think I would have minded.

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Cat Hats

These are gashapon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon). 

These are just impossibly cute and even worse, there’s more than 2 types. We found 4 (the others were a bear hat and a heart hat), but thanks to an image search, I see that we are missing so much more. (Although we DID see the kerchief on our last trip and decided to skip it. Which I’m kind of sad for doing but are you kidding me with the fruit and the witch hats?!)

My cats, Ponzu and Sake, were the experiment before we gifted a couple of these to my sister-in-law. Ponzu is easy and he wore the hats without a care. Sake, however, was not impressed and only let me get a picture or two before pulling it off. Only a good sport for so long. 

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One of the things I love about our trips is sorting through our souvenirs. We didn’t buy as much this time, which is hilarious because somehow our suitcases still managed to be overweight. (It was the beer. It’s always the beer.) 

I’m still in trip hangover mode so I’m trying to stretch it out (procrastinate) for as long as possible.

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Japan’s got it figured out

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I bought it.. 

¥350, I almost bought 2. 

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Arigatou gozaimasu, Japan

Well, it’s all over. We’re back home in Vancouver and Jason’s sleeping off the long day we’ve had while I take some time to reflect on the trip.

Here’s a quick run of the numbers (in no particular order):

Dogs petted: 1

Cats (Bengal) petted: 8-10

Hedgehogs pet and cuddled: 4

Otter’s hands held: 3

Owls petted: I think about 5 or 6

Books read: 3 finished, one attempted (sorry, Ted Sorenson, your Kennedy bio is tough reading), 1, almost complete

Shinkansen kilometers logged: around 6,000km

Hours and distance spent on local trains: impossible to know

Souvenirs bought: enough to make the luggage overweight at Narita 

These trips are always something kind of amazing. It’s so overwhelming at first. Then you start having experiences, start seeing beyond the lights of Tokyo or the quaintness of the countryside, start interacting with people and animals, and you begin to think, “I could do this”, and as soon as you become comfortable, it’s time to go. 

And as much as you want to go back to your stuff, your bed, your pillow, your life, there’s something about that old life that just pales in comparison. Yet it’s the old life that’s the most affected by it all. 

Every trip changes me a little, and always for the best. 

[mylifeisasimplething]

The inspiration for the bar where Chihiro’s parents eat and get turned into pigs..

The Stationary Store that directly influenced Miyazaki in Spirited Away for Kamagi and the boiler room

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As I catch up on the alcohol I haven’t drunk, some of it bought in Sapporo, I find I’m posting this on the wrong bloody blog again. 

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The last day

It’s Friday and I’ve just posted the last in Japan pictures, minus an odds and ends photo post of stuff I have but haven’t posted.

We fly out tomorrow so today Jason wanted to take it easy since it’s going to be something of a 36-hour day coming back. I mailed a couple of very last minute postcards and we found the Canadian Embassy stone garden out near Roppongi. The garden wasn’t anything crazy spectacular, which explains why I had a hard time finding anything about it online. Still, for about an hour we were back on Canadian soil. 

We have a ton to pack, and so much of it fragile or heavy. We also have a lot of snacks and I have a lot of drinks to catch up, including a few alcohols. 

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Shirohige’s Cream Puff Shop

On our tour group on Wednesday, our guide told us about Miyzaki run cream puff shop that we’d never heard of. How did we miss this?!!

We got up and out early, assuming that because it’s Miyazaki/Totoro everyone would be rushing over to buy Totoro cream puffs. 

Miyazaki’s touch is very obvious here. (He loves pigs and often draws himself like this.)

The shop is on the first floor, the cafe upstairs. It’s a small store, only about 7 people work there, and when they run out of puffs for the day, that’s it. 

The color of the ribbon on the hat or the color of the leaf denotes the flavor. 

I got chocolate (blue ribbon), and Jason got custard. There’s a small shrine just down the way and we took our Totoros to go, eating them in the quiet of the shrine. They were good. We both felt pretty guilty about eating such cute things, but they’re meant to be enjoyed. 

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Ghibli

Our second stop along the tour was the Museum. There’s just no place like it, and in September in 2016 they did a small renovation, adding details from my favorite Ghibli short “Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess”.

