The hotel as it looks today
in tilt-shift
Finally it was getting close to pick-up time for the tour, so we plopped down in some chairs to wait within view of the entrance. As I think I've mentioned, we decided to pay for a tour out to the Ghibli Museum because we'd heard that getting out there was a little more complicated than just hopping a train, and we wanted someone who could interpret stuff for us since the museum doesn't offer English translations for the displays. There's also something complicated about buying ticketsthey're dated and limited or only available at certain convenience stores or something. I can't remember. But buying a tour and tickets in advance through trusty old Viator.com just seemed like a good idea.
It looked like less of a good idea when, 10 minutes after the pickup time, no one had shown up to collect us. The way these Viator tours work is, the bus has a scheduled pickup at a bunch of local hotels, and you pick the one that's most convenient for you to meet the bus. I started trying to call Sunrise Tours, the local operator of the tour, as we headed out front to wait, but finally a couple of harried-looking guides appeared and directed us toward the motorcoach.
So the tour was a little funny at first. This big motor coach full of other tourists picked us up, stopped at one other hotel, and then swung around the block, where we all got booted off it at a bus station.
What we saw on our 10-minute bus ride:
It ain't just *from* aquait IS aqua!
At the bus station, we went to a general Sunrise Tours holding area and were all sorted out and directed to different windows, where we got our tour documents and joined a much smaller group of people who were headed for the Ghibli Museum. I don't understand why, if they can charter a motor coach to bring everyone to the bus station, they cant keep it to actually take us to the museum instead of making us take public transportation together. But it was a small tour of 15 people, so maybe its not worth their while.
Our guide led us onto a train back to Tokyo Station (where Patrick and I could just as well have met them rather than take the subway to the Imperial Hotel, then ride a motorcoach to a bus station!). She then switched us to another train out to the suburb where the Ghibli Museum is, Mitaka. Once we got to that station, we took a Ghibli-themed local bus to the museum. Our guide had all the tickets we neededwe just followed her around.
The Studio Ghibli crest
Of course I freaked out when we got to the "ticket booth"
TOTORO!!!!!
Our tour guide was a gem! You could tell she genuinely loved Miyazaki's movies and was quite familiar with them. She spent an hour taking us to each area of the museum and explaining it, because the signs are not in English. Really, I dunno how we could have done it without her! I mean, we could have, but it would have been a big hassle, and we would have gotten much less out of the museum. As it is, I'm sorry I hadn't seen more Miyazaki films before we went, because now that we've done the complete marathon (well, OK, we didn't make it all the way through "My Neighbors the Yamadas") I realize how much I missed at the Ghibli Museum!
Now here's the bad part: This amazing, fantastical place doesn't allow photos! I'm not sure if its a practical thing to save the art from camera flashes or if it's a philosophical decision to make guests more contemplative of what they're seeing, but I think it stinks! So instead I've taken some crummy photos of the photos in the souvenir book we were forced to buy because they don't allow photos.
The museum is sort of Disney-like in that the building is themed and the exhibits are almost walk-through attractions. You enter on an upper level, and the "ticket" they give you is a small strip of film from one of Studio Ghibli's movies! The gift shop even sells a little magnifying viewer that you can put your film strip in for a closer look.
There are beautiful stained-glass windows in the entryway, and the gift shop sells nifty card versions with colored plastic inserts that light shines through. I'll have to take a picture of ours for you at some point
After you get your ticket, you go down a flight of stairs and around the corner to the main hall.