My Trip to Japan: Back to Tokyo!

Actual date Oct 4 ~ Oct 9

So after Okayama, my dad and I returned to Tokyo so he could catch his flight back home. We felt like we had already seen a lot of Tokyo, and my family are fans of the Disney theme parks, so my dad and I took a day to go out to Disney Sea. Its another park next to Tokyo Disney with several unique rides, devoted to the idea of "exploration, imagination, and adventure" and features several "ports of call", aka, several worldwide harbors, and is supposed to be geared to an older audience than the other parks too. My favorite "port of call" would had to have been the Mysterious Island, which had the submarine The Nautilus (I could tell it wasn't life-sized though, but it was still pretty awesome), from one of my favorite childhood disney movies, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and a ride called Journey To The Center Of The Earth, which was really good. So we got there before opening, and didn't leave till after the fireworks that evening. I had fun and it was a good, long, day.

The day after that, my dad and I took the train to Narita airport, and I came back by myself!! I checked into a top bunk in a hotel/ hostel in Ueno. Except for being in the top bunk and having to climb up and down all the time, cus there was 1 ladder between 2 bunk beds, it was nice. Washing machines and maps and wifi and snacks for purchase at the front desk and a friendly staff, and good eclectic music played on the stereo.

The day after that I went to the Ghibli Museum! You have to have a ticket voucher in hand before going there, and when you get there the voucher is exchanged for an actual ticket with a actual section of movie film from one of the Miyazaki movies in it. Mine had film from My neighbor Totoro. In the museum I saw a really cute short animated film about a mouse sumo team who get helped by a really old couple who are farmers up in the mountains. The old folks cook a really big meal for the small gray house mice so they are able to defeat the dominating large white rats (I think, they were just bigger and white). The museum was very whimsical and really nice and had a TON of attention to detail. There were various stained glass windows with images from the Miyazaki movies (the museum was the brainchild of Miyazaki) and wood and nice wrought iron or brass fixtures and like, projector movie displays with film going all over the place and tile mosaics and pictures with characters or images popped in here and there, (nothing over the top like a huge totoro or something) and figurines and sometimes stepstools for children if they wouldn't be able to see otherwise. Haha, there was also a "Catbus Room", but only for kids 12 and under could climb on it.