21 Sept 2023

Tokyo Day 2

Can of coffee for breakfast. Violet had french toast from the 7/11

Walked to Harajuku to go to the Pompom Purin cafe but was closed cause of aircon failure. Fatal in this weather. We got a bubble tea - mine had milk froth on top with a sprinkle of brown sugar which they then burnt with a dinosaur-headed blowtorch.

The harajuku street was so full of tourists. Crazy area. We went to a nearby temple and there was a funeral going on there. We walked in the gardens which had a big pond with lots of koi and a heron. The Japanese do gardens so well.

Caught the train out to Mitaki for Ghibli museum. Nice to see a smaller sort of suburb-feeling section of Tokyo. Had an egg and salad roll for lunch and sat in the park while we waited for our entry time.

The Museum was beautiful - the whole thing just radiated with playful, whimsical, child-like joy. His drawings and paintings were gorgeous. The storyboard books were lovely. There were some great displays of zoetropes, like dioramas, machines that you could crank to move or for film to move through a viewer. There was a soft cat-bus for kids to climb into/over, lovely little details like stained glass windows, carved things, artifacts everywhere.

I rescued a lady from a scary bug in the cafe.

Walked back towards the train via an odd western-style house museum for a local historical figure, Yuzo Yamamoto. Tudor/Gothic style with tatami japanese rooms mixed in with Western looking rooms with fireplaces, all to a Japanese scale, so Murray had to duck. Lovely copper roof.

Went to Watari-um museum which is apparently for contemporary art but the current exhibition was a tribute to Torajiro Yamada, a dude from early 1900s who traveled a lot to the Ottoman empire and liked tea and cigarettes, included his collection of postcards and cigarette boxes, and some fezes you could try on. We had a little tea ceremony and I had my tea out of a ceramic bowl that he had made. 

Had ramen from a little place on the way home.

Random, short, but spectacular fireworks display before bed.

19,424 steps

13.05 klms

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