Japan - Day 9 - August 27th

Someone was tired.

Can you guess who?

In case you weren't sure, here's your answer.

She actually did fall asleep on my shoulder.

We made our way to the Pokemon Cafe.

Across Japan, they have Pokemon Centers (which are essentially Pokemon stores) that are full of anything and everything a Pokemon fan could ever want. Some of them have cafes attached.

In Japan, kawaii (cute) cafes are a thing. The cafes are themed - for example, Pokemon, Sanrio, Monsters - and offer dishes and drinks that match the theme.

I know my kids love Pokemon, so I decided to try and get a reservation. 

And, you HAVE to have a reservation to eat at this place.

A month or more before we left on our trip, I woke up early for four days in a row to try to secure a reservation that would work with our schedule. And, when I say early, I mean 1:30am so that I could be ready to make reservations at 2am (which is actually 6pm Tokyo time). 

I finally reserved a premo time slot - right when they opened, at 10:30am. 

Making reservations in countries that are 16 hours ahead of you is a pain in the ass.

When we exited the train to walk to the building, it started raining. Hard. 

Yay for our cheesy travel umbrellas. I really thought that they would've been broken by this point in the trip.....but, nope. They were still good. We made it to the building and were NOT soaked. 

We got there a little early and had to wait for the hostess to let us up the elevator.

The elevator opened and the Pokemon Center (store) was on the right and the cafe was on the left.

Upon showing our reservation confirmation, we were seated immediately.

They sure do give out a lot of take-homes at this place.

Each seat had its own random Pokemon place mat (you turned it over when you sat down to see who you got).

Here's our haul......

There was even a newspaper.

Everywhere you looked, there were Pokemon.

From table centerpieces.....

....to display cases of Pokemon stuffies.

We got gently "reminded" not to touch this Snorlax.

PHOTO OP!!

We had 90 minutes to enjoy the atmosphere and eat.

English was not a thing here. No one really spoke it well enough for us to communicate. 

By using our allergy cards and Google Translate, we talked about food options. 

I’m pretty sure the waitress said there were no nuts or peanuts in anything, but the list was all in Japanese. We were able to sort out some GF options - there was just one dessert and maybe some drinks. 

After figuring all that out, we had to place our order via a tablet that was on our table. It was mostly in Japanese and it didn’t really describe what you were eating. Most of the time it had very unhelpful information like, “Cute Pikachu is ready for a meal!” or something like that. We eventually just looked at the pictures and guessed what the meal actually was.

Three of us ordered the same thing – the Pikachu Plate – tomato rice wrapped in egg (Pikachu's head in the picture below), a salad, potato stars, some spaghetti, a hamburger steak with some kind of sauce on it and a fried shrimp. 

The only option for Katie was Pikachu Mango Pudding with Fruit. 

She hates mango. She ate most of the fruit though.

We each ordered a fancy drink, except for Huzbend who was not impressed with the food or the prices.

 When you place an order for a specialty drink, a member of the wait staff will come over and ask you to select one of six images on a tablet that they are carrying.

 When the image is flipped over, it shows a Pokemon. You then get a drink coaster with the pictured character on it. 

Both kids got Pikachu and I got Chikorita.

(you can see them above in our stash of Pokemon Cafe goodies)

 Katie ordered a drink full of strawberry flavored marshmallows.

Mikey got a “Fire Float” with an unknown fizzy flavor and tapioca balls, which he did NOT like.

I ordered a Pokemon Latte. The only reason was because you could choose what character you wanted pictured on the foam. 

Out of hundreds of choices (251, to be exact), I picked Jigglypuff (known as Purin in Japan). 

Our food was, uh, goodish?

We'd had much better on our trip.

As stated, Katie hates mango flavored anything.

Huzbend got to eat her pudding.

He was very happy to demolish and consume Pikachu.

As Mikey was eating his meal, he said that his lips were itchy.

I could see some small hives and redness (it's hard to tell in this picture).

He immediately stopped eating and drinking.

Stress immediately spiked.

We gave him a benadryl and began to watch for other symptoms, hoping we would not have to break out the Epi-pen.

As we sat to wait on Mikey's situation, I decided to order dessert.

I know. Weird. But, I was stressed.