A little golden Egg Princess sitting on Mr. Dough’s head. 

(Not my photo. This came from an image search. https://memiorsofanotaku.deviantart.com/art/Studio-Ghibli-Museum-Mr-Dough-and-Egg-Princess-499784589)

The Ghibli crest is everywhere that Totoro isn’t. 

Truthfully, it felt strange to be there with a group. Jason and I tend to be there early, before it opens, and like to be one of the first in line. There’s a lovely sense of quiet that you can feel before the crowds come in. I always like to stand in the middle of the atrium and look up and just take a moment to remember where I am. 

Having the time constraints of 2 hours felt rushed and we had to prioritize the things we wanted to see. We saw the short film “The Whale Hunt” first and then went on to rediscover more. In 2014 Miyazaki received an honorary Academy Award and he keeps it in the museum tucked in among the exhibit, which we found and was really cool to see. This is the closest to anything like that we’ll ever get.

Then up to the rooftop, outside is the only place you can take pictures, to say hello to the Laputa Robot

(Everyone was hugging the outside of this legs so I decided to be a little different. I seriously love this picture. Another sweet thing: there was a line for photos and it was just this thing that the person waiting in line would take a photo for the person in front of them.)

Another unique thing that this museum does is their tickets. Each one is a 3 frame piece of real film strip. We have a lot, this being our 6th trip, but we got a couple of good ones, Jason’s being the best ever..

Characters! Action! Detail! It’s so perfect! This is from Ponyo.

My ticket is from Howl’s Moving Castle and features the main character, Sophie Hatter, and Marukuru. 

[mylifeisasimplething]

Wednesday: Ghibli Tour

So a ritual of sorts for us when in Tokyo, during the last part of the trip, is to visit my happy place the Studio Ghibli Museum. Unfortunately, however, Jason waited too late to get the tickets and the day he requested was sold out - they only offer so many per day. 

To make sure we didn’t miss out, he had to book a tour instead. It’s a new tour, only started in January. It takes you to Hotel Gajoen, the Ghibli Museum, and the Edo Outdoor Architecture Museum, the hotel and outdoor museum providing direct influences for Miyazaki in Spirited Away. It’s very Spirited Away-centric, assuming because it’s his most well known worldwide. 

The entrance to the hotel which helped inspire the outside of the bathhouse in Spirited Away.

The hotel was built in the 1920′s but when they renovated, a lot of the artwork was taken down. These are wood panels and the ceiling, which is what I’m looking up at here, have painted women in front of gold fans. 

The lobby, in which that open space was an inspiration for the bathhouse interior. 

Entrance to the fanciest bathroom I’ve seen. It was open but partitioned off for the men and women. There was a small bridge that separated the waiting area from the sinks and toilets. 

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I found HARRY, the hedgehog cafe that everyone seems to be talking about. It’s just up the way from LaForet, on the 4th floor. 

It’s a ticket cafe, and I paid the almost ¥1700 for 30 minutes and a snack. My hedgies were all sleeping, and I woke up one with wormies. He was grumpy, which I don’t blame him and by the time I’d gone through the worms, I still had a lot of time left. 

So I took a risk and *gasp* petted the sleeping hogs with my bare hands. This stirred up one into waking and I felt confident picking him up, but in payment for waking him, he felt confident in peeing on my hands. 

All the hedgehogs are available for purchase, the mission statement for the cafe saying that their goal is to show the world how cute and fun hedgehogs are. 

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Well, I did it. 

I didn’t get lost or make any major faux pas and I found everything just fine.  

My goal was the Sailor Moon shop. And I found it all, very easy. Located in LaForet, it’s a tiny little kiosk thing, like most of the shops are in these shopping centers, and across from it, another little section. 

To the left of the blue room were gashapon and a cute little window display

I was given spending money, but honestly, the choices weren’t that great. They had a small variety of stuff and I ended up buying a couple of stickers and a bag, as well as one of the gashapon toys I haven’t been able to find yet. 

And then I was done. But the challenge was to be “by myself” for a while, so I took the elevator to the top and worked my way down the complex. 

