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What I Miss Most about Japan

Japan can be a wonderful delight of authentic and new experiences hard to replicate anywhere else. I stayed there for two months and still feel I have not seen enough. Nevertheless, I do believe I’ve had my share of moments which will last me a lifetime, or till I next visit the country at least. So here’s the best.

1. Relaxing in an Onsen and Staying in a Ryokan

A.K.A Hot springs. And a natural follow up to that is staying in a ryokan, traditional Japanese inns. I wasn’t gutsy enough to go to a public onsen but it was so completely relaxing that I can’t begin to describe it. And add to that the entire experience of staying in a ryokan, roaming around in the yukata and sleeping on a futon with straw mats (tatami) flooring all amidst the mountains of rural Japan. Pure Bliss. Even if you’re traveling to Japan in the summer months, you can still enjoy an onsen if you go to Hokkaido or the Japanese Alps!

 

2. Experiencing the (semi-) rural part of Japan

I ended up in Takayama for three days – one at the ryokan, one in Takayama center and one at Shirakawa go. The entire trip was chockful of firsts – my first time seeing snow & snowfall (courtesy of Shirakawago), the onsen which was a unique experience of its own and seeing the Japanese alps first hand. Even though it’s (sort-of) a village, there is so much in and around the city – a morning market along the banks of the Miyagawa river, Takayama old street, 60 year old huts in the Gassho Zukuri style, a Japanese eatery run by an old couple that serves vegetarian food and of course, shrines. When planning my trip, I had to choose between Takayama and the Fuji Five lakes but Takayama did not give me any time to think about what I might be missing. And if you add the white of the snow to the color palette, it was picture perfect.

3. Visiting a Temple Market

I was fairly lucky in the timing of my visit to Kyoto. There’s a flea market happening there at the Toji Temple on the 21st of every month, fill to the brim with the all-too-familiar Japanese crowd. And so much fun – there was food, kimono and all kinds of artefacts on sale. Though the experience was quite different from urban Japanese places, I found that walking the streets of Kappabashi, Tokyo, gave me a similar feeling (you’ll find katana and ceramic shops there instead of kimono ones which I personally find to be an acceptable trade).

4. Enjoying the season

I went around Japan when fall was in full phase, and that was a treat in itself. Then there is the cherry blossom season, which will be good eye candy too (or so the pictures tell me, never having seen it for myself). But even if your visit does not match a particular season, Japan has a number of festivals celebrating the coming and going of different seasons. The ones I’m most excited about are Wakakusa Yamayaki where they set Mount Mikasa, the entire mountain in Nara, alight; Sapporo snow festival in January/February which sports huge snow sculptures of different things (even Dearth Vader’s head); the festival float display at the Takayama festival both in spring and autumn. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see any of these first hand, but it’s definitely on my to do list.  Another thing I’d recommend, especially during fall, is taking a walk around either Koyasan or Kurama Mountain (rail connectivity from Kyoto). Most of these look beautiful during autumn.

My best memories from the winters spent in Tokyo are of the splendid lights. A number of places put up winter illuminations which are breathtakingly beautiful. Not all of them are worth travelling a large distance, I’d say. But if there’s time to spare, they can be quite rewarding. There’s the Caretta Shiodome in Tokyo, Nabana no Sato and small light-ups near most of the major subway stations.

5. Souvenir shopping and Anime stuff!

Anime MerchandiseDo I need say more? There is the One Piece Museum in Tokyo Tower, J-World in Tokyo, the anime themed rides in Disneyland and the Studio Ghibli Park. All of them can be amazing/meh depending on which fandom you belong to. But if you chose the right ones, you’ll sure as hell have a good time.

And then there is merch shopping in Akihabara. There is a flea market in Akihabara as well which sells anime merchandise at unbelievably low prices. And all of the multi storey Animate where you can just go and get lost.       

I have no estimate of how much time I spent looking for affordable rates for stuff I had to buy – some were necessities like overcoats and other things required for my mental satisfaction, like a kimono, which I know I will not wear in my life ever, but still needed to buy just for the sake of it. Now Japan has a huge number of stores for buying second hand items, most of them in really good condition, even in some of the branded showrooms. And then there are the never-ending strangely animal themed souvenirs. 

