KitKat of the Day

Today, we bring you Kuchidoke Almond flavour, and mini Green Tea KitKats.

Yes they are.

Green.

Spirited Away

Today’s fun was planned well in advance.  I’d read about the Ghibli Museum before our last trip but tickets are scarce and not exactly easy to buy.  This time, I managed to think ahead and applied for them from MyBus in London a couple of months ago.  We were lucky and secured admission for our first choice date and hot footed it yesterday, passports in hand (not needed) to exchange our vouchers for tickets.

 

The tickets are actually bits of filmstrips and some rather more picky visitors were viewing them before accepting, presumably to acquire them from a particular film.  As it was, we were simply happy to be there and already enchanted by this magical place.

The museum is situated in a leafy park, near the Tokyo Zoo, and about a kilometre walk from Mitaka Station.  Though there was a bus connection, we chose to get our exercise – it was an easy, flat walk along a well signposted pavement.

It doesn’t look much from the outside and the ticket collector looks a bit fierce.  Look what’s happened to a few unlucky souls in the porthole!

Totoro was one of the characters already familiar to me, so I knew he was only scary in that cute way that the Japanese animators do so well.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a queue so we went right inside, where, sadly, no photos were allowed.

But have a feel of the style from this poster of the “cat bus” and imagine a delightful world of charming characters created from a vivid imagination.  I scribbled madly about the wonderful atmosphere – quiet with tinkly piano music and no screaming children because they, too were captivated by the exhibits.  There were zoetropes featuring Totoro and the Cat Bus, bats with smily cat-type faces, huge machines with cogs and wheels which were cranking out film shows and little dioramas from the animation scenes.  Everything was carefully considered, from the beautiful stained glass windows to the child-size doorways and staircases.

Even the fire extinguishers were cute!

Our tickets entitled us to a screening of a specially produced film in the theatre.  “The Egg Princess and the Dough Man” was the theme of one of the exhibits, so we were already curious about the story, which featured this bird-witch (Baba-Yaga) as the baddie.  Collecting eggs for her supper, she finds one which doesn’t break and pulls one of the bows from her hair to dress the egg in a small skirt and the little character which appears is the main focus of the story…yes, I know!  A little weird.  However…

The animation was first-class.  The dough man walked like – well, dough!  The bird-witch was super-evil, keeping her disguise in the form of a large hat down her ample bosom and flying around in a bucket and steering with a stick.

We loved it, as did everyone else in the theatre, children and adults alike.

We spent a couple of happy hours wandering through the various rooms upstairs which focus on the studio and how the animations are produced.  Here were artists desks – there was nobody at work, for these were installations in themselves with fascinating collections of drawings, watercolour paintings and transparencies on the walls.  In each room here, too, were small touches of cuteness; little models of characters, little creatures reading books, jars full of crayons and racks of paints.  We browsed the storyboards from Spirited Away and Howls Moving Castle and could have spent a whole day there alone.

For once, it was no hardship to exit through the gift shop!  A few small treasures and a book with photographs and stories from the museum were great souvenirs, though we left the large, furry cat bus behind.

One last place to see - up in the roof garden, we found the iron man and waited patiently as small groups of friends posed Japanese-style to have their photo taken. 

We left with smiles on our faces.  What a grand way to spend a morning and how lucky we were to be able to visit this terrific place. 

こんにちは。

Konnichiwa! 

Though I listened to my Japanese podcasts a couple of times during our flight in the hope that some of it would stick in my mind, we don’t get much further than this.  Oh, we can manage “Domo arigato gozaimazu”  (Thank you very much) as well as “Sumimasen”  (Sorry!) but much further than that and we are totally and utterly lost.

Anyway, we are here in Tokyo and the Saturday afternoon shoppers were out in force.  Having arrived around midday, we showered and changed before going out to mix and mingle and get ourselves tuned in to a totally different pace from the one we’re used to.

It’s been a little overcast since we arrived and a little on the brisk side of seasonal temperatures.  As usual, I dived straight into Tokyu Hands which wasn’t Edward’s idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon – but hey, did he have a better idea?