At the top of it all is a museum, a photo gallery

Thankfully, pictures are allowed (of the pictures)

There were a few rooms like this. Stark white walls and vibrant, brilliant photos. 

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Final Week

We are back in Tokyo for the final few days of the trip, having arrived yesterday afternoon. 

It’s hard to believe we’ve been gone as long as we have, yet it feels like we just got here, though without much of the crushing exhaustion we first experienced upon arrival. Usually, around this time, I start craving my bed and pillow and desperately missing the fur babies, but I find myself in absolutely no hurry to get back. 

Today, Jason and I are attempting a first - to go out on our own for a few hours. He’s going to Akihibara, which I am not a huge fan of so I requested skipping most of that time, and instead of waiting in the hotel room, I am heading to Harajuku in search of the Sailor Moon store. 

This is hugely overwhelming for me because I’ve never been alone in a city this large. When we’re here, Jason takes most of the responsibility of when and where we go. I’ve stepped up a little bit, helping navigate, like yesterday when we were on our way back from Odaiba, but I’ve never been completely alone while out. 

Thankfully, truthfully, Harajuku is about the easiest place I could pick. I am not as brave as I like to make out. I’m also not one for shopping, though there are a few things still left to buy before we head home in a few days but Asakusa is a bit more complicated a commute than I’m comfortable with.

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Dinner with the Ichizaemon

We were early, as is expected in Japan. The lobby was empty while outside, people in yukata wandered the streets going from bath to bath. 

The main hostess, a beautiful and dignified woman who issued the invitation, joined us shortly. Her husband, whom up till then we only knew as the grumpy old man who transports people to and from the train station, is the owner of the hotel, the 16th generation Ichizaemon (the name of the first owner of the hotel). Joining us was his cousin, Kobayashi-san, visiting from Tokyo and infinitely more fluent in English than the others.

They took us to a yakiniku (meaning grilled meat) restaurant out in Nakano, about a 15-minute drive from Yudanaka. It was a family place, especially on Sunday night, where we saw every type, including a very young boy’s birthday celebration. Apparently, it’s a favorite place of theirs, and they had no problem knowing exactly what they wanted for order. As for Jason and I, we just let them order what they wanted for us. 

Kobayashi and the Ichizaemon, we still don’t officially know his or our hostess’s names, immediately went for the alcohol and Jason and I were introduced to a new kind of Korean sochu. 

Eriko-san (thanks, Google) did most of the cooking of the meat and making sure Jason and I were well-fed, while Kobayashi helped keep the conversation going. 

Thankfully, there weren’t that many awkward silences and the meal was quite delicious. The only issue we had with any of the food was when the pot of organs came out. I was okay with the liver but couldn’t quite find the same love for the intestine (they kept saying it was chewy like chewing gum), while Jason found the opposite to be true. 

It was incredibly kind of them to take us to dinner and it allowed us to see the Ichizaemon and his wife in a different light - he is no longer a standoffish curmudgeon, and she less staid and strict. The image of this beautiful woman in purple kimono running the hotel, welcoming guests, so very proper.. it was a side that you don’t often get to see.

Yesterday, as we bid Shibu-Onsen Kokuya farewell, they provided a small lunch of ume rice balls (which they’ve done in the past) for the train ride, as well as a personal gift.

It was kind of them to do this and I was touched.

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Souvenirs, including one box for ourselves. So much of these trips include the quest for as many varieties of KitKats as we can find. These are special Sake flavor.

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Our meals have been provided for by the ryokan. We take breakfast late, at 8:30, so we have time to wake up and bathe. It’s a full traditional breakfast, and usually we are full enough that we don’t worry about lunch and only just barely snack because our traditional style dinner at 7pm is massive, several courses that last about an hour to an hour and a half to get through. Last night we had shabu shabu, which started with a raw frozen egg yolk as the appetizer.

Tonight we’re going out to yakiniku; the woman who runs the hotel invited us to dinner with her and her husband. 

The invitation is incredibly generous, which is why we couldn’t say no. Obviously, however, we’re both kind of dreading it. Our Japanese is very limited and so is her English. I also tend to be fairly awkward in situations like these - surprise, surprise - so I’m also worried about saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, which I’ve done before.