This is Tokyo where we…

pump that gas!  Parents of small kids may know this quote, from Mater’s Tall Tales, Tokyo Drift… if you don’t, you can check it out on YouTube here…. Tokyo Mater song. Because Alex made us watch this so many times when he was younger, it’s something that stuck with us and we kept saying it the whole time we were in Tokyo.

Day one in Tokyo involved a trip that was near and dear to my heart. It involved a few metro rides and since it was a time specific event, and me being the time loving person that I am, we left way earlier than we needed to.  This left us time to get off in the station we needed to and have a nice leisurely lunch.

Despite the fact that we were there for lunch, as you can see from the pictures, the guys decided to get breakfast stuff instead.  Alex also found an Auntie Anne’s pretzels and wanted to get them, but we told him he could after lunch.

After lunch we were supposed to catch a bus, which I had read was going to be so easy- the museum we were going to had a dedicated bus with pictures on it and you can’t miss it. Except that we did.  We walked all over the bus stop area and couldn’t find the bus anywhere, so we decided to walk it, it wasn’t going to be that far.  And really it wasn’t, but it was 97-100 degrees everyday we were in Tokyo, so it was just so very hot.

We were headed to the Studio Ghibli museum. For me, this was the main reason I wanted to go to Tokyo.

Because they don’t allow any photos inside the museum, I tried to get some good shots of the outside.

Once we went inside, the first thing we saw was a room full of the history of animation and how animation works.  They had 3d models of characters with small changes and then a strobe light would come on to create the movement.  It was fun to watch Alex getting into the technical side of animation.  There was a replica of Miyazaki’s home studios, filled with sketches from all the movies.  For kids there was a big stuffed Catbus that they could play in and soot sprite stuffed animals they could throw around.  I was sad when Alex said he was too old to play in there, Mark and I both said we would have done it if we could.

Outside the Catbus play area, there was a door leading outside, and then a beautiful spiral staircase up.

And at the top of the spiral staircase was a rooftop garden, with a giant robot soldier from Castle in the Sky.

Before we left, we got to see a short cartoon that Miyazaki had made just for the museum.  I wish we had watched it before going to the gift shop, because I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to buy these weird poop creatures… then I saw the movie and wished I had bought a weird little poop creature (which is actually a caterpillar).

The boys were nice enough to indulge me in a stop to the Straw Hat Cafe, which while cute, wasn’t as themed as I was hoping.

All that museuming made the boys hungry, and since they were so patient for me, I had to return the favor.  Mark really wanted to try a Ramen place he saw on “food Ranger” and there were several of them around Tokyo, but we had to go to the one that was on the show.

A shortish metro ride and short walk led us to a basement restaurant with a line going all the way up the stairs, which means it has to be good right?

 

I got a level 2 heat (I should have gotten 4) extra garlic and extra green onions. It was fantastic, worth every minute of waiting.   The experience is something too!  This is the place (a place?) where you order with a vending machine, and then someone double checks your order, and finds you a spot. You wait in a little personal booth, a curtain goes up, your food comes out and the curtain goes back down.

If you’re going to Tokyo, this is worth it, make it a priority to try!  While we were walking out of IchiRan, we saw another iconic Tokyo activity, the Mario Kart tour through Tokyo. We looked into doing that, but there is no room for passengers and you must have a driver’s license. Sorry Alex!

This dinner trip took us on accident to a famous place in Tokyo that hadn’t made our personal list of must dos, but I know it’s on a lot of lists. We ended up in Shibuya at the “busiest intersection in the world.” Now I don’t know if it really is the busiest, but at 10pm there were still hundreds of people crossing in every direction.  It was a neat experience to be a part of.

This was at night too, so not the busiest time at the intersection either.