throwback 001 : 20th July 2011

I decided to import some of my travelling and happy entries from my old blogs, which are my livejournal and tumblr. I just thought it would be nice to read back on some happy memories from time to time because I always forget I used to have a livejournal. So, I'll be doing some throwbacks here and there mostly about concerts, Japan, London and Australia or maybe just some hang time with friends. I also want to write about some happenings this year that I haven't even wrote about... and I don't know why because those experiences were amazing.

I want to keep this blog for a long time so I want to stockpile loads of things here.

This one will be about Tokyo, Ghibli Museum and Ikebukuro. Please excuse my fatness, I was 10kg FATTER and with still with my long hair.

Also, warning : [ Image Heavy ]


20th July 2011 ;
Woke up early, sis booked tickets for Ghibli Museum! I was so happy that I got to go there again. Especially because I wanted to see "The View from the Cat Bus" exhibition. As usual, we got there early again and just stand around outside the museum like we did last year, waiting for the gates to open.

I sat next to this little guy on the Ghibli bus

The View from the Cat Bus

Ghibli's latest short film, Treasure Hunting. 

Happy to be here again!

Didn't notice this little hut when we were here the last time! 

I love how this windows are shaped! So cute!

Still waiting to get in!

 We finally got in after just a few minutes. This time, we got Arriety and Whisper of the Heart film strips for our tickets. ( We got Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo the last time.) The very first thing we did was went to the Saturn Theater to catch the new short film, Treasure Hunting. The film was a cutesy, child film, nothing compared to Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess as Hayao Miyazaki only did planning for this new film. Nonetheless, the new film was a nice laugh. 

After which, we went around level 1. The stop motion for the Cat Bus with Mei and everything from Totoro never seizes to amaze me. I still stood there for a few good minutes in awe of how gorgeous and mind blowing the animation is. Everything was basically the same, but still, little sis and I took some time to view everything thoroughly once again. 

 After that we proceeded to level 2, where all the drawings for the films were. Once again, we looked through everything thoroughly. And to my surprise, they added new parts already. Like the real life model of the little doll house in Arriety, concept drawings and sketches as well. Also, even though it just released, From up on Poppy Hill, the latest film by Goro Miyazaki, they displayed the many artworks of it. Some of the paintings were really beautiful. I was so amazed by the detail of the paintings. 

 After being done with those rooms, we finally went to see "The View from the Cat Bus". When I walked into the Cat Bus, I was filled with excitement. I still remember myself whining last year about how I wanted to go into the childrens' one and play with the soot sprites, so childish of me, but yes, I really wanted to do that.   I sat down in the Cat Bus, molesting it. Stroking the fur on the seats, touching the ceilings, sides, where ever my hands could touch, really. The windows of the Cat Bus had painted scenes from My Neighbour Totoro, so you could actually feel like you're looking out into the film itself. 

Right after getting out of the Cat Bus, you can see painted scenes from Whisper of the Heart. I personally am a big fan of Naohisa Inoue's work and I was so happy to see his actual paintings of his world of Iblard.  Next to it, was the life size painting of the strange town in Spirited Away which I spent weeks staring at for my school work. I was so freaking excited, I wanted to walk into the painting. 

It is this exact picture, except it is life sized, and the ground and statues were real, sticking out of the painting itself.

Next to it was the food stall that Sen's parents ate the weird looking food and turned into pigs. 

 

They had so many of those chicken like things Sen's mother is holding here on a gigantic plate. I was literally poking it with my bare fingers and using the chopsticks on display to poke it as well.    

And after those was the display of paintings of Yubaba's room. The scene where Chihiro walked through the door, the passage way to Yubaba's office. The vases were gigantic. Little sis and I were being retarded and tried to walk into the painting. The vases were as big as they pictured it in the film. It was way taller and bigger than I was.

After that was Sophie's, from Howl's Moving Castle, desk, where she made all the hats. It was a real desk with real working materials and such. I wish they made a real Howl, I think all the girls will go mad.  

 

The arrangement was exactly the same as in the film. Little sis was literally trying to see all the stuff on the table, it was hilarious. 

The last piece of the exhibition was a pop up model and painting of the forest in Princess Mononoke. You can see Yakul (Ashitaka's deer), strolling in the forest, along with some Kodamas hidden, there were a little of four of them if I'm not wrong. Little sis was trying to find all of them since she is super in love with them.

After the exhibition, little sis and I went to walk around, intentionally, we wanted to have lunch at the cafe again, but the queue was too long that we didn't bother to wait. So we just headed straight to the Mama Aiuto Store to get some merch. I think I spent a bomb here, 20,000 yen.

Well... basically everything I wanted was expensive. They had my dream stuff this time, like a thousand and one Kaonashis, the last time I wanted some they didn't have any. A moleskin book with a Ghibli print on it, how fucking amazing is that? Soot Sprite cloth posters, Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away soundtracks and a few keychains and toys here and there. Yes, yes, I know I am mad. 

After spending so much time shopping for little cute things, we finally made our way up to the Laputa Soldier on the top once again. Yes, I took photos with it again. This time, I wasn't that excited (obviously), but yeah... I kinda forced myself to take some photos.

The Ghibli tents where you have to queue in to get in.

After walking around a little more and getting confused on where the exit was, we finally made our way out to Totoro's Reception and left straight after because the crowd was getting thicker and annoying.

Yup, didn't bother taking a picture with him this time.