6. Watching the Tea Ceremony and Bunraku Theater

Or just getting a taste of macha in a traditional surrounding. I attended this twice. Once was a tea ceremony held by the Tea club in my college. They even taught us how to whisk macha ourselves and I just couldn’t get it right! This was where I got to see the complete tea ceremony (while having to sit on my toes for the entire duration).

The second time was when I went to visit a temple in Kyoto, where I got to see the Zen garden, do a bit of meditation and was invited to sit and sip green tea. No ceremony here, but the matcha was still wonderful.

I wasn’t able to see a Kabuki performance, but did manage to catch a Bunraku show (Puppet Theater). The puppets are around three-fourths the height of an average person and it requires three people to control one puppet – very different from the string puppet shows I’ve seen in Rajasthan. It was a pretty unique experience! There are national theaters in both Osaka and Tokyo which regularly stage Bunraku and Kabuki shows.

7. Taking a random walk to find hidden streets

The best part about Japan is, the country feels completely safe – even if you’re a girl walking alone in a street halfway through the night. I don’t remember many incidents where I felt unsafe no matter what the time of the day (or night). What this means is an endless possibility to explore. Rather than looking for destinations on google maps, I found myself choosing streets and areas and scouring through them at my leisure. With the land beneath my feet being Japan, there wasn’t much room for disappointment. More about Walking around in Osaka.

As much as I’d like to say that’s all, Japan has so much going on that the list may just never end. One thing which would be on many’s list will be food. Being a vegetarian, most of my survival in Japan was through Ice Cream (and bread), so won’t be much of a help there. What are the experiences you look forward to the most in your trip to Japan?

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Walking around in Osaka

In most travel guides, Osaka starts with the Glico figure. And if I am really honest, what pulled me there was…

Universal
Universal

More specifically…

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Wizarding World in USJ

But the city itself is a lot of fun. To me, it was a kinder, friendlier Tokyo. And that is what most of the Kansai region is known for, the friendly folks and food. Being a vegetarian, I couldn’t delve into the cusine much. But the people.. right from our host to random people I met on the streets, they were wonderful. And made the trip all the more fun.

So I like wandering on streets. Walking actually lets you explore a city like roaming around in buses and metro cannot. And in areas like Dotonburi and Namba, the streets are so colorful that it’s fascinating. I chose to live near the Dobutsuen-mae station so these areas were at a walk-able distance. And boy, did I walk.

The first day on the way to Dotonburi, I stumbled upon an Animate! My first Animate! Animate is a chain of stores in Japan dedicated to anime and manga. They are huge stores with entire floors dedicated to manga (Japanese comics), cosplay items, figurines and other merchandise. Animate stays open later than the other local shops, and I was walking really late. I had gone to Nara for a day trip and came back late at night, but I was so excited about getting to know Osaka that I decided to take an after dinner walk.

Now I am an anime (and manga buff). And the street leading to Animate also had a few local anime shops and of course I spent time in those as well. The figurines they were selling were really cheap now that I look back to it. But since it was my first city trip in Japan, I didn’t realize they were (and so missed the opportunity).

Do you see the weird Goku Luffy cross over? And Chopper!
Franky, Soul King and Usopp!
From Dragon Ball

I just bought one tiny Luffy.

Luffy figurine

(Still proud of him)

Other kinds of places that were open then were eateries and book shops. More like.. porn shops? Okay hear me out. Japan has a very different (weird?) culture about these. It is usual to find such magazines in convenience stores (konbini) so I had just learned to avoid those sections. And they don’t just have books lying around.. no. That would have been relatively normal. It is very common to find middle aged men standing near these stands reading those books. I kid you not. Maybe I should have taken my lesson from the konbini, but I can’t resist myself when I see a book store. So it took me entering half a dozen stores and finding a number of mostly nude (animated) girls staring back at me to decide that I’m not stepping into any other local bookstore in Osaka. Ever. So consider yourself informed (to whatever end).

The second day I took a day trip to *drumrolls* Universal…! (I should just say Hogwarts). And the third day to Mount Koya (more about that here). All the time getting to see Osaka only at night. But the fourth day.. that was when me and Osaka finally had time alone together. And I packed my bags with my meager vegetarian snacks and headed off to… where else? Dotonburi!