His reward – and ours – came later, in the form of a yummy meal of Udon noodles with duck meatballs.  I settled for a bowl of tempura prawns and vegetables which was delicious.

Each of the tables in this delightful small restaurant had an induction hob in the centre – though none seemed to be in use.  That was a shame, because I was rather curious to see how it would be used!

As usual, we smile at the quaint and sometimes totally peculiar English language to be found on packaging.  Above, on a small package of postit type notes designed to sit vertically on a keyboard

This rather profound statement on the front of a notebook I bought left us all   scratching our heads.

As usual, I had fun opening many small packages this evening – a few packets of small paper stickers for bookmarks etc and some new washi paper tape designs because this has really taken off since we were last here.  I immediately put the “elastic belt” into my basket – not for me, but for my holiday journal, which always ends up bulging and in need of some gathering in. 

Another funny little statement on the paper stickers – the girls will love these but I’m not sure they’ll get the message!

We spent a short time in Kinokuniya, where I was organised enough to have the ISBN number of this new book by Suzuko Koseki.  Having a helpful assistant find it for me was useful, because he also led me to the Quilt books – not always easy to identify.  I must write the ISBN of the Boro book too in the hope that it might be a yen or two cheaper here than elsewhere.  We’ll see.

Finally, no KitKats tonight ;-(  There was one, 70% dark chocolate KitKat in the local shop, but since I don’t care for such dark chocolate, it’s still there.  Instead, we bought home (and ate) a box of Pocky, some Galbo Mini strawberry sweets (odd, cross between chocolate and a kind of powdery honeycomb inside (but nothing like crunchie…)  We’ll look for KitKats in earnest tomorrow.  I wonder what weird flavours we’ll find this year?

Oyasuminasai!

or should I say     おやすみなさい。!

Rachel, the earphones were comfortable and though I didn’t wear them for the whole flight (I watched the films using the aircraft ones) I didn’t have to take them out once because of discomfort.  Not only that, but they didn’t “leak” much, I was told.

Why Japan?

Since we returned from our weekend in Tokyo, several people have asked what took us to Japan and why we are so passionate about the country.

The answer is below.

We first went to Kyoto in 1994, as part of a fairly non-standard round-the-world trip.  Edward was nine and we had discovered that we could have a great adventure for the price of an economy air ticket and a few pretty unmemorable hotels.  In the previous two years we'd done the standard UK - Bangkok/Hong Kong - Australia/NZ - US - UK routes and having got the travel bug in a big way, we fancied something different.  We turned up at Thomas Cook (yes, we were still at the mercy of a travel agent, for this was pre-internet days) and sought advice.  The woman there (can still remember her face if not her name) asked each of us where we fancied: Mark said India, I said Japan and Edward simply wanted a beach (poor thing!)  Over the next week or so, she put together a rtw ticket: London - Delhi - Bombay (Mumbai) - HongKong - Osaka - Hawaii - London and all of us were delighted.

It was the best holiday-by-committee ever designed!

So, we fetched up at the old Osaka airport on a Cathay Pacific jumbo, totally ignorant of the challenges we might face until a thoughtful stewardess asked where we were headed once we arrived.  We told her of our plans to stay in Kyoto and she offered help once we'd landed, to make sure we found the correct busstop and bought the right ticket.

Quite how we'd have managed without Junko, I have no idea, for we had not anticipated the immense culture shock nor the challenges facing us negotiating a country with a completely different typescript, where few foreigners ventured except for business.  But manage we did, with the help and guidance of many helpful people.  So few tourists were around that people stopped us on the street to chat, to practise their English and to ask kindly if they could be of assistance.  We made great use of the tourist office in Kyoto where we were introduced to a service whereby a local resident (often a student) would spend a day with us, doing whatever we wanted, for no charge.  This "white-hair-guide" would be pleased of an opportunity to speak English and the deal was that we simply pay any expenses - bus fares, entrance fees, meals - for them.

This was how we met Tetsu Komaki.