 After which we made our way slowly by the JR Line to Ikebukuro. Since it was our first time going there, we got a little lost but after asking around and getting the hang of it, it was actually really easy to find Sunshine City. There were so many little shops on the way to Sunshine City, plus tons of UFO Catchers and Capsule turning machines. I LOVE! ♥

I really wanted Edward and Alphonse! But I really really suck at playing this. ):

There were tons of Full Metal Alchemist stuff since the movie just released. I am not actually a very big fan of FMA, but the merch... oh my god. SO CUTE! I had a sudden urge to buy all the Edward and Alphose Elric toys I saw. After arriving at Sunshine City, we got lost again trying to find Namja Town. And... after visiting the Information Booth about couple of times, we managed to find it!

The entrace to Namja Town! Nekonekoneko!

We were really famished when we got in and to our surprise, the food theme was also Full Metal Alchemist! I was so excited! I wanted to count the number of Edwards and Alphose-s I'll be eating. 

Full Metal Alchemist Menu!

They basically had most of the characters, like Edward and Alphonse, of course, Roy Mustang, Alex Louis Armstrong, Shao May, some Homunculus, Envy, Gluttony, Lust's boobies, transmutation circles and Winry.

We started with Alphonse ice cream and couldn't make out what flavour the ice cream was, but it was
delish!

Alphonse is smiling at me!

 After that, we went for something heavier because we were starving. We shared everything so we could try as much Full Metal food as possible. Also, they give you this Full Metal postcards when you order the character dishes! I was having fun collecting them. :D Next, we had curry rice!

I am guessing this is Alex Louis Armstrong's knucles!

And they even have the stupid glitter things at the side, as that's how his character really is like. Actually, his dish was the most yummy-est and most expensive.

Next we had Edward bao which was actually normal pork steam bun.

Yummy but took a while to cook!

And we had more Alphonse Gyoza..

I bought Edward, Roy and Alex rice crackers for the fun of it.
Yes, I enjoyed eating their faces off.

And lastly, we had Shao May shaved ice with chocolate!
She looks upset that she's gonna be eaten! w

We had so much fun eating all this character food. Literally, little sis and I were smiling the whole way. Only get this in Japan.

The movie poster!

We were actually lucky to be there as it was the last week of the FMA menu. After having our fill, baby sis and I made our way to Animate on Otome Road.  

Wow, now I know why it is called Otome Road, we saw a butler cafe and yes, the shops were crowded with so many girls it wasn't even funny. The stuff they sold there were also anime which only girls would like, and yes, TONS, TONS I TELL YOU,TONS of yaoi. I'm not a big fan of boy-love, but I was happy there were so much Kuroshitsuji stuff, I think that's the most Kuroshitsuji stuff I've seen in my life. Seriously, fucking a lot. Whatever, little sis and I couldn't stop oh-my-god-ing to Sebas-chan!

We found the Kuroshitsuji character soundtracks and I was so happy they had Undertaker's as well. Surprised they even had Lau.

Lau and yes, our favorite gay ever, Grell Sutcliff!

Undertaker!!!  ♥♥♥

I love Undetaker to no end. He's really my favorite character in Kuro, and I love how bad-ass he actually is under all that crazy hair and laughter. The packaging for all the Kuroshitsuji DVDs were so pretty. I was so tempted to buy all of them but I controlled myself and little sis only bought Ciel in Wonderland, which we already planned a long time ago on getting. Also, the Nurarihyon No Mago merch were gorgeous, I wanted to buy Kubinashi and Kurotabou! Other than those, they also had so much Ao No Exorcist merch, fucking cute. FUCKING CUTE. I don't even like Ao No Exorcist that much and bought so much stuff.

Rin from Ao No Exorcist in the lift!

I was like "RINNNNNN!" when I saw this, Otaku much? After shop-hopping, we finally landed at this Cosplay shop and found Ciel's and Sebastian's clothes. Little sis and I went crazy! And even on the way back, I stopped at this vending machine just to get Inuyasha on a can! 

It's coffee!

So much anime in one day, I thought my brain was going to explode when we walked through the underpass at Sunshine City to get back to the train station and came across a Toyota Car show, and guess what was on display.

FULL METAL ALCHEMIST.

There was a gigantic Alphonse statue, cars all plastered with Edward and Alphonse, the character costumes, toy displays and even character profiles and real drawings but the managaka, herself.

Alphonse Elric!!!

Edward and I! Look at my happy face.
EDIT : I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS THAT FAT OMG.

The cars and look.. even the floor had transmutation circles!

The collectibles on display!

Roy Mustang, Lady Hawkeye and I!

An original drawing!

Character profiles, I'm not going to post all because it's too much.
So here's Envy and Ling Yao Greed, my two favorite Homunculus!

Character concept sketches, May Chang and Shao May.

Again, not going to post all because too many, this is Envy!

We spent a lot of time there because I wanted to look at everything thoroughly. There was so much stuff, I actually mind-blown by the amount of anime I've seen in just one day.   

Little sis was so amazed they even had Edward's metal arm.

Even the tyre had a transmutation circle!

After spending so much time there, we finally moved our asses back to the train station to get back for dinner.  At Hamamatsucho Station, we stopped at a book store to look at even more manga and our best friend was on the cover of the magazine.

Grell~

In the end, we were too lazy to find dinner, we settled for Nissin cup noodles which was fucking good. Wish we imported back a carton of the curry flavored ones honestly. While having dinner, I was too busy taking picture of my anime food.

The rice crackers again, we devoured Alex Louis Armstrong first.

  We went to bed early if I remember correctly. Was so exhausted from a fully day of anime. Nonetheless, I was happy!