Adventures in Tokyo: Day 5 - Mitaka, Ghibli, and Nakano

Journal entry for Wednesday December 3nd

The excitement I felt when we went to the Miazaki Museum today was the same type of excitement that you experience when you go to Disney World for the first time. You’re so excited you can hardly sleep the night before and then when you finally arrive, your speechless. You can hardly breathe. I remember being thoroughly confused when we first arrived to the museum. I expected to see a grey brick building with glass front doors, and maybe a giant, bronze Totoro sculpture standing in the middle of an open courtyard. But what I found instead was a rounded stucco structure paint pastel colors, with gardens growing out of the rooftops, tucked behind a wall of vines and other foliage as if it were located in secret garden of sorts. Apparently the image in my head failed to consider the magic of Miazaki’s imagination. I was, however, somewhat correct in my assumptions of the Totoro sculpture. He was the prominent character in a diorama displayed behind a glass window towards the front of the museum entrance.

Entering the Miazaki Museum was like stepping into Sophie’s Hat shop in Howl’s Moving Castle. The museum itself has this cozy, quaint little cottage in the middle of the woods feeling that you only read about in fairy tales and storybooks. I was thrilled to discover that my ticket into the museum had three original frames of film from Castle in the Sky attached to it. After leaving the main entrance, we descended a staircase and entered the grand foyer that opened up to reveal the three stories above us.

            We turned quickly to enter a room off to the side that showcased some fun little exhibits that only increased my excitement: a few shadow boxes, a case of sculptures, and my favorite attraction, the sculpted zoetrope. Attached to the zoetrope were sculpted, sequential poses of various Miazaki characters doing simple actions: riding a unicycle, jumping rope, and a Totoro bouncing up and down for example. After taking animation one this past quarter, I can certainly appreciate the difficulty of animating a action through drawings and keeping proportions consistent, but keeping proportions consistent over a series of sculptures gave my a new found respect for the artists at Studio Ghibli. I was content just looking at sculptures in the zoetrope, until the zoetrope turned on, and I almost fell to the floor. As the zoetrope spun, a strobe light turned on, and the characters began to move! The strobe light allowed you eye to see the animation of the sculptures. I was mesmerized for the next ten minutes.

We moved up stairs and really got into the meat of the exhibit. The first room on the second floor exhibited a brief history of animation in Japan, while the second room displayed examples of the typical working environments of the animators: large wooden desks contained utensils, paints and paper, bookshelves off to the side, and plenty of reference material. The room had painted wall illustrations that made the room feel as if it were a large animation studio. A few of the desks in the room were cut in half and attached to the wall to further the intended illusion.

I lost it my composure in the next room. The one aspect of Miazaki’s films that I cherish most is the beauty of the layout paintings. These painting simply inspire me. They strike a chord deep in my artistic soul, and I come alive, I’m energized, and my creativity starts to sing. They represent everything that I love about art, animation and storytelling. When I walked into this room, I found the room was covered, floor to ceiling, with the most beautiful layout paintings I have ever seen in my life. The luscious detail, the vibrant colors, and the dynamic compositions were too much for my feeble mind to handle and tears feel down the side of my cheek. I wept right there in the middle of the exhibit. Dixie gave me a tissue.

I’m sure my roommate Sean would have died to see the next room: a replica of, I believe, Miazaki’s steam punk intensive personal study, filled with an assortment of books, trinkets, and gadgets all set in front of a large, open hearth. It was reminded heavily of Ubaba’s quarters in Spirited Away. Rough layouts, storyboards, and inspirational materials lined the walls.

I wanted to buy the bookstore. There were too many wonderful things that needed to be purchased. My original plan was to purchase all of the Joe Hisaishi soundtracks to the Miazaki movies but instead discovered the beauty of the layout books. I ended up purchasing a book that contained rough layouts for most of Studio Ghibli’s films, a book of concept paintings by the supervising layout artist of the Miazaki films Oga Kazuo, and the art book for Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Miazaki’s latest movie that’s set to release in American fall 2009. I had to get the Ponyo on the Cliff book. It contained the paintings that I cried over in the exhibit. I did however end up buying two soundtracks: Porco Rosso and Ponyo on the Cliff. I would have bought more, but the CDs were fairly expensive. I’m sure I’ll find them cheaper when we go to Nakano tonight.