A young man, (actually, not as young as we initially thought) Tetsu was a student at Kyoto University, studying to become a teacher.  We spent the most delightful day with him as he took us on a bus, showed us how to find a restaurant and went with us to the Kinkakuji Temple, walking along the Philosopher's Path through the cherry blossom.  He was particularly good with Edward and all three (four?) of us had a magical day.  We were not allowed to pay him, nor to tip, but as he had spoken of his interest in bird-watching, we swapped addresses and decided to send him a book once we were home.

The rest of the trip was equally memorable for all kinds of reasons, but let's move on a couple of months to when a letter arrived, thanking us for the book and announcing travel plans to visit the UK.  We replied by return with an invitation, welcoming the opportunity to return the favour of sharing our home country with Tetsu.  We spent three or four happy days with him.  He brought gifts in the form of Japanese lacquer ware, traditional games to play with Edward and a table mat woven by his grandmother.  His parents telephoned daily, anxious that he was ok and being a good guest.  Throughout his stay we were aware of his anxiety to do the "right thing", to behave in an exemplary fashion and to be a fine ambassador for his country.  We had such fun with him, gently persuading him that eating shortbread with a cake fork is not a good idea and that it was perfectly ok to use fingers.  We encouraged him to relax, to feel at home and loved to hear of his life and learn more about the Japanese way of doing things.  He returned to Japan, but after a letter of thanks we heard no more for a couple of years.

Having had such a great time, we returned to Japan in 1997, but didn't feel able to contact Tetsu, since we feared that we had offended him in some way.  It was so long since we had heard from him.  But later that year we received a letter announcing another visit to the UK with a polite request to come and see us.  Of course, we were delighted and spent more happy days in his company.  He was now working as a teacher in a private school and requested a visit to Eton, to Stratford on Avon and to Stonehenge.  We took him to Heathrow, warning him not to go to sleep and miss his flight home via Seoul, for in true Japanese fashion, he would nod off at the slightest opportunity.  We worried and breathed a sigh of relief when the evening passed without a phone call announcing that he was still in the airport but giggled with him when he telephoned us from Seoul to say he 'd missed his flight because he'd dozed off there!  In the meantime we'd learned a little more about Japanese culture and recognised that long lapses in contact between friends are not unusual and that just because we hadn't heard anything we needn't have worried. We regretted that we had not contacted him whilst we were in Osaka, but that was "water under the bridge".

A better understanding of each others culture made for more frequent contact - we sent postcards to him when travelling, he sent us New Year cards, a traditional Japanese custom.  These New Year cards contained a kind of lottery ticket; one year the main prize was a car and Tetsu had written underneath "I hope the prize falls on you this year".  We smiled and thought we knew what he meant.

Then out of the blue, getting on for ten years ago, we received a letter from his parents with the sad news that Tetsu had died suddenly, aged 27 or 28 of an underlying heart condition.  To say we were devastated is to make an understatement.  This young man had enriched our lives in a way which was totally disproportionate to the number of days we spent in his company and I would guess that there are few who provoke so many fond memories.  When we revisit places we went with him, it's Tetsu who springs to mind and we are thankful that such a chance encounter allowed us to get to know him better.  As we wrote to his parents, he was the finest of ambassadors for his family and his country and they can feel proud of him and the way in which he left this small family the richer for knowing him and understanding a little more of his country as a result.

And that's "why Japan".

A different perspective

Sal's comment about the lady cleaning the subway in Tokyo left me thinking.  I hadn't really thought about the lack of adverts on those escalators, for there's so much advertising elsewhere

On the street

 

and here, on free standing A frames in front of an estate agents office (rather perilous for anyone with sight difficulties)

On the front of small shops in a busy street, where the adverts were a little overwhelming!

and inside the trains themselves, where there are not only the usual banner style ads but also a video screen playing advertising loops above each door, alongside the train information screen.

In fact, for most of the time, people are confronted with a huge amount of visual stimuli whilst moving about the city.  Not only that, but most people sitting on the train will be watching the small screen of their mobile phone, for though it's forbidden to make calls from the train, almost everybody is using their phone in some way.

But Sal's right.  Those escalators were an ad-free zone.  How very refreshing!