Again, the tablet menu wasn't much help as to what each dessert was.

I picked the craziest looking one.

A PokeBall.

I had no idea what was inside it.

This is what was in the PokeBall.

A Slowpoke Pokemon.

It was a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting inside. 

Under the cake was some strawberry jello and whipped cream.

It was quite yummy.

I'm happy to report that Mikey's reaction did not progress.

His hives slowly disappeared, but we did not let him eat any more at the restaurant.

As we finished up, a surprise guest made an appearance.

Yep.

Chef Pikachu.

Pikachu had a handler who only spoke in Japanese.

We had no idea what he was saying.

Pikachu slowly made his way around the restaurant greeting everyone.

It was not like a Disney character meet-and-greet. 

For some reason, you could take pictures of Pikachu wandering the restaurant and waving at you, but you could not take a picture of Pikachu posing with your kid. And, I'm guessing, they didn't want you to touch him either. It was weird. 

I did sneak a few of Mikey before they asked me to stop taking pictures. 

They didn’t kick me out, so I guess I wasn’t too obnoxious.

Here's some more Pikachu awkwardness.

As Pikachu departed, so did we.

We headed over to the Pokemon Center (store) next. 

I have never seen so many Pokemon in my entire life.

And I say that as a mom who has kids that have watched hours upon hours of Pokemon shows and have played just as many hours of Pokemon video games.

I mean, the stuffie shelves went on FOREVER.

They even had special "Only In Japan" Pikachus for sale.

This was my favorite.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the store and looking at all the merchandise.

They had home goods, school supplies, all sorts of stuff.

The kids each picked out an obscure Pokemon stuffie to bring home.

On our way back to Ikebukuro, we spied "Mike" Popcorn at a train station.

The next big thing on the agenda, as promised earlier in the trip, was to try out karaoke. 

I guess Huzbend had a specific place in mind that he was trying to find while walking, but Katie saw a place called "Big Echo" so we stopped in there. 

Huzbend stopped by the front desk to sign us in and get the details. I guess you paid by the hour. He reserved a room for us for two hours and I think we also paid an amount per song. The price included a drink for each of us that would be delivered to our room. 

There was a advertising “collaboration” going on. I noticed a lot of these for the summer. This one was with "Hypnosis Microphone" (HypMic for short). If you want to know more about HypMic, you can click here. 

This is a member of the "Buster Bros!!!".

Representing Ikebukuro.

His name is Yamada Ichiro

We were up on the 5th floor.

We found our room. 

In it were two small tables, a couch, two chairs and an elaborate karaoke set up. 

Someone brought our drinks. I don’t know who, because I was using the bathroom. 

It took a bit to figure out how the system worked and how to find English songs.

Up first was a Mikey/Huzbend duo of an ACDC song. 

You could adjust the volume of the song, the singer and the echo. 

It was still really loud in that tiny room. 

Katie covered her ears. She wasn't to into it.

Huzbend and Mikey begged and so I decided to give it a try.

"Let it Go", of course.

Mikey joined in and Katie warmed up by singing without a microphone.

After that, we took turns.

Mikey sang accompaniment on all songs.

One of the best parts about karaoke were the videos that played in the background to the songs. 

They never matched what you were singing about AT ALL. For example, all the ACDC songs had this stoned white guy wandering around aimlessly.

There was another rock song that had this lady shopping for vases. It was hilarious. 

Only the Disney songs had the movie playing in the background so you could match your signing along with the scene.

Katie still covered her ears for all the Mikey/Huzbend songs.

Katie and Mikey chose the majority of the songs for the last hour or so.

I'm not quite sure what the head banging was for?

Maybe for this Weird Al gem?

Our last stop this day was to a giant anime/manga store called Animate Ikebukuro. It has nine floors.

Each floor has a different theme – whether it's stuff for boys or girls or merchandise or video games. It’s very easy to tell which floor is which. 

Ikebukuro is know for being a center of female oriented anime and manga and there was plenty of that here. Lots of pictures of "hot" anime/manga guys. They were lining the stairways, the walls and even the elevators.

The pictures on elevator doors are of "Ensemble Stars" whose media empire consists of an all-male idol training simulation where YOU get to train the next pop idol, a mobile card collecting game, an anime, a manga series, a stage show and a novel. They must bring in big money.