There was a giant cat-bus in a play area for children. I wanted to join in the fun but was not allowed for obvious reasons. I did however enjoy watching the cute-as-hell Asian children step all over the cat-bus’s face as we passed by.

We ascended a spiral staircase up to the roof were we stopped to take pictures in front of a large robot from Castle in the Sky. I had trouble working Natalia’s camera, and a line started to form behind me. I apologized in my broken Japanese. Two teengage girls behind me started giggling. Fortunately Dixie was able to get a good picture for her because I failed miserably.

We went back downstairs to stand in line for a special film presentation that came free with our ticket. We stood on what seemed to be a rounded patio that sloped into the wall at the edges. The patio as well as the rest of the museum was very heavily Gaudi influenced. Zane, Dixie and I enjoyed watching a group of small children running up the slope of the wall. We couldn’t help but laugh when the kids came sliding back down as they reached the crest. One of the little girls landed on her stomach and slid face first down the slope, her cheek grading against the stone slabs. I thought tears would follow, but she stood back up as if nothing had happened and continued the process with her friends.

I didn’t realize they were going to show us a museum specific short film relating to one of the Miazaki films. Apparently Studio Ghibli created four that the museum rotates every month. We were lucky enough to see the My Neighbor Totoro short film, where Mae goes on an adventure with a young cat-bus. You know a film is good when you can understand exactly what’s happening even though the film isn’t in your native language, and that was the case with this short. The cat-bus in the original film is a character that really isn’t explore to great depths, whereas this film not only introduces the young cat-bus, but also introduces a cat subway, a cat-boat, and a British cat double-decker bus. It was such a fun film to watch. Mae feeds a giant, old cat-train a piece of candy and his reaction is priceless. The ingeniousness of the films creativity made a recipe for pure excellence.

On our return trek to the subway, we decided to take the scenic route through the park behind the studio Ghibli Museum. What an excellent opportunity to take photos. The park was centered on a lake which just happened to contain yet another shrine. Red trees beautifully framed a traditional red Shinto shrine backlit by the gorgeous highlights of a golden Japanese sunset. So being the artist that I am, I pulled out my camera and began playing the setting until I was able to capture the perfect picture. Tokyo is great, but you don’t get to see the personality of Japan in a jungle of concrete and billboards. The personality lies in the rural societies. Mitaka is strong combination of natural settings and a more authentic Japanese community. As fun and exhilarating as Tokyo is, I definitely prefer the quaint setting.

I soon realized that in my fever to photograph the lakeside setting, I was left behind, along with Martaa and Mark Shultz. After navigating our way out of the park we ran into another half of our group that was also left behind. Thankfully we all had a Tokyo city atlas handy. It took a few minutes to find our way back to the subway, but it also gave us a chance to enjoy the scenery as the sun set.

We finally arrived at Nakano with high expectations. I mean when Ray Goto talks up a place for 10 weeks it’s hard not to be excited. Thankfully Nakano did not disappoint. It’s probably the largest shopping district in Tokyo, fully equipped with over three floors of all the crap that you could possibly want. I’m talking books, antique toys, hand-painted animation cells, clothes, jewelry, video games, CDs, DVD, and list could possibly continue for several pages. We arrived hungry, so decided to find something to eat before going on a shopping spree. Mark Shultz, his wife, and a few others decided to grab sushi at the rotating sushi bar. Zane, Dixie, and I, not being huge fans of sushi, found a small buffet just down the block. I think it was a Chinese buffet. We weren’t really sure, but the food was good, and it was decently priced.