Walking around in Osaka
Walking around in Osaka

I did find some odd snacks here and there. Okay. I just found one.  Never thought I’d spent 200 yens on a chocolate sprinkly banana which looked more than a little weird. Oh well.

Roadside Candies
Roadside Sparkly Candies

While walking around I also stumbled upon this beautiful and quiet shrine in the middle of nowhere. A few locals came to worship here while I was standing there, and it felt completely serene standing just a few meters away from the busiest street in Osaka.

Paper Lanterns at a shrine
The Shrine God

Trinkets like these are what make walking around worth it.

I also bought some clothes from local stores, and somehow stopped myself from getting a really expensive (but cool) hat (phew). For the next day I went to see the puppet show at the National Bunraku Theatre and roamed around in that area (it is a great experience for any theatre lover).

Osaka is a city easy to fall in love with – be it because of the strangers on the street who’ll give you a high five just because you seem a bit down or the beautiful shrines that will peep at you from some corner of the street, or maybe some other secret you might uncover on your trip. If I had stayed for more days, I’m sure I would have found other lovely corners in the streets.

Indian Curry Joint
Look what else I found

 

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One Piece Museum Tokyo – My Experience

The Strawhats celebrating around a table with Nami sitting holding a beer mug, Luffy and Usopp dancing around and Robin sitting and looking at them fooling around

Let me warn you first. There is a huge side effect of visiting the One Piece Tower. And that is a strong unbeatable urge to rewatch the entire damn series from episode 1. If you are a One Piece fan, you would know how dangerous this could be for your social life. I couldn’t fight it and now I’m stuck in Baratie waiting for Enies Lobby to happen and all those feels to hit again. So, consider yourself warned.

Getting there

  • If you’re travelling on a Tokyo Metro pass, you can take the Hibiya Line to Kamiyachou station and then walk towards the Tokyo Tower (700 meter walk). The red tower is really easy to spot so you wouldn’t have much trouble.
  • Alternatively, if Toei line works too, you can take the Toei Mita line to Onarimon station (850 meter walk to Tokyo Tower) or the Toei Oedo Line to Akananebashi Station (650 meter walk after that).
Tokyo Tower
One Piece museum globe exhibition in front of Tokyo Tower
Tokyo Tower

Tips before you go

  • Try and get the tickets online here if you want to save on the 200 yen.
  • If you can, take atleast one person with you so you don’t have to randomly ask strangers to get that pic with Law. Go on a One Piece fan hunt if you have to. Going alone is not that bad either, just a little inconvenient
  • Check the timing of the live show when you reach and keep it in mind so you don’t miss it. There are machines near the entrance of the show where you can get tickets in advance and you need those tickets to get in. On a day with more rush, don’t forget to get those tickets as soon as you reach.

The Experience

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I cannot begin to describe what the One Piece tower meant to me. It was an afternoon of wonder and pleasant surprises. There are a lot of activities so maybe going in a group will help. But if the group is devoid of One Piece fans, you’ll find yourself in many awkward overexcited situations with your companions giving you a blank look probably rethinking your friendship.

The one piece segment spans three floors of the Tokyo Tower. The entrance ticket costs JPY3000 if you get it online and JPY3200 on spot. It is a horde of picture points and games. The picture spots made me regret going there alone a little but it was a successful visit nonetheless. There was one game for every member of the crew and also, a live show.

Highlights

The Entrance

As soon as you enter, after watching a 360 degree theater with heartfelt scenes from across all seasons of the series, you end up in a dark room with the Strawhats lurking in every corner. The figurines are so realistic I almost lost my mind.

One Piece Museum Tokyo
Marimo and Curly brow
More of the crew’s Hangouts
Frranky Shogun
Bone to be wild

Zoro’s Soul of Edge

The entrance to the attraction is an exhibition of all kinds of katana’s. You’d waste no time in spotting Mihawk’s huge sword hanging down the wall to your right as you go in. The line leads you into a small booth where they give you one (unreal) katana and make you stand facing a screen. You then have to fight a pacifista and random cannon balls as the software registers your real life moves. When the pacifista shows up, you have to get into a particular stance which is also the time when they take a sneaky little pic you can buy later for a 1000 yen. I didn’t have that much money so I just took a pic of the pic but I encourage you to make a decisive and amazingly Zoro like one so you are proud of yourself instead of laughing maniacally and spoiling the pic.