(Yes. These are all guys on the elevator doors)

We were able to find a display advertising the newest CD (I guess CD's are still a thing in Japan) for the boys group that generated that huge line back in Osaka that we encountered our first day. 

One of the floors had this weird display of jars full of preserved flowers that matched more “hot” anime dudes. The pictures had signatures – maybe the voice actors? I don’t know.

I'm not even going to pretend to know.

As we were leaving, Mikey decided that he had to use the bathroom (he was still drinking A LOT of water and had to pee frequently).

We found one on the first floor. While standing there waiting for him, I realized that this was a bathroom for limited mobility people. Ooops. Luckily, no one came to use it. 

Outside the store was a huge stash of Gashapon (capsule toy machines). These are super popular in Japan. The little prizes cost anywhere from 100-500 yen ($1 to $5). Although they are little knick knacks - most of the time they are characters from popular music groups, anime and manga or they are mascot characters from the tourist attraction you are visiting – they make a good souvenir. We picked up a couple. 

It was still light out and we were on our way back to the apartment! 

We saw this cute owl topiary on the way to our apartment. As I understand it, owls are popular in this section of Tokyo because of a play on words. Ikebukuro is the name of this part of Tokyo and "fukuro" means owl in Japanese. So, owls are big in Ikebukuro. I don’t know.

I just read it somewhere.

We decided to stop at the supermarket once again, this time with kids in tow, to do some shopping for dinner that night.

We were on the search for the GF noodles for Katie, as we were going to have spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner. 

The kids had fun wandering the grocery store.

We did end up finding GF rice noodles for Katie, but they weren't very good.

We decided to make her some rice and had to wait four hundred hours for the rice cooker to do its job.

For the rest of us, the spaghetti really hit the spot.

After dinner, Huzbend and I went out on a “date” to find some special treats while the kids stayed at the apartment to watch TV and chill out. We had purchased the kids ice cream bars at the grocery store.

We headed to the train station. 

Did I mention that train stations are full of stores, fast food and sit-down restaurants, barber shops, department stores, etc.? Oh. Well, they are. 

We found a cream puff place in the train station and ordered three pastries. 

We were going to also stop at this bakery with super awesome cakes, but thought eating one and a half cream puffs along with a cake would be TOO much. 

It was a nice way to end our time in Ikebukuro and at the apartment. 

We took the extra time we had that evening and packed up all of our stuff to move on to the next portion of our trip the following day.

Japan - Day 8 - August 26th

We were up early to hop on a train to visit the Ghibli Museum.

The Ghibli Museum can best be described as a children's/fine arts/animation museum. It showcases the art and technique of animation using Ghibli feature films and shorts.

If you are not familiar with Studio Ghibli, they are a famous anime studio in Japan. Six of their films are among the top ten highest grossing anime films in Japan. Hayao Miyazki, one of the directors of the studio, has won many awards and accolades and is praised as, “the best animation filmmaker in history”. 

One cannot just walk up to the door of the museum to purchase admission. Ohhhh noooooo. That would be WAY too easy. So that the museum doesn't get overcrowded, there are set entry times each day for a limited amount of people, and you must reserve your space.

There were a few options I could use to get these coveted tickets. Pay an exorbitant price through a travel agency or try to go it alone and battle the online masses to assure us a time slot. 

Over a month before the date we were to visit the museum, I was online at 6pm PST (which was 10am, the next day, in Japan) to get our tickets. It was a struggle. There was a lot of refreshing and a lot of stress/ frustration for about 45 minutes, but I was able to secure us a time. Phew.

There were train delays due to “human-related accident”. 

I have not been able to find out what exactly that means. 

We still made it on time. 

As we exited the station, we found our way to a bus that would take us to the museum. 

The bus was kinda easy to spot.

It was bright yellow and was decorated with Ghibli-ish creatures.

The museum is located in a lush park in the city of Mitaka.

We arrived a bit early for our reservation which was at 12 noon.

Hey, what's that in the distance?

I spy a robot guardian.

Since we were early, we sat on a bench near the entrance to eat a snack and relax.

It wasn't very relaxing. 

There were giant mosquitoes everywhere.