We ended up chatting for a bit, but after eating a decent meal, we began to explore the shops galore. Our first find was a bookstore where we discovered yet more Miazaki books that I was tempted to buy. Luckily I restrained myself from the temptation. The photography section was quite extensive. They had book after book of reference materials thoroughly dedicated to specific types of scenery such as European architecture and forest settings. Interesting however they were not tempting enough to buy. One of the most impressive aspects of Nakano was the variety of new and vintage toy stores. Zane found a few things to purchase for his father while I found a sweet sculpture that I might have to get Chris for Christmas. I still can’t find Fooly Cooly merchandise, which makes me sad. For about an hour we explored the multitude of shops and stores on the three floors of the marketplace. It’s definitely the most impressive district that we’ve been to so far. I ‘ll probably return later next week. Eventually, as our backs wore out and our feet started to ache, Zane, Dixie and I decided it’d be a good idea to sit and rest for a bit before navigating the subway back home.

We found a nice brick ledge to sit on, just outside the main entrance to the Nakano shopping center. We took out our sketchbooks and began to draw. Throughout the course of our drawing session, several indivduals were interested in our drawings. Our first visitor was a polite middle-aged businessman. We chatted with him about our stay in Tokyo and the purpose of our trip. He suggested to us a few interesting sites near the fish market that we should visit to give us a more authentic look into traditional Japanese culture. I can’t wait to take some good reference photos. The second man, an architect, was particularly interested in the gestural qualities of our sketches and seemed eagar to offer suggestions to aid young aspiring artists. He gave us a few of his architectural drawing utensils! A beautiful fountain and a large graphite mechanical pencil were among the numerous donations. He took a picture of us, and then printed three healthy sized copies for us. He gave it to us as a souvenir for our trip to Tokyo. People here in Japan (most of the time) are very friendly and hospitable. I really appreciated this man’s kind-hearted devotion to us in the brief moments we had to interact with him. I guess artists tend to universally look out for each other

We continued to sketch shortly after the architect left, and after a few moments of attempting to find a good subject to draw, we happened to see some random guy dancing J-pop-style moves a few feet from where we were sitting. He had been smoking there for a while just minding his own business, then plugged in his headphones, and started…dancing. Mind you this is no street weirdo. This is a guy wearing a suit and tie. We were slightly weirded out by this brave public display, so naturally we started to draw him. I didn’t get any fun sketches, but he did catch us drawing. Hopefully he didn’t hear our violent snickers over his music. He came toward us, and we ended up having a good conversation with him. I’ve had an extreme need recently to express my esteem for Japan with a native and this turned out to be the perfect opportunity.

After a wonderfully inspirational day at the museum and Nakano, we got lost in the subway. Not too lost but things were a little hairy for a while. After we realized that we were on the wrong subway line, we got off at the next station and began to coordinate our return to Nakano. That’s when Dixie lost her subway pass, and Zane’s nose started bleeding, a good note to end the day on don’t you think. Well everything worked out just fine. We got Zane some newspaper, Dixie found her pass in her pocket, and a bilingual Japanese woman helped us get on the right train after we returned to Nakano. Turns out we were in the right section of the station but didn’t realize that two lines were running at the same time on one track. We got on the yellow line when we should have waited for the blue line. But all is well. I feel like such an adult.

Now I have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the fish market. Ugh! But apparently it will be worth the lack of sleep and the several mile hike. I’ll believe it when we get the

Adventures in Tokyo: Day 4 - Ueno Park and Akihabara

Sorry that I haven’t updated my blog for two weeks. Finding Internet was quite the task in Tokyo. I could have sucked it up and bought the damn Ethernet cable from the hotel for five dollars a day, but I had better things to spend my money on, like stuffed Totoros and Joe Hisaishi CDs at the Studio Ghibli Museum. Woot! I also of course had to buy gifts for my friends and family. Again I apologize for not updating as often as I should have, but now that I’m home I can fully flesh out my adventure in Japan because a quick conversation simply cannot do the journey justice.

Journal entry for Tuesday December 2nd

Today we ventured to Ueno Park where we visited the Tokyo Natural History Museum, which so far has been the highlight of the trip.  It was truly a mind-blowing experience. There were six floors to the exhibit, with an addition exhibit on fungus towards the front of the museum entrance. 