A huge sword with blade black as night and a golden hilt hung at the center of the wall; Dracule Mihawk's cross necklace is hung to the right
Yoru – Mihawk’s sword

Robin’s Finding Poneglyph

Here they give you a real talking denden mushi. You heard it. A.real.talking.Denden Mushi. And you know who is talking from the other side? Can you guess? It’s Robin. Robin. She was talking in Japanese so I didn’t understand shit but I think I can rest in peace now.

The game itself is about finding hidden poneglyph marks all over the place, scanning it with the denden mushi and finding more of them. I drifted into all sorts of dark and probably non-visitor places in the amusement park carrying it, so the game can be a bit dangerous for overexcited people with no sense of social boundaries. While the game itself is pretty enjoyable, you feel like a stalker sometimes when you follow other groups with a denden mushi hoping they’d lead you to other poneglyphs. There are also nicer people who’d tell you where they found the hidden symbols themselves so you do not have to resort to your baser instinct. I turned out to be pretty bad with this though with a measly 56% of the poneglyphs found.

Brook’s Horror House

The name says it all. For me the funniest part of this attraction was the family in front of me. In particular, the son in the family in front of me. It was like a comedy skit. The boy was so scared of the house that he ran out of the place and then came to tell me it was too scary for him and that I should leave too. Two seconds later, his mom came rushing out looking for him trying to take him back in. Seeing her brother get all this attention, the little girl stomped out of the house and away from the attraction followed by her father asking her to come back. Somehow the entire family gathered and went back into the house, before the boy apparently decided he really couldn’t take it, got out again and walked towards the exit from the outside to wait for his family.

The horror house was not really scary (‘You’re a scaredy cat, little boy’), and if I’m saying it’s not scary, you can probably skip through it taunting all the wannabe demons. It was an alright attraction. The best part was catching a glimpse of the ghost woman, Perona.

Chopper Southend sunny issue Exploration

You have to go here. Actually there will be so much time you’ll probably go to all the attractions but I really took my time with this one. It had Sanji and the kitchen, Nami’s and Robin’s room with their cabinet and clothes and little animation snippets with Chopper and Brook.

Sanji in the Kitchen
Robin’s and Nami’s Closet
Robin’s Closet
Nami and Robin’s Room

Luffy’s Endless Adventure

A life sized figurine of luffy's back as he walks forward

Can I just say this is the best part? It is like an interactive animation of the entire series and a retelling of the precious moments of all the Strawhats. I almost cried here. There was Shanks giving Luffy the hat, the Enies Lobby scene with Robin, a model of Nami’s map room at Arlong’s that Luffy destroyed and… Ace. It was like a tribute to all that has happened in the series till now. They played little parts of the movie on a huge screen at the end too.

Shanks bequeathing the Strawhat to Luffy
Enies Lobby – ‘I want to live’!
Luffy’s Memories
Luffy’s Memories
Tunnel of Flames – The road to Ace’s memory
Hall of Mirrors
THE DOOR!! The door where Luffy recovers from Magellan’s Poison
Aaccccee guuunnn!!
Ace
Strawhats in the News

The Live animation

Frankly, this was not as interesting as I thought it would be no matter what the pictures make you think. Infact it was a bit funny and kiddish at some points because the characters’ faces did not really match with the characters. A great experience nonetheless.

Scene from the live action show – Luffy, Law and Kizaru
Scene from the live action show – Sanji and Zorro

Mugiwara and Tongari store

The Tongari store is inside the amusement park. The best thing I found there was the Franky hand pillow (you heard it). The mugiwara store on the ground floor of the Tokyo Tower has a huge collection. The best part is the One piece soundtrack playing in the background while you shop.

I think that the One Piece Tower is a place all One Piece fans will enjoy. It is a half day in Tokyo you would never forget.

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studio-ghibli-museum Winter-Illuminations

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An evening in the Ghibli Museum

Laputa robot at Ghibli Museum

Laputa robot at Ghibli Museum

True I had been super excited to visit the Ghibli museum.
True I had expected it to be amazing (unsuccessfully trying not to get my hopes too high).
True I had been waiting for the originality and beauty of all those movies to flood my brain again.
But I was still unprepared. I had still undermined how perfect it could be.

