Studio Ghibli

This morning started out pretty frustrating.. I went to the train station and could not put more money on my card because they only take cash. I went to the Japanese ATM but my card does not work there so I had to walk to the Citibank which is about 6 blocks from the train station. As I was walking to Citibank I stopped at 7-11 and got a surprise rice ball, I went with red this time and was pleasantly surprised by spicy shrimp and onion. I got back just in time to miss the "Ghibli Express" so I had to take a regular JR Chou line. I actually arrived at the museum about 5 mins after they opened so it all worked out in the end.. :)

I guess the best word to sum up the museum is WOW! I understand why they don't want people taking pictures, if you can't take pictures you have to bring your friends back in order to show them awesomeness! It was 3 floors, the roof walk, a movie theater and a restaurant. You are allowed to take pictures outside including on the roof walk so I have a picture of me with the robot from Lupata.

The bottom floor had this amazing room that had figures on wheels that spun, when the wheel spun a strobe light would light and you would see the figures running, it might have been the best thing in terms of sheer impressiveness. They had one of Totoro and one of Laputa. They also had a short film that ran on loop that was the creation/desctuction of the earth, it was pretty neat how it showed the cycle of the earth being created and destroyed just to be created again.. The movie theater was also on the 2nd floor, but I'll come back to that..

The 2nd floor had a mock up of the animation studio and a partner exhibit which changes each year. This year it was Petit Louvre which had paintings from some of the famous French artists. The animation studio had lots of preliminary drawings of characters from all of his movies. It was interesting to see Porco Rosso as more of a pig, less of a pig etc. They also had original artwork of what Totoro might have looked like, I'm glad they didn't use them because he was more ghost like and not so real. They also had books of storyboards from the new movie that just came out in Japan in July of 2008 called Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea and storyboards of Porco Rosso. Between the exhibits on this floor they had cells and a preview of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea which is a movie about Mer-people. A boy finds a baby mer-person and saves it in a cup of water and the adventure begins.. Looks good, can't wait for it to come to America.

The 4th floor had two stores, one of toys, shirts, cups, mugs, dvds, nick nacks and such. The other had books and original manga. Between the two stores they had the giant plush cat bus that kids got to go on and in. It was pretty cool. From this floor there were two exits, one to a spiral staircase that led to the roof and the giant robot. The other exit led to the restaurant where I had mushroom pasta in a creme sauce and a home made ginger ale. The pasta was served on a Totoro plate that they sell in the gift shop.

I spent too much money.. ;) I will just leave that statement right there for now.. :D

So, back to the movie theater. Miyazaki made 4 new films to be shown exclusively at the museum and they rotate them every month. This month's movie started with a boy getting dropped off at school, he drops his bag off and heads into the classroom to find that seven older boys had taken it over and were making a big ship out of the things you would find in a classroom. The little boy tried to help but they told him he was not able to because he couldn't swim and they didn't want him to drown so he went and watched with the younger kids while they finished building it. After they were done building it they went "to shore" to get supplies, while they were gone he hiked up his pants and walked "through the water" to the ship. When he touched the ship which was not fully formed a chair fell off the side and the whole ship looked like school items again. The older boy came back over and "repaired" the damage as water had begun filling up the ship. Anyway, they loaded the ship up and went out exploring the sea. I'm not going to write up the whole story line here but it was very cute and very fun.

Next month's movie is a new story involving May and the Cat Bus.. I did get a little picture book that they made based on that one so at least we can see the story and pics from it.

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After the museum I came back and went to the Subaru show room by the hotel. They had a new Exiga there which was kinda cool, but they did not have the electric cars on display. Everyone they made is out on the streets..

Plan for the rest of the night? I would bet you would love for me to say put up pictures.. I'm actually going to the office to call La Rochelle to see if they will let me in tonight. If they do I am going there, if not maybe I'll put up pics..