The fungus was interesting because it mostly consisted of various species of mushrooms, plants both from land and water, and also little microorganisms for which they created little cartoon creatures for logos, video displays, and, of course, for purchase. I almost considered buying the ecolii bacteria but it was $20.00. We have to start collecting reference materials for the stories we’re going to illustrate for fantasy illustration, and the fungus turned out to be very inspirational. There were several interesting shapes, patterns, and textures on the mushrooms that could possibly work well for the creature design for the Godzilla – type story.

I then moved up to the dinosaur exhibit, where I couldn’t resist breaking out the sketchbook to draw. They were extremely awesome, especially the giant T-Rex that stood in the center of the exhibit. I also took time to draw a stegosaurus. I was drawn to it initially because the light hitting him created an interesting shadow on the wall behind him that I had to capture. Wow, I’m such an artist. From there I went downstairs to the prehistoric creature exhibit (the pre-dinosaur exhibit specifically) where I ended up spending most of my afternoon. I had a few favorite creatures here including: giant turtles, a pre-historic elephant whose skull I’m sure influenced the designers for alien, huge sea creatures that were scarier than the T-Rex, a beaver, various monkeys and lemurs, a moose, and several beasts with large horns and tusks. My theory that Asian children are the most adorable children on earth was confirmed when a group of kindergarten-aged school children walked by in their plaid uniforms and little red hats. To top it off they were all holding hands, and shrieked with delight when they saw the huge creatures. I can’t wait to be a father.

I moved on to the homosapian exhibit were they had these fascinating wax recreations of ancient human beings. They displayed each recreation (of which they had three) next to its respective skeleton unearthed in excavation. From there I ventured up to the third floor where they had a variety of preserved specimens both from land and sea tacked onto the walls behind glass cases. I took some time to sketch a few bugs, but soon lost the stomach for it after I saw discovered the cow stomach and intestinal tract, unwound in a display that still had tape worms and other parasites attached to it. Unfortunately I did not take a picture. I soon found a kangaroo rat that quickly cheered my woes. I broke out the sketchbook again.

A group of middle school-aged kids passed through the exhibit while I was drawing the bugs and a small group of then snuck up behind me to look over my shoulder. I think one of the kids coaxed another to ask me what I was drawing. So I showed them the bugs and flipped a page to show the other sketches I had done. They promptly started pointing at me to their friends and chanted the only English word they knew. Weird.

At this point I only had about thirty minutes until I had to meet the group, so I made a mad dash up to the top floor of the exhibit where they had an extensive taxidermy collection of almost every animal you can think of: dogs, camels, jackals, felines, hippos, an amazing collection of creatures. I’ve been the to both the natural history museums of Washington D.C. and New York City, and neither compare. This was by far the most impressive portion of the exhibit. The taxidermy collections as well as the variety of species exhibit were the most comprehensive and the most thorough scientific exhibitions I’ve ever seen. The variety of species exhibit was especially interesting because they displayed several specimens of the same or similar species on a wall and showed the myriad variations that exist with just one type of animal. The group of beetles for example all had the same basic shape and color, but had drastically different individual features: length of limbs, additional horns, shape of ridges and spikes, etc.

Overall the trip to the museum was a highly educational experience. Also it was pretty cool to see Mark Shultz draw dinosaurs.

After the museum closed, when gathered in front of the museum and took off for Akiharbara, another shopping district that is know for it’s amazing selection of anime and manga merchandise. I have to admit I wasn’t extremely impressed when we first arrived. The main section of Akiharbara was smaller than I had anticipated. Maybe we didn’t explore the area as thoroughly as others, but it was no big disappointment for me that we didn’t spend more than three hours there.

Japan is not shy about porn as I have unfortunately come to realize. They seemed to be a fairly reserved society, but in reality they are quite open about their sexual interests. For example, walking down the main avenue of Akiharbara, every once in a while you’d see an advertisement for a “happy” store with bare chested asian women pointing towards a stairway down into a pit filled with what I can only assume to be smut and naughty things. Zane, jokingly, tried to get us to go “explore.” Dixie and I did not approve.

