On Day 12 I mostly visited museums and of course you are not able to take photos inside of them. The first one I went to was the National Arts Center but someone sent me in the wrong direction so I spent over 40mins going to the wrong museum and then retracing my steps.
At the National Arts Center I visited the Shinkai Makoto exhibition. The guy behind Your Name and The Garden of Words to name a few. However when I was there I realized I've seen all but one of his films.
It was really cool as they had heaps of sketches including character designs, background paintings, story boards, and info about the creation of his films, and a breakdown of the motifs he uses in his films.
Also another awesome thing is that they visit the museum in Your Name and I had lunch at the museum cafe that the characters did!
Afterwards I hurried over to the Snoopy Museum which I must say was rather disappointing after the Shinkai Makoto and the Art of Disney exhibitions as for the most part is was comic strips printed out and framed on walls with cute art around it - hardly any sketches or anything showing or explaining the artists creative process.
So I went through it rather quickly - grabbed a hot-dog from the food truck they had outside as the line for the cafe was long and I needed to head to Ebisu to meet up with a family friend for dinner.
It was good catching up with another family friend.
Day 13 I headed to the Studio Ghibli Museum!!! So exciting. I decided to take the route which meant getting off at Kichijoji and walking through Inokashira Park.
The park was lovely and so calming and relaxing compared to all the hustle and bustle of most of Tokyo. As I arrived early I found a convenient store and had lunch in the park and chatted to some ladies from Hong Kong who had also stopped for lunch before heading to Ghibli.
Now you are allowed to take photos outside of the building and outside is just as magical so I took plenty of pictures.
Rilakkuma was just as excited as I was.
I love the whimsical style of all the buildings.
When 1:40pm rolled around I was allowed to line up ready to enter - one thing I love is that there are so many beautiful stained glass windows featuring different characters.
Inside it was rather crowded despite their strict entrance policy - however everything was so cute and artsy and it was magical.
The exhibition on the food in Ghibli was cool and the rooms made up like Hayao Miyazaki's place were adorable and the walls were covered in sketches and concept art and background paintings.
After exlporing inside and watching the short film - the one I got to see was about the Kitten Bus - you explore outside.
There is of course the famous robot on the roof along with some other Laputa references.
I didn't end up going to the cafe as the line was really long so instead I got a hot-dog from their take-out window. Japan seems to have a thing for hot-dogs.
Overall it was definitely worth the stress of buying the ticket in advance and the time it took to make it all the way to the museum from my hotel. If I visit Tokyo again I may just pay extra for accommodation in a more central location!
