Japan Trip: Day 3 -- Museum day
May 24
Still another rainy day.
My tita's husband's English student was assigned to drive for us for the day. Since it was raining, we just decided to go somewhere indoors. I decided we should check out Odaiba.
We passed by the Rainbow bridge (no lights yet since it was morning but the bridge beams had colors of the rainbow on them so I guess that's part of the name).
The bridge was positioned very high from the water. I've never crossed a bridge this high and it made me feel a little scared. It took us a while to locate the science museum (since we didn't know what it was commonly called) but thanks to my brother's ipod touch app and GPS, we finally found Miraikan.
(film -- thanks to my kuya for his wide angle lens, I got this before we left)
(35mm)
(wide angle)
Tickets cost Y600 each (+100 more for the haunted house)
The thing about Japan is that their ticket vendors are not people in counters that handle money and hand you the tickets. Whenever tickets are needed, they'll just have a machine (similar to the train ticket machines or ATM machines) which prints out the ticket and gives you change.
So anyway, we went up to the exhibition room. They had interactive displays such as this cute white robotic seal. It responds to you when you touch it.
There was also a set of tracks and balls that teach you the concept of how data is transferred through a network.
They had many funky stuff (some of which I forgot/didn't bother to take pictures of :P) ASIMO was just on display since he was under maintenance and didn't have any demos that day. (Talk about getting unlucky on this trip) I also saw some Aibo displayed on their shelves.
They also had a huge LED covered sphere that displays different views of the earth like the temperatures or the cloud formations.
We were in a bit of a hurry so we quickly passed through the displays. We then went to the top floor for a quick lunch. While waiting for our orders to come, we went to the museum shop. Mostly bought ASIMO-related stuff and some small trinkets.
Since we only had our dad dictate to us what food was available in the restaurant, I just got the safe choice of getting curry. It obviously lacks meat but it was just as good as the other curries I had there. Having it with the usual Japanese rice makes it so much better.
My mom's cousin (our tita) met us at the restaurant and then we all went down to get in the van and be on our way to Mitaka. Ghibli museum here we go!!!
The museum was pretty far. When we got there we were greeted by Totoro in a ticketing booth.
(film)
The museum was magical. They showed how animation works. They also had the rotating 3D animations as well. Too bad we can't take pictures inside so we just bought the book that featured the museum.
After going around, we bought some stuff from the museum shop. I got myself a Totoro, Kittenbus (I only discovered it was the koneko when I got in the van.), some cards and makkuro kurosuke.
Bluey has new friends!!
We had the chance to watch Mei and the Kittenbus for their exclusive museum-only screening. They had no subs but since Mei was just a kid, I still understood the dialogues. That felt good. hahaha...
We went out and checked out the cafe. And again photos weren't allowed inside. Nothing special about the food. We just had some tea and coffee and 2 crepes.
This was outside the cafe: (film)
Jiji faucet! I want one :P
After the museum, we headed to a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner. We had to take off our shoes (thank goodness my socks weren't soaked that day). The room was tatami, with the traditional low tables. They had chairs though so it wouldn't be hard to sit down.
We met my tita's parents-in-law. The looks so prim and proper. So they ordered us some set meals. When our food came, we first had a toast. with coke and orange juice.
The orange juice that can satisfy your heart:
My parents weren't really into raw foods so they had the tempura set:
The rest of us got the sashimi set:
The white thing in the bowl on top was like custard or some sort of sweet/salty taho. Good when eaten hot. I was very picky with the sashimi so I passed the uni, octopus and the rest of the shelled creatures (oysters etc). It was good traditional Japanese food. The experience made it even better.
After dinner we went for karaoke.
The father in law loved to sing enka. Everyone had to sing including me. I picked 明日は来るから since it was the only song slow enough (and not that high) that I can read the characters. My tita's husband loved the song and told me he'll try to practice the song since he loved the lyrics as well.
I wish we also had this kind of karaoke here. Their remote is so high tech. with touch screen!
They also had English and Tagalog songs in there too.
After karaoke we passed by my tita's house, hang around for a bit then it was time to go back to the hotel.
And that's what you do on a rainy day. That's it for day 3. ^^
Shibuya/Akiba day 4 will be coming up next.
PS: My kuya and I made a bet against our younger brother that it will be raining the next day. See what happens next... a shiny 500 yen coin is at stake!