Zane, Dixie, Natalia, and I were fairly hungry and decided to start the difficult pursuit of finding a place to eat before exploring the treasure trove of bookstores in the area. We followed our noses into a smoky restaurant where no one spoke English and we didn’t get service for at least a half hour, which did not help our growing hunger pains. We joined parties with Matt Shumway, Professor Jason Mauer, and Sanford Green and entertained ourselves by placing bets on who could survive eating the tentacle-filled hors d'oeuvres without throwing-up. Matt almost lost. Dixie and I didn’t even attempt. Natalia asked for seconds. We did eventually get service long enough to order drinks, but then had to endure the agonizing process of deciding what to eat. The English descriptions on the only English menu in the restaurant made did not make the food sound appetizing. Pork entrails and spicy cow tongue really didn’t do it for me. Beef and potatoes sounded safe. I also ordered a side of edamame. 

Then about 15 minutes later we finally got food. The edamame was delicious and surprisingly so was the beef and potatoes over misu broth. The edamame came in a fun little wooded box with a rope handle tied to the lid. Natalia was brave enough to try to pork entrails, which actually ended up being the most appetizing meal on the table. We were all very impressed with our food, despite the uncertainty of the menu. Poor Zane however ended up with a meal significantly smaller than what appeared to be advertised. So far the food has been extremely impressive in Japan. I have yet to have a bad meal. I’m sure that by the end of the two weeks I’ll be sick of it, and I’ll eat McDonalds for a few days. I’ll try to enjoy it while it lasts.

I’ve probably already mentioned this, but it’s legal in Japan to smoke in a restaurant, which has made dining experiences fairly unpleasant.

After dinner we walked down the block to Book-Off, a fairly popular chain of bookstores in Tokyo that had five floors of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. We originally thought this would be a good opportunity to find awesome art books but sadly we were mistaken. The store was difficult to navigate. That and the walkways were extremely narrow. We soon called it quits and decided to try another store. I couldn’t help but laugh at my stupidity in Book-Off though. I came across a shelf of manga porn and in my attempt to escape I actually fled into the section containing the mother load. I was fairly disoriented for a bit. I finally found my way out and saw Dixie about to make the same mistake. She was confused for a second when I yelled over to her, but the look on her face was priceless when she realized where she was about to end up.

On the street we ran into some fellow SCAD kids who pointed us in the direction of a good book store just down the street. We briefly looked around the toyshop on the first floor of the building and then made our way upstairs to check out the books. It wasn’t too long before we found the art and reference section. My mind was blown. The reference materials were wonderful. I wish I had enough money to by all of them. They had a series of books with photographs of a variety of things: buildings, martial arts combat moves, hands, household activities, etc. I ended up getting the reference book for hands and a book of combat moves with Asian weaponry. We didn’t find much else in the store. I pulled the same stupid move in this store as I did in Book-off. I accidentally walked into the cartoon porn half of the store. Yes, that’s right, an entire half of the store filled with comic porn. I quickly turned around, paid for my items at the cashier, and left.

Still slightly jet lagged, we decided to return home to get some sleep. We ended up meeting friends at Starbucks for a while where I had the opportunity to show Sanford the character designs I had been working on. He seemed impressed.

That’s about it for now. I’m so excited for the Ghibli Museum that I’m having trouble maintaining my composure. 

Adventures in Tokyo: Day 3 - Meiji Shrine and Harajuku

Written Tuesday December 2nd- 5:30 A.M.

I’ve discovered quite a bit since coming to Japan. Last night I discovered that if you go to bed at 7:30, your wide-awake at 4:30. I’m sure this is true no mater what time zone your in but it was an interesting experience for me. I was exhausted after a long but exciting day yesterday, and really needed to crash. I was too tired to think so I figured if the above scenario did take place (which it did indeed), I would fill out today’s blog entry this morning. So I took my shower, got ready for the day, and now I’m sitting in the Mc Donald’s down the street enjoying a cup of coffee. Hopefully everything is still pretty fresh as I sit here typing, but I’ll give it a try.

