Anyways! On to one of my more epic days in Tokyo, which included the famous GHIBLI MUSEUM!!! Which I've pretty much been dreaming of going to since I was a wee little Asian baby and saw my first Miyazaki film. And watched every single one ever made at least 20 times since then. No really. They are magical and extraordinarily addicting! If you do not watch them, I highly recommend them. (And secretly judge you for having never watched one...SERIOUSLY?!?!).
I got new earrings in Harajuku the other day, which were a cute Alice in Wonderland throwback with the white rabbit and club symbol. And no Mom those are not real safety pins lol, they are earrings too. I met Julia for an early lunch at Kichijoji to go eat tsukemen, something I had wanted to try for ages. She took me to her favorite place, which was a small shop located near the subway. It was tiny but SUPER popular and famous apparently. It had been in all sorts of magazines and articles and there was this gigantic line snaking out from the front. People are seriously willing to wait for days to get in apparently lol. We arrived before it had even opened so we joined the line and waited a bit until we could go in and order with the coin machine :)
Also ironic was that I ate this tsukemen on Thanksgiving Day, and this was probably the closest thing I could get in the Japanese food range to turkey and gravy :D I dipped my pork slices in the savoryomgdelicious broth/gravy (it was somewhere between, too thick for a broth but too thin for a gravy). After you eat all your noodles and have some broth/gravy left, you poor in some broth base from the metal containers pictured above and then sip it like a soup. THEN it is really a broth :)
The inside of the museum was just awesome in design and so whimsical and otherworld-looking. We weren't supposed to take pictures once inside but I mean, I couldn't resist. This is a once in a lifetime experience for me and something I've been anticipating for so long! I'm halfway across the world from my home and I wanted something more than a fleeting memory to take back with me about this wonderful place. So I formally apologize to the Ghibli Museum and staff for breaking their rules, but I have no regrets lol. Everytime I look at them I feel happy inside :D
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It was so much fun!!! I had never done it before so I didn't really know what to do besides smile, but I tapped into my inner Asian and it worked out fine :D This particular machine was even new for Julia and it compiled a bunch of our full-body pictures into a magazine-cover looking photo along with separate full-body pictures of us. We didn't even know what it was doing until the very end when it flashed on screen with all the photos, it takes these pictures at RAPID-FIRE SPEED. Like we just see the countdown and have about 2 seconds to smile/pose/move (x.x)
-Side note: Japan seriously has the best toilets ever. They are so smart. I already wrote about the sinks on them, auto flushing, warming seats, and streams of water that wash you but this toilet at the izakaya was so smart, IT OPENED IT'S LID FOR ME WHEN I ENTERED THE STALL. I just stared at it open-mouthed like it had just sprouted heads or something before I regained my senses. It's like the toilets are alive and gonna start chatting to me about my day while I take a pee...