And, they were VICIOUS.

Finally, we just couldn't take it anymore.

We got up to walk around the park for a bit until our time to check in came up.

Upon entry to the grounds of the museum, you are greeted by a huge Totoro who is standing inside a ticket booth. 

This is Totoro.....

It was a cute visual and I really wanted a picture of it....

But, so did about 30 other people.

I did the best I could to get a picture without someone else's family in it.

The grounds of the museum looks like it was taken directly out of one of the studios films.

It had a very whimsical feel to it.

The museum had its own coat of arms.

You can find it all around the museum.

Here's a clearer shot of it from the cover of their brochure.

There were no pictures allowed inside the museum.

Sorry.

The building you see in the distance is the entrance.

We were still technically outside, so I took a picture of the stained glass doors.

The museum had four floors.

Basement: Main entrance and "Saturn Theater" screening room

First Floor: "Beginning of Movement" exhibit

2nd Floor: Special exhibit on animation paint colors, "Where a Film is Born" exhibit, exit to eating areas and main exit.

3rd Floor: Cat Bus Room, "Tri Hawks" Reading Room, "Mamma Aiuto" Store and exit to roof garden

The first thing we did upon entering the museum was to see the short film that was included in our admission.

Below, you can see our tickets to the theater.

Each ticket had three film frames from a Ghibli movie.

On closer inspection, we couldn't tell what movie any of them were from.

Oh well.

We got to keep them as souvenirs.

The short film was called, "Kemushi no Boro" aka Boro the Catepillar.

Boro hatches and makes his way in the world. The film is from his small point of view.

The animation was movie-quality, but there was no talking.

All the sound effects were made by one guy.

It was extremely "Ghibli". This means it was weird, and cute, and there were malevolent forces beyond the characters control, buuuut it all works out in the end.

The caterpillars even pooped. A lot.

Huzbend was creeped out by all the insects.

There was a really creepy wasp that was part steam-punk inspired robot, part insect.

Huzbend hated that guy.

The kids fell in love with Boro.

We walked up to the first floor and were surprised by a large open space that stretched up to a decorated sky light in the ceiling. The hallways of each of the floors above circled the outside of the indoor space. Colorful stained glass art was everywhere as well as odd architectural details, like sconces and tapestries.

A three story metal enclosed spiral staircase went all the way up to the top floor. There was an old fashioned elevator on the other side and a bridge extended across the empty center on the second floor.

Here's a picture borrowed from Ghibli Museum website....

While we were exploring that day we also found other magical details such as: little nooks and crannies, portholes full of soot sprites or other creatures, small doors that no human could fit through, a door that opened to a mirror and a door that opened to another door. 

At the later door, as Mikey stood there with his door open, wondering what to do, the other door opened and there stood a little boy. He was delighted to find us.

We decided to head up to the top floor first and then work our way down.

Our first stop upstairs was the Cat Bus play room for kids 12 and under. 

Another borrowed picture from the museum website....

Mikey decided to wait in line for his turn to climb on, and in, the super soft Cat Bus. There were soot sprite stuffies that the kids could pile in the Cat Bus or push around outside – no throwing! 

Also on this floor, there was a bookstore stocked with books that inspired Ghibli artists (we found a Japanese language version of the Hobbit), a merchandise store and an exit out to a roof top garden. 

While Mikey was waiting in line for the Cat Bus, Huzbend and Katie explored these and went on up to the roof garden.

Katie decided that she wanted a turn on the Cat Bus (she had only JUST turned 13).
So, she hopped in line.
While she bounced around, Mikey and I headed up to the roof via the metal spiral staircase.

Hi!

The garden itself gives you the feeling of wandering in an old abandoned space of some ancient - or not so ancient - civilization.

For example, water plants grow out of smashed clay pots that seemed to have been thrown into disintegrating wells.

Overlooking the garden is this dormant robot soldier.

Fans of the movie "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" know that these robots act as guardians.

Deadly lasers fire out of their eyes.

It had been sitting still so long that plants and moss were growing on it.

Towards the back of the garden, one can find this flying control box from the same movie.

The box is used to fly an entire island.

I assumed that if you had the magical amulet to activate the box, you could make the whole museum fly away.

We decided to get a late lunch at the café.