With breathtaking manuscripts of stop motion animation, oil paintings that looked like windows to other worlds that I know all too well, little unexpected animated features and reels and reels of film, they flaunted their skills unabashedly. And I could only stand and watch, trying not to gape.

Getting There

  1. I would suggest taking the JR Chuo line to Kichijoji Station and then walking to the museum through Inokashira Park. It’s not too far and the park is beautiful enough to make you forget about the distance.
  2. Alternatively, take the JR Chuo line to Mitaka Station and the bus to Ghibli Museum

 

Tips before going

  • Tickets! Ghibli museum requires tickets to be booked one month in advance, so this needs to be planned. You can get them here.
  • If you get the 4 pm slot, keep in mind that the museum closes exactly at 6, and you might not be able to see the remaining parts of the museum after that. You might also want to get to the Laputa robot before it gets dark, as there is not much lighting around it, so put that first.
  • Brace yourself for the feels.

 

The Experience

First, is the way to the museum itself. I had a 4 pm entry pass, but I left at 2 from Shinjuku station so that I would have a one hour margin. Though I had taken the ticket to Mikata, I got off one station before at Kichijoji, just because I could see a huge park in the maps on the walk from Kichijoji to Ghibli Museum. Retrospectively, this has been one of my best decisions of the trip. The Inokashira pond and the park enclosing it is a feast for the eyes. And as I was going to the Ghibli museum, the park and the autumn splendor really set the mood for it. It was a relatively peaceful place blanketed by shed leaves and dotted with  numerous park benches. Here and there, you could spot students trying to capture the beautiful scenes in their drawing pads (I gave it a shot too, but the results weren’t exactly flattering). I spent an hour in the place, sitting and drawing and looking around, and almost got late to the museum. If I had any inkling about how pretty it could have been, I would have went with more time to spare.

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You could imagine my excitement as I rushed to the museum. This could be the highlight of my trip to Japan. It was the first thing I had marked on the map when it was finally decided that I was going to Japan. Ghibli, and specially Miyazaki’s, movies have meant so much to me through all these years. They have been my inspiration, my solace, my musical haven and my friends during the shittiest moments of my life.

Inside the museum, I rushed to the Laputa robot at the rooftop as it was getting dark. The only way to access the rooftop is a spiral staircase which was a nice touch. Inside the museum, there are many rooms dedicated to the creation of Ghibli movies. The animation studio has wonderful live stop motion features that look magical even in real life. Then there is a catbus room where you can look through different models and sit in a life sized model of the bus from My Neighbour Totoro. My personal favourite was a room where original paintings and drafts by ghibli artists were pasted all over the walls. I was mesmerized by the level of detail that goes into each panel. The watercolors looked beautiful but the oil paintings were on another level completely. At first, I was sure they were photos and not real paintings. I could not imagine the skills, devotion, love and respect that went into each of them. And for the first time I felt as if the movies did not do enough justice to the quality of the artwork of Ghibli.

The Laputa robot
The Command Cube from Laputa
Laputa robot from a distance

In addition, there is a shop, a cafe and many other rooms in the museum. They also showed a cute little motion picture about a dog, Koro, in the museum which was around a 15 minute short story. There were no Engllish subtitles when I saw it, but there was not much being said in the movie and the story was pretty simple to follow. I could not get any pictures in the museum as it was not allowed >.< But take my word for it, it feels like an escapade into the Ghibli world, the most beautiful there can be.

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The museum closes exactly at 6, so I did not have much time. Leaving was much harder than I had expected, and I felt a little jealous of the people working there (though I guess dealing with ghibli crazed fans who did not want to understand that 6 is the closing time no matter what could be a pain). Even if I had not been a fan of ghibli movies before coming to the museum (in some impossible parallel world), I would become one yet again after a visit here. I believe that it is a must for all those who’ve been grateful to studio ghibli ever in their lives.

PS – While I loved the experience completely, I do wish there was something about ghibli music too at the museum. They covered just the animation part. For me the music, especially by Joe Hisaishi, is as wonderful as the animation and story in the movies.

 

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