Uncanny Valley

The whimsical museum for the studio of the best animator alive or dead, Hayao Miyazaki. In Japan Miyazaki always tops the box office. Princess Mononoke grossed the most for any film there ever, until Titanic was released the following year. I hear Spirited Away did even better. So basically you all should be renting these movies instead of reading this. Trust me, they’re good.

Anyhow, while Miyazaki is compared too often with Walt Disney with regards to their films, their theme parks could be no different. No hyperconsumerist hustle here, no rides overcrowded with misbehaving children. You could wander around Mitaka all day and almost miss it. The museum is set in a city park and has the serenity and wonder of many of the films. Part of the calmness stems from the fact that one must make reservations for the Museum, which sounded odd at first but seems to work out well.

Inside there are many exhibits on the animation process, and a few on how Miyazaki got inspiration for certain films. When I visited there was also a Pixar exhibit, and I suppose this section would rotate. There are many random staircases and doors all over that bring you down secreted passageways, but the Museum is small and it is hard to get lost. Probably is a good idea to keep an eye on your kids though.

The gift shop was good, and there were a few things there that were not at the omnipresent character shops across Japan. My favorite part though is the roof, which has an almost-overgrown garden and one of the petrified robots from Laputa Castle in the Sky. Admission also includes screening of a special Ghibli short film exclusive to the museum. It was about a kitty.

Just outside Kyoto is a park full of cavorting wild macaques. The park is a short walk over the historic Togetsukyo bridge across the Oi/Katsura river from the town of Arashiyama.

After paying admission you must walk up a steep hill to get to the top where there is a cabin. There are no fences, the monkeys can come and go, but they do like the apples and peanuts. For those of you who may think zoos are basically animal jails, I can see no ethical misgivings with visiting this park. The animals here are wild (not domesticated) but are used to humans. I saw a troop on the path up, and they seemed unconcerned by my presence, even leaving the babies near me.

The cabin in the top is where you can purchase food for the critters. To feed them, you stay inside the cabin and feed the macaques who are outside. There is a ranger here armed with a slingshot and a broom in case of any monkey shines (had to do it). There is also a great view of Kyoto from here, so if you have any memory left on your camera from all the monkey pictures be sure and get some shots of the city.

On the way down there is a small playground for human children. I thought it was fun too.

A cross between a food court, a gift shop, and an ocean liner, all in celebration of a certain blend of spices. The museum is on the top two floors of a high-rise in a shopping district near the baseball stadium. There is a restaurant branch for each of the best curry chefs in Japan, of various styles of curry. The decor is that of a ocean-going ship, in particular one that would be carrying spice back to the largest port in Japan, not a few kilometers off. The shop sells many curry-related items, including curry chocolate, which was pretty decent. I wish there were places like this in the states, they seem like a good place to go again and again. I hear that this and the Ramen Museum are prime places to bring dates because of food and the novelty.

A few stops from Tokyo is a museum/foodcourt dedicated to noodle soup. This is a good place go right before or after a trip to the Curry Museum, also in Yokohama. The museum is in the ground floor, basement, and subbasement of an ordinary-looking building a few blocks from the Shinkansen stop. We almost missed it if it weren’t for my careful training in college eating ramen and studying the wrappers, and recognizing the katakana on the tourist map at the train station, because our guidebook certainly had no mention of this wonder. But the trouble was all worth it!

The first level is a small museum and unremarkable gift shop. The highlight here is the polystyrene noodle cup crushed by ocean depths into a miniature. However, descend the stairs and you end up in Showa-era Japan. There are narrow ‘alleyways’ and brick façades all around. In between the shops of the country’s top ramen chefs there are little shops that sell toys and so on. However, they are not merely hokey retro toys, the whole shop is in thorough detail, and nothing hokey gives away the charm.

We didn’t get to eat here because of timing and because of the lines at many of the shops/stalls. Apparently this place is popular for dates. I can see why. If you’ve been to Las Vegas and seen all the recreations there, they all seem to be just enough glitz to hustle you into the slots and tables. Here they did it because they wanted to do it well and I appreciate that.