We make it to the most amazing museum E.V.E.R!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY OH MY OH MY OH MY!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to the Ghibli Museum!

We went to THE Ghibli Museum!!

We went to THE GHIBLI MUSEUM!!!

I have been trying for over two years to get tickets here. There are only so many tickets sold for each day and you can't buy tickets at the door, as residents of Japan we had to purchase tickets from a kiosk in a Lawson's store, which is all in Japanese. Probably why I had such a hard time. Oh, and I could only purchase tickets on a certain day of the month (after the 10th, I think, I'm still not clear on it all) for the following month. Oy! 

Luckily, I was so very lucky to have such an amazing friend, Junko, who went to Lawson's for me and got the tickets. 

Jump for joy!!!!!

JUMP!

FOR!!

 JOY!!!

Now that you can feel the excitement....On to the pictures :)

Cool city buildings near the train station. We've never been to this station before. It was about 40 minutes on the train from New Sanno. 

We took a 20 minute stroll through the park instead of riding on a bus to get to the museum. 

We're here!

We're here!!

Totoro!

Castle in the sky!

Ponyo!

Kiki!!

All of our favorites IN ONE SPOT!!!!!

We were only allowed to take pictures from the outside. And I managed to take a lot!

We arrived just before 1020, our admission time was between 1000-1030. So, we waited in line to get to the ticket counter where we exchanged our Lawson's receipts for little cardboard tickets with a film slide in it with a scene from one of the movies printed on it. We had a Ponyo slide, two Totoro slides, and one from Spirited Away. These gave us admission to the movie room where we got to... 

SEE A TOTORO MOVIE!!!!

I know! We were as excited as you are right now!!!! We got to see Satsuki take a trip in a baby Neko bus and then we saw GIGANTIC neko buses!!!!! Even double decker neko buses!!!!

So much awesomeness that I don't feel there are enough opportunities to use ALL CAPS to adequately relay the AMAZINGNESS we experienced!!!!!

I got ahead of myself....this is the outside of the museum. 

A tower to the rooftop. We'll see the treasures up there in a minute. 

Kenzie found a machine to sit on. She is turning a knob that made a lot of clicking sounds. 

Time to go up the tower after the kids had about ten minutes to jump around in and on top of a neko bus (I should explain that neko is cat....Totoro has a cat bus in it that everyone who watches the movie must, without a doubt, fall in love with!)

Up top, from my favorite movie so far, Castle in the Sky...The robot soldiers!!! 💓💓💓💓💓💓

Pondering the meaning of life while leaning on the command cube from Castle in the Sky

The snack area and a little water hand pump The kids could use to get water!

Taking a rest while Garytt tested the water pump.

A quiet corner 

Susuwatari!

Susuwatari!

(Soot sprites from Totoro)

I...can't...even....with all this cuteness!!!!

Oh my word....definitely one of the best highlights of our trip here!! A museum full of the magical Miyazaki films we love so much! Movies where we can understand why the kids kick their shoes off as they run onto a porch. We recognize the torii at the back of a field and we see the Jizu statue at the foot of a hill. We want to bow when characters meet. We recognize the most common schoolkid accessory...The hard shelled backpack.

Magic

Pure Magic!!!

Even the park joins in on the fun. 

.

On the way back to the station we stopped at a Lawson's for lunch. Onigiri, egg salad, edamame, and chips in a beautiful park on a glorious day after an amazing morning in a wonderous museum!!!! So much more than I could have ever asked for. 

Oh, wait! 

There were Christmas decorations up around the city!

On Our Way Home (the Weird Caps Are Back :/) We Got To Experience Our LAst Bit Of Tokyo Traffic. 

One Last close Up Of Tokyo Tower

 Rainbow Bridge One LAst Time, Too.

Then, We Ran Into Traffic In Yokohama As We Were Going over tHe bridge. Smoke. 

FIre!!! In An Ambulance! Not Sure What's Going On Here, But No one Seemed To Be Concerned With The Fire And Smoke Billowing From This Vehicle. And We All GAsped As we Drove past And Felt The heat FRom THe fire. 

We ended The Night Eating at Pepper Lunch For Dinner For The First Time. 

Step One: They Put A LArge Paper With instructions for how to eat your dinner. 

Step two: they put the sizzling hot plate on the top 1\3 of the paper and you hold up the bottom third of the paper so the grease from the sizzling plate doesn't burn you or get on your clothes. 

Step three: you stir it around to cook everything to your liking. 

Step four: EAT!!!

Hot plates make for good table spots.

Final Tokyo fun! Nezu Jinja, our favorite eatery and our last night at New Sanno

I've wanted to visit Nezu Jinja since I saw its amazing azalea hill last year. Well, I never made it during the flower season, so while we had some time to spare before we could check into the New Sanno, we decided on a side trip to Nezu. 

The whole thing was free to walk around in, and it's beautiful!

And, if you can't make it to Kyoto to see Fushimi Inari, then this is a close spot for you to see a small piece of torii tunnels. 

Kenzie and her new birthday bear, Rita the relaxing bear (Rilakkuma).

The sun was on its way down so it made for good pictures

This Is The Azalea Hill I've Wanted To see For A Year. Just Imagine it Full Of Reds, Pinks And Whites. 

(I Have No Clue Why The Kindle Is Capitalizing Every Word And Cant Figure Out How To Fix It....sorry)

Hello Ginkgo!

I'm Not Sure What That Guy On The Side Is, But He's Different than Most Things We've Seen. 

The Kids Jumped Into The Pool For a Couple Hours Before We Went Out To Dinner. The First Time We Were Here I Had To Be In The Pool With THem Because They Were Too SMall To Reach THe Bottom. Now, Both Kids EAsily Swam THe whole TIme Without Me. 

ANd....We managed to squeeze in one more Coco's meal before we leave. Chicken cutlet curry...our favorite. Also, a meal that when we first tried it five years ago with the Hogans, my kids refused to eat it with the curry sauce. 

I tried something different this time. A beef patty with cheese in the center. Mmmmm....cheese!!!!

One more exploration of O'Daiba ~ Unicorn Gundam and Trick Art Museum

A few weeks ago we reserved a night at the New Sanno so we could fit in one more Tokyo exploration trip. On the way up we stopped over in O'Daiba so we could see the new Gundam that was placed at Diver City a couple months ago. 

We had a beautiful day to explore!

One of my favorite buildings to take pictures of...I think its the Fuji TV building.

The Gundam Stairs in Diver City

Here he is!!! This is the Unicorn Gundam. He's quite impressive!!

We even found a few autumn colored trees to stand under!

The cool needle thing set up a nice shot for me

We had lunch in Diver City. I had yummy yakisoba. 

The kids had set meals with smiley face potatoes, chicken, rice and gyoza cooked in one sheet. 

Kris had stinky ramen but it came with a thank you note printed on the nori sheet. 

Since we were in the area, we stopped into the Trick Art Museum for a bit of fun!

Kenzie holding up a mikoshi

Boy causing trouble!

Mackenzie saves the day when Daddy causes trouble

Uh oh! Now Mackenzie is up to no good!

This one turned out pretty funny...both kid's causing mischief!

Dropping in on some ninjas!

Playing with sizes

Garytt saves the day!!

Hitching a ride into the castle on a parachute

Watch out!!!

Daddy will save the day!!

Attack of a snake lady!

We're being attacked from everywhere!!!!

Look Mom....magic!!!

You'd never know they were sitting in a box flat on the floor!

Our little butterfly

These turned out pretty good too

PENGUINS!!!!!!

One last shot of O'Daiba