Extraordinary One Day Excursion to Tokyo

Years ago during my study abroad program in Kyoto, my friends and I went on a one day whirlwind trip to Tokyo for the Ghibli Museum. Golden Week had just ended, and even though our 5 day break was spent in Tokyo, we were unable to secure any tickets for the museum during that time. The next available tickets were for 4pm the day after break. So, despite that we made our way back to Kyoto Sunday night, half of our group used the final day of our 7 Day Rail Pass to take the Shinkansen at 1pm on Monday back out Tokyo.

Why did we even bother going back to Kyoto if we were only going to come back to Tokyo in less than 24 hours?

For a damn quiz for our Japanese language class. Quizzes were worth 15% of our grade and could not be made up, so skipping was out of the question.

Monday, 9am

Attended class in the morning dreading the quiz that no one had time to study for, only to find out that the senseis postponed it. Damn, really came back for nothing. During break, we explained our situation to the teachers and hoped that they would be understanding enough to let us leave class an hour early.

Luckily, the teachers were okay with it but also gave us a stern reminder of the consequences of falling behind in class. However, they commended us for being good students for returning just for the sake of taking a quiz.

1pm

High-tailed it to the subway station and commuted to Kyoto station just in time to catch the shinkansen. 10 minutes after boarding, we received an email from our study abroad coordinator professor about notifying him if we were to play hooky. Whoops, too late now...

3:30pm

Made it.

A film strip containing 3 frames from a Ghibli movie acts as the ticket to both the museum and their cinema/theatre indoors. Sadly, no pictures allowed inside.

The exhibits had rooms set up to look like mock animation studios filled with sketches, character concepts, storyboards, a life sized Catbus and a replica food stand from Spirited away that was piled with delicious, realistic looking food. Lots of cool stuff, but without any pictures to jog my memory... I honestly don’t remember much. What I do remember though, is how easily I was transported into the world of Miyazaki upon stepping foot into the museum. It's definitely a go-to place for all Ghibli fans to experience -- my writing simply cannot do the museum justice.

The lower floor houses their cinema. There are usually a handful of short films (exclusive to the museum) that they cycle through. On that day the cinema was showing “Mei and the Kittenbus”.

Went to the gift shop afterwards and spent way too much money before leaving the museum to take pictures:

Spiral staircase to the roof garden, where the robot soldier from "Laputa Castle in the Sky" stands:

View from the top:

A cute drain for the hand pump well:

Totoro at the ticket booth:

Keep in mind that tickets to the Ghibli museum are only available online :)

A cafe with Ghibli-themed foods and desserts, which we didn't indulge in:

6:30pm

Dinner time. With no time to be picky, we found a random ramen place down the street near the station and decided to try it out. My order came with a whopping scoop of garlic on the top, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

8:00pm

Back onto the shinkansen en route back to Kyoto after dinner. Those who weren't napping were studying diligently. I worked on editing my speech.

11pm

Back in Kyoto. Took the last running subway back to the University, and walked 20 something minutes back to our dorms. It was easily past midnight when we stepped foot into our rooms. It was an exhausting day with class to start in 7 hours and there was definitely going to be a quiz. Oof. No regrets.

A Year Later

I was invited to be a panelist at my home University's Kyoto Study Abroad orientation. As my friends and I sat in front of 30 prospective students, our Culture Class professor called our trip last year the “Extraordinary One Day Excursion to Tokyo”, an insane trip that would be equivalent to a one day SF –> LA –> SF trip.

Everybody in the room smiled and laughed, perhaps thinking of the potential fun trips they would be able to make during the time abroad. Or maybe they thought we were ridiculous.

But you know what? It was worth it, and definitely a day that I always remember fondly.

Read more about the Ghibli Museum at their website: http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/welcome/

Featured Photo: Ghibli Museum Entrance Fees: 1000 yen Follow me on Instagram!

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Extraordinary One Day Excursion to Tokyo