Sunday, January 16, 2011

Day 4: 26th Dec 2010 (Harajuku/Ghibli/Shibuya)

We rested well and left for Harajuku in the morning. Our 1st stop was to the famous Mejji Shrine. It occupies a very big area. It’s like a forest area in the midst of all the high-rise buildings, when we see the bird eye’s view of Tokyo from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building.

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Steps to Meiji SHrine

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The steps taken towards Meiji Shrine was peaceful and calm. I was surprised that bringing tripods in Tokyo seemed to be a taboo evDSC_9848_IJFR

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Us in front of the Shrine!

erywhere. We tried to mount the tripod so that we can take pics together, but some guards will come by to request us to keep it.sigh..

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The divine tree

Since Japanese celebrate New year(rabbit) on 1st Jan 2011, instead of the lunar Chinese calendar unlike the Chinese, the shrine carries along a new year atmosphere as we see rabbit pictures, figurines etc. After paying our respects at Meiji Shrine, we moved on to Takeshita Dori, the famous youngster hangout place!...true enough, it resembles Xi Men Ding in Taipei..very trendy…many young schoolgirls and handsome guys..with shops selling idol posters, cos-play costumes and props and crepes!

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Idols! Popstars Maniac!

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Harajuku Station

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Ooh..look at the crowd at Takeshita Dori~

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Boots on Sale, anyone??

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Typical shops at Harajuku..full of little secrets!

I have never seen a street filled with so many shops selling crepes!And each shop always has a long queue..so good business..and surprisingly, there were many blacks..they seem to have some business there but we weren’t sure what is it about, just that we saw them approaching some people with their brochures.

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Cosplay in the House!

Near to noon time, Ghibli museum here we come! The museum was located quite a distance from Harajuku, about 40mins away..we went to Mitaka station and took the museum bus to the lovely museum.

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As it was still some time away from the exact entry time, we explored the vicinity and saw a lovely park. We saw how Japanese exercised, played football, fly kites, running, and little kids playing see-saws.very leisurely..while enjoying the cool breeze…

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I love this park with the breezy weather :)

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Children at Play!

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EH...I dont really understand this note at the bench...meant for pple who sat down to sleep?

Ghibli museum tickets have to be purchased in advance through Lawson convenience store, in Japan. They have the Loppi machine, but instructions is in Japanese. Alternatively, you can purchase from JTB at 6000yen per pax, with some terms and conditions. But, if you buy directly from Lawson, it’s just 1000yen per pax. Note the huge difference yeah!

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Finally, it was 2pm. We went in and I must say the museum has definitely brought me deep into Ghibli’s world. From the start of animations, drawings, materials involved, ideas, to movement, cartoon voices etc, storyline..Everything needs intricate steps in planning and orchestrating. We received a film ticket as an exchange for our ticket coupon. This makes an excellent souvenir!Photography is prohibited in the museum. But I guess the eye is the best camera as I recalled wonderful memories I had while moving around the museum.

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Strawberry Cafe

From Grave of the fireflies, to Totoro, to Ponyo, to Spirited Away..these are just some of the Hayao Miyazaki’s movies that I have enjoyed..and I definitely look forward to his future works!

After the visit, it was already night time(430pm)…we made our way to Shibuya, the famous place with multiple cross-roads and huge advertisement boards in Tokyo.And true enough, there were so many people and it was fun crossing the roads!

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Huge signboards are classic in Tokyo

We walked around and there was a Love Hotel hill, filled with many small hotels..as read from travel reviews…then we also saw the famous Shibuya 109 filled with many small shops selling the most trendy stuff in Tokyo for ladies…

To catch the best view of Shibuya and have a warm cup of cocoa, we decided to take a seat at Starbucks, opposite Shibuya Hachiko exit.

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That's the view we saw from Starbucks Cafe!

And we saw something..someone!

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In the middle of the road..Spiderman is here!! haha..fancy dancing in the middle of the road..

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Hachiko, the loyal dog

It was a perfect place to see the cross roads and we caught sight of Spiderman and Pink Ranger. We don’t know who they were, but they were creating a commotion in the midst of the crossroads. See the pics haha! Very entertaining and a huge crowd can suddenly appear in the middle of the road to take their pics!

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