For some reason I didn’t realize that we were shacked up in a French hotel until I arrive at breakfast yesterday morning where I was greeted by the slightly obnoxious French host who took my breakfast ticket. Apparently this guy remembers us from years past, and dreads our arrival each year because we are of course, loud Americans. I have to admit we were the most rambunctious group in the restaurant. But Ray Goto, being good ole’ Ray Goto, sees this as a challenge. I’m sure we will see a great battle of epic proportions towards the end of the two weeks.

Breakfast in the hotel was amazing. Croissants, fruit, rice, bacon, salami, ham, hard boiled eggs, various types of pastires, meat balls, and several other options. It was a great opportunity to fill my stomach for the day. I wasn’t hungry again until dinner, and when $12 is cheap for a typical meal, you really learn to take advantage of every opportunity to save money. Japan, I’m starting to “discover” is very expensive.

After breakfast, we walked a few blocks to the conference facility where we had our workshops with the guest professors. I started the morning with Sanford Greene, a professional sequential artist and concept designer for animation who is currently working on a project for Marvel. We spent about an hour with him, viewing designs he completed for cartoon network and Warner Brothers animation, talking about the industry, and thumbnailing an actual Marvel script that he gave us, providing us the opportunity to flex our storytelling muscles. Later in the week we’re going to move to character design for animation, which I’m really excited about. His artwork is absolutely incredible. He has this edgy style that combines the fun of cartooning with the structure of a more naturalistic, mainstream look. I’ve been struggling with my own artwork recently trying to find a happy medium between the two. I love the fluidity or the more gestural qualities of animation. This type of drawing allows me to really free my hand, and explore a more whimsical manner of expressing the object I’m drawing. It has a certain vibrancy or life to it that attracts me. Whereas trying to drawing realistically, for me, can get stale and static very quickly. Sanford’s drawings really inspire me, because his work captures the best qualities of both. He has the simplified shapes and the expressions that you typically see in animation, but there’s still that natural structure to his work that, in my opinion, makes his art universally appealing to both markets, instead of exclusively appealing to one in particular. I would love to find this in my own drawing.

Next we visited Mark Shultz, who is actually teaching our Fantasty Illustration class. Wow! That’s all I can say. This is going to be a fun class. He has given us two stories to choose from: a science fiction story of Japanese heritage that is similar to Godzilla, and an ancient Japanese ghost story. We are also given the option of weather we want to do book illustrations or key frame illustrations for an animation pitch. Can you guess which one I’m going to do? I can’t decide between the two stories though: Create a super cool monster, or a scary as hell ghost creature. Any who, we’ll be spending our time with Mark learning how to effectively collect reference material for our projects, and developing various illustration techniques for both wet and dry media. Can’t wait!

The subway, like everything else in Japan, is extremely clean. Again, I’m shocked. No litter, no gum on the ground, bright florescent lights, white-washed ceilings, and beautiful stoned floors, something you wouldn’t even dream of seeing in New York. The Japanese culture is really starting to grow on me. I’ve been thinking to myself more and more, why can’t American be this way. Even the people are clean. No one where’s jeans. Trousers, sweaters, nice jackets are staple to Japanese culture. Everyone wear’s high end brand clothing: Coach, Chanel, Gucci, Prada. And on top of that, everyone is in great shape. Beautiful skin, beautiful hair, slim, trim and fit. I’ve only seen two hefty people hear, and they we’re just slightly overweight. No one is obese. I assume the pervasive need to maintain the image of society is somehow connected to the socialistic mindset of the culture. It’s not about the individual; it’s about the society as a whole, and maintaining the image of the population. I’m beginning to understand way foreigners don’t like Americans. We’re fat, dirty, and loud. After seeing the environment for myself, I finally understand.

We arrived at the Meiji Shrine yesterday afternoon, and we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves. The professors took off. As long as we were ready for class the next morning we were free to do whatever. But that also gave us the added stress of having to find our way back to the hotel by ourselves, which later turned out to be easier that I originally expected. The subway in Japan is actually easier to navigate than the subway in New York.