The museum houses the Straw Hat Café where you can eat inside with specialty dishes. There was a long line to get in.

We decided to go to the take-out window and eat on the deck just outside the Café. 

The window served ice cream, hot dogs, fries, tea, juice and beer that had been made specifically for the museum. 

We each ate a hot dog and ordered fries. 

The fries tested gluten free, so Katie was able to eat them as well along with some fruit we'd picked up from a convenience store earlier. 

For dessert, the kids and I had milk ice cream. 

We were able to communicate via Google Translate that Katie needed to have hers in a cup. 

She was very excited that they could do that for her.

After lunch, we headed back into the museum to check out Floor 2. 

This floor was dedicated to the animation process – sketches, storyboards, cell creation, cell painting, creativity and ideas were the focus. 

 

One side of the floor housed a special exhibit about the color choices for films.

The other side of the floor was an exhibit themed, “Where a Film is Born”. It was structured as if you were walking through various artists workshops/rooms that were chock full of half done pictures, ideas, story boards and were full, floor to ceiling, with items that were meant to inspire.

Before descending to the bottom floor, we decided to hit the gift shop back up on the third floor.

It was a mad house! The place was small so it was really hard to walk around in. But, we picked up some nice souvenir shirts, two Boro mini-stuffies and a magnet. It took a long time. Huzbend sat outside the store and waited for us to finish.

We headed down to the first floor and found a quiet little sitting area outside some doors.

"Are we done yet?"

On the first floor was an exhibit exploring the history of animated films. 

There was an amazing Totoro themed zoetrope that I could watch all day.

What's a zoetrope?

According to Wikipedia: "It's a device that produces an illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs (or, in this case, figurines) showing progressive phases of motion."

The Totoro zoetrope had 347 figures that were static. Each of the figures was slightly different from the one they were next to, just like frames of animation. When it contraption spun, a strobe light would flash and made the characters look like they were moving.

You can find some videos of it online if your curious.

Otherwise, go there and see it!

It was time to call it a day.

We headed to the main exit that was located over near the Café.

On the way out, we found another quiet courtyard area.

There was a hand-pump well and a large pile of firewood.

I found out that you can drink the water out of the well and the firewood is cut in the courtyard and used to warm the Café in the winter.

We thought that we would only spend a little bit of time at the museum.

Boy, were we wrong.

We spent over four hours there!

We headed back to Tokyo for dinner.

We stopped off in Shinjuku.

Huzbend had found a place called the Breizh Café Creperie during his search of GF restaurants that was capable of making GF options. In addition to crepes, this place offered breton galettes. Galettes are pancakes made with buckwheat flour. Buckwheat = GF!

It took a bit to find the place. It was high up on the 13th floor of a department store/office building.

We were seated in a outdoor patio area.

Dinner time!

I think Katie’s had mushrooms, bacon and egg. 

I can't recall what I or Huzbend had.

"They expect me to eat this?"

Don't let that look fool you.

He loved it.

"Prosciutto and runny egg crepe."

"It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

"Picture of me eating? Why?"

With dinner finished, it was time to move on to dessert. 

Katie was on cloud nine. She actually got to have a fancy, freshly made dessert!!

Her choice was chocolate and caramel.

I chose apple caramel.

I can't remember what Huzbend had.

He did have something.

Mikey had straight up chocolate.

Dude really gets into his food.

We took our time at dinner and just sat back and enjoyed a really good meal. 

On the way out, the kids spied this weird statue of a newt with a samurai sword.

Since we were already in Shinjuku, we decided to pay a visit to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. 

This tall government building offers a free alternative to observation decks that are located at the vastly more touristy Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree. 

We hoofed it over the building.

It seems as if rush hour in Tokyo lasts for hours and hours.

This photo was taken at about 7:30 or 8pm at night.

Here's a peek at the two towered office building from the ground.

It had a red tower and a blue tower.

After a cursory bag check, we elevatored up to the 45^th floor and spent about 20 minutes enjoying the night views of Tokyo.

"HI, FROM TOKYO!"

A text Mikey had me sent to one of his friends.

Time to head back to the condo.

It was another late night.

Katie thought this sign was cute and wanted a picture of it.

It thanks passengers for using their manners on trains.