Still another rainy day.
My tita's husband's English student was assigned to drive for us for the day. Since it was raining, we just decided to go somewhere indoors. I decided we should check out Odaiba.
We passed by the Rainbow bridge (no lights yet since it was morning but the bridge beams had colors of the rainbow on them so I guess that's part of the name).
The bridge was positioned very high from the water. I've never crossed a bridge this high and it made me feel a little scared. It took us a while to locate the science museum (since we didn't know what it was commonly called) but thanks to my brother's ipod touch app and GPS, we finally found Miraikan.
(film -- thanks to my kuya for his wide angle lens, I got this before we left)
(35mm)
(wide angle)
Tickets cost Y600 each (+100 more for the haunted house)
The thing about Japan is that their ticket vendors are not people in counters that handle money and hand you the tickets. Whenever tickets are needed, they'll just have a machine (similar to the train ticket machines or ATM machines) which prints out the ticket and gives you change.
So anyway, we went up to the exhibition room. They had interactive displays such as this cute white robotic seal. It responds to you when you touch it.
There was also a set of tracks and balls that teach you the concept of how data is transferred through a network.
They had many funky stuff (some of which I forgot/didn't bother to take pictures of :P) ASIMO was just on display since he was under maintenance and didn't have any demos that day. (Talk about getting unlucky on this trip) I also saw some Aibo displayed on their shelves.
They also had a huge LED covered sphere that displays different views of the earth like the temperatures or the cloud formations.
We were in a bit of a hurry so we quickly passed through the displays. We then went to the top floor for a quick lunch. While waiting for our orders to come, we went to the museum shop. Mostly bought ASIMO-related stuff and some small trinkets.
Since we only had our dad dictate to us what food was available in the restaurant, I just got the safe choice of getting curry. It obviously lacks meat but it was just as good as the other curries I had there. Having it with the usual Japanese rice makes it so much better.
My mom's cousin (our tita) met us at the restaurant and then we all went down to get in the van and be on our way to Mitaka. Ghibli museum here we go!!!
The museum was pretty far. When we got there we were greeted by Totoro in a ticketing booth.
(film)
The museum was magical. They showed how animation works. They also had the rotating 3D animations as well. Too bad we can't take pictures inside so we just bought the book that featured the museum.
After going around, we bought some stuff from the museum shop. I got myself a Totoro, Kittenbus (I only discovered it was the koneko when I got in the van.), some cards and makkuro kurosuke.
Bluey has new friends!!
We had the chance to watch Mei and the Kittenbus for their exclusive museum-only screening. They had no subs but since Mei was just a kid, I still understood the dialogues. That felt good. hahaha...
We went out and checked out the cafe. And again photos weren't allowed inside. Nothing special about the food. We just had some tea and coffee and 2 crepes.
This was outside the cafe: (film)
Jiji faucet! I want one :P
After the museum, we headed to a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner. We had to take off our shoes (thank goodness my socks weren't soaked that day). The room was tatami, with the traditional low tables. They had chairs though so it wouldn't be hard to sit down.
We met my tita's parents-in-law. The looks so prim and proper. So they ordered us some set meals. When our food came, we first had a toast. with coke and orange juice.
The orange juice that can satisfy your heart:
My parents weren't really into raw foods so they had the tempura set:
The rest of us got the sashimi set:
The white thing in the bowl on top was like custard or some sort of sweet/salty taho. Good when eaten hot. I was very picky with the sashimi so I passed the uni, octopus and the rest of the shelled creatures (oysters etc). It was good traditional Japanese food. The experience made it even better.
After dinner we went for karaoke.
The father in law loved to sing enka. Everyone had to sing including me. I picked 明日は来るから since it was the only song slow enough (and not that high) that I can read the characters. My tita's husband loved the song and told me he'll try to practice the song since he loved the lyrics as well.
I wish we also had this kind of karaoke here. Their remote is so high tech. with touch screen!
They also had English and Tagalog songs in there too.
After karaoke we passed by my tita's house, hang around for a bit then it was time to go back to the hotel.
And that's what you do on a rainy day. That's it for day 3. ^^
Shibuya/Akiba day 4 will be coming up next.
PS: My kuya and I made a bet against our younger brother that it will be raining the next day. See what happens next... a shiny 500 yen coin is at stake!