The Meiji Shrine was breathtaking. According to my guidebook, this is Tokyo’s most venerable shrine, opened in 1920 in honor of Emperor and Empress Meiji, who were instrumental in opening Japan to the outside world more than 120 years ago. My experience there was truly unique. Not only was it a beautiful day, but also the sun starts to set at 1:00 in the afternoon, so the lighting was perfect for taking pictures. I’ve included some of my best photos from the day with this blog entry. Zane, Dixie, Martaa Natalia, and I spent most of the day together. We had to wash our hands and mouth before entering the shrine, to show our respect to the spirits. We first entered a small village type setting, and then entered the main courtyard, a vast, open expanse that led up to the section of the shrine. There has never been a time in my life where I had such an intense need to sketch, but we not allowed. Apparently, the Japanese believe that sketching something steals the spirit of whatever it is your drawing. This confused me a little because I would think that taking photos would follow under that category also, but this was not the case. Oh well.

I was stopped by a group of elderly Japanese women to take a picture for them. Apparently I did it wrong the first time so I had to take another one, but I enjoyed interacting with them for that brief moment. I wish I new the language. I wish I could tell them “your welcome” after they thanked me. I wish I could tell them how beautiful their country is, how happy I am to be hear, and how stupid I feel for not knowing anything, but all I can do is bow slightly and hope that my facial expressions and body language get across what I’m trying to say.

We continued down a trial just off the main section of the shrine and happened upon a field wear people sat and relaxed in the warmth of the fading sunlight. There were people reading, children running around, families enjoying themselves over by the coy pond, and my favorite a group of people sitting in a circle singing songs together. We were allowed to sketch here so we found a spot on the ground and drew in our sketchbook for about an hour. Japanese people are so still when they sit. They hardly move at all, making them perfect subjects for drawing I drew an elderly woman, sitting quieting on a bench, I drew a few trees, an interesting bush, and a few studies of the landscape. The foliage is so different here. Crows were everywhere. Big crows. They are considered the guardians of the shrine, and it’s funny when the call to each other, because they sound exactly like human trying to imitate a crows call. Christian would have appreciated that.

It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to leave the shrine and find a place to eat. We crossed the street into the Harajuko, one of Tokyo largest shopping districts, and ran into fellow classmates. They pointed us to a small ramen shop just up the street. I got a bowl of ramen soup that had slices of row, chucks of pork, a hard-boiled egg, and a few other ingredients. It was delicious. I’m eating very well in Japan. The food here is fantastic. I love trying new things and discovering new favorites. After we ate, we helped Natalia find a friend of hers that she had planned to meet a few weeks ago. We then ventured into the streets of Harajuko, which reminded me vaguely of east village in New York, but more compact and stores everywhere, even stores on top of stores. Merchandise all over the place, but again, bright colors and lots of activity. We stopped in a few places, my favorite being our trip into Kiddyland. There were six floors of toys, including a whole floor dedicated to Snoopy.  I found some awesome Wall-E stuff that I wanted to buy but I figured I’d save my money for later. It’s only the first day and we still have two more weeks ahead of us. Hopefully though we’ll get to go back so I can get a stuffed Totoro from the Miazaki section.

My energy died pretty quickly, so Martaa and I found our way back to the hotel while Zane and Dixie continued on. I crashed as soon as I hit the bed. I think tonight I’ll force myself to stay up so I can get my body into more regular sleep schedule. I’m not sure what we’re going to do today, but hopefully I’ll get the chance to write later tonight if I’m not too exhausted.

It’s been great so far, and it’s only going to get better. It’s hard to imagine. 

Adventures in Tokyo: Day 2 - Long Day of Travel

Written Sunday, November 30th - 11:00 P.M.

Tonight marks the end of my already interesting adventure in Tokyo. After spending the past 24 hours on an airplane, I finally arrived. However the ride over, as cramped as it was, did add a few perks to my day. There was a monitor on the seat in front of me that gave a few options for entertainment: movies, TV, and an interesting feature that I have never encountered on a plane before, a GPS map. This gave me the opportunity to see where we were on the globe as the flight progressed. Our flight route was unexpected. Instead of flying across the Pacific Ocean, as I thought we would, we flew Northwest across Canada up to the coast of the Arctic Ocean. We then road the coast of Alaska, crossed the Bering Strait into the Northern regions of Russia, and flew across the Sea of Okhotsk into Japan. It was interesting to look out the window and see a seemingly endless expanse of ice in the Northwestern Territories, and to look across the cold, white mountains of Chokot. And when we reached the skies of Japan, the clouds were kissed by the orange light of sunset. Do you remember the stylization of the clouds and smoke in the Disney movie Mulan? Well even though this is Japan and not China, the Disney artists were surprisingly accurate in their portrayal of Asian scenery. Clouds in Japan look exactly like their depiction.

I arrived in the Narita national airport without a hitch, and had no complications moving through emigration and customs. Now I had to face the issue of finding the group from SCAD. Whether they had arrived on time or not I was unsure. After a few brief moments of confusion and shear panic, I found my crew. Zane and Professor Jason Maurer had been patrolling the lobby, collecting students as their flights arrived. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Toilets are very strange. The one I used in the airport had an automatic sliding-door entrance that operated with a green button to open and a red button to close. Once inside, I was bombarded with an assortment of addition buttons, all catered to creating the perfect defecation experience. I swear it was an experience straight out of Star Wars.

We were an excited group of chatterboxes on the bus as we traveled to our hotel and got settled into our rooms. Food, we found out, was our responsibility for the evening so Zane, Amber and I went roaming the streets of downtown Ginza district to find something to assuage our starvation. I noticed a few interesting things as we set out on our adventure. The streets are incredibly clean. They actually sparkled in some areas. I’m not kidding. Not a single trace of litter can found. The city itself has a very modern look to it, almost futuristic in a way. Also I noticed that bikes don’t have locks on them. You can park your bike on the sidewalk without fear of anyone taking it. Those of you who live in Savannah, I can imagine, are astonished. I know we were.

We wound up eating in this restaurant tucked in the back corner of an alley just off of the main thoroughfare. This may sound sketchy but it really wasn’t. Back allies in Japan are nothing compared to back alley’s in America. This one if you can imagine was filled with excitement and bustling with activity. I’ve never seen anything like it. As we entered the busy dining area, we were promptly greeted with a loud Japanese cheer from several of the staff members. We were of course a little nervous about the language issue, but it turned out to be a terrific dining experience. Sure we had to point to the pictures of the food we wanted to order, but we had a delicious meal of pork stir fry over tofu, all in a rambunctious, metropolitan type setting with colorful chairs, hanging lamps, and J-pop playing on big screens. I think I enjoy Japanese culture already.

Then to top off the day, we returned to our American routes with a trip to Starbucks, where I enjoyed my usual White Chocolate Mocha that actually tasted better than it’s American counterpart.

We're off to good start I think.

Adventures in Tokyo: Day 1 - Stuck in the Airport

Things are off to a good start. And by good I mean not really that great at all. My 7:10 A.M flight to Atlanta was delayed this morning until 10:15, which is incredibly inconvenient when your flight to Tokyo leaves at 9:50. So I had to completely rebook my flight. As it stands, I'm leaving West Virginia at 10:20 to Washington D.C. where I'll catch a flight to Tokyo at 12:30. Hopefully I won't have any more issues, but in the world of air traveling, nothing's a guarantee. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. 

However I may not be the only one having flight issues. I just got a call from my friend Zane. Apparently, he is the only one from our group who boarded the plane. The rest of our crew for Tokyo is supposed to be on that flight also, but because of weather issues they may have been delayed in Savannah. I don't know all the details, but poor Zane might be all alone in Tokyo. At least until I get there and then we'll both be screwed. But push come to shove, I have the name, address, and phone number of the hotel. I can go to the Tourist Information Center and get a cab at least. Wish me luck!