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As today’s blog entry posts, I should be in the air between Medford and Los Angeles. From there I catch a plane to Tokyo. And at Narita I will be transferring on to Fukuoka. This will be a very long day, but I’m excited to soon be back in Japan.
A lovely park in any season, head to Inokashira Park (井の頭恩賜公園) in early April for best results.
This little, moss-covered, hand-washing station, complete with jizo, can be found on the back, water side of the Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Park. I wonder if it was hidden behind the main shrine almost 200 years before when Hiroshige drew the same spot from a bit more distant vantage point?
There are plenty of reasons to visit Inokashira Park near Kichijoji. The reason that took us out there a week ago was the Ghibli Museum.
I saw my first Miyazaki (宮崎駿) movie way back in 1988. He was virtually unknown outside of Japan at that point, but I was in Japan. In fact, I was living in the setting of his current movie at the time, My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ), on the edge of Tokorozawa in Saitama Prefecture.
Ellie and Ryan also became big fans, as well as most of the rest of the world, so we have been wanting to check out the museum for a while. Tickets aren’t easy to come by if you want to go on a weekend. With Ryan and Ellie in school on weekdays we finally landed some Saturday tickets by purchasing them within a day of their going on sale more than a month in advance.
Shown above is a picture from the top of the museum. This is one of the robots from Laputa: Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ).