This is not a post about toilets

It’s important, if you’re going to dedicate one of your Japan days to trekking out to the Studio Ghibli anime museum, to bring along two people who have no interest whatsoever in anime. For me and for Grace, traveling to Miyakazi’s beloved home base to see still shots from Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle has been something we’ve been planning for years.

Here’s an outside shot of Miyazaki’s building since inside pics are banned:

While Grace walked around in awe, I took Ron and Mikey to see a short film by Miyazaki. It was a typical plot: a mistreated egg in a cute little dress. The egg is owned by an evil flying woman. One night the egg befriends a large blob of dough and they embark on an adventure etc. etc. etc.

It’s hard to understand why Ron and Mikey were not impressed.

We did also get to stop at Edo Open-Air architectural museum, which was more to Ron’s liking.

As part of our visit to Studio Ghibli, our bus stopped at the Hotel Gajoen, which has a spectacular lobby:

Our tour guide also went to great lengths to discuss the bathroom, so I’m going to insert one shot here. I do want you to know that I’m trying to limit my discussion of bathrooms and the underwear packing habits of my travel mates (Ron – 3 pairs, as ever. Grace and Mikey are horrified). But it’s hard here – the Japanese toilets are spectacular. When I approach the toilet in our hotel room, it senses my approach and HEATS UP. The lights come on, the lid pops open – it’s lovely. I can often sit down on a toilet, press a little button and enjoy some music, some soothing rain sounds or even a little spray of water, should I be hoping to spend the rest of my day traipsing around in wet underwear. For the first time, ever, I feel like Ron is jealous he stands when he pees as I get to do twice as much business with these wonderful creations.

Damn. I said I wasn’t going to go on about the toilets. But they’re so amazing!!!!!!

Here’s the shot walking into the hotel bathroom. Each little door you see is a private toilet room.

I love Japan, so far. Tokyo is massive and bustling but it’s so orderly. No one honks, traffic laws are followed, crossing the street is nothing to be feared. It’s a marked constrast to China, where I felt we might be killed on the streets and where we were nearly crushed trying to board a boat to view the Shanghai skyline at night. Sure, the same food issues carry over and I’m eating rice and candy for many of my caloric needs but it’s worth it.

Here’s a couple of shots from the bus yesterday that I liked. I didn’t catch the right moment, but for the road construction pic below, there is a video of a road construction worker that plays on the yellow screen – so the live worker has a great backdrop of a cartoon worker making his same body movements.

Here’s Mikey, Grace and I at DisneySea. In addition to not getting the “thrill” of Studio Ghibli, Ron got to spend a day at a theme park when he doesn’t “do” rides. You start to wonder how much of the planning he helped with, especially since today we’re headed to Harujuku – home of everything cute in Japan…Hello Kitty, Pokémon and more!