Introducing my Bishi!

Let me introduce you to one of my absolute best friends in the world, and my week long travel buddy, Vishal, or Vish as I frequently call him. I titled this blog "Introducing my Bishi!" because, when said in Japanese, the nickname Vish, phonetically sounds a lot like "Bishi", short for "Bishonen" (pretty boy/handsome youth)...and it was either that or Michelle, because a few times my Japanese friends thought I was introducing him as "Michelle" not, "Vishal", so TA-DAH! Here is my Bishi!

I can't accurately recall the point at which Vishal came in to play with my travel plans this go around, but it just kind of clicked and seemed like a 100% natural conclusion that we'd go together, after all we'd talked about traveling over the years. We'd been best friends since freshman year of college, so he got to hear all about me go on and on about Japan both while I was there, and when I came home (he probably even read this blog at one point). We've been the kind of friends that have talked about traveling the world together for some time, and our idea of a fun Friday night in college would sometimes consist of ordering wings and marathoning "House Hunters International." What can I say? We're bonafide nerds with a serious case of the travel bug, though up until this point, our only travel together was to the Long Island Sound and Hershey Park. After much schedule consulting, to figure out if I could get off work the same week as his break from med school, and a very lucky search online when I found my ticket back for under $900, all we had to do was wait for March to come!

The previous night, after lugging my suitcase through Mito, Tsuchiura, Ueno, Mitsukoshimae and Suitengumae stations, I finally managed to find our hotel and Vishal! However, since I hadn't stopped to rest, and had been going non-stop since arrival, and he had just arrived and spent 30 minutes wandering around our station getting lost, AND it was something like 11pm at night...both of us were kind of dead and not too terribly energetic or excited. Our initial meeting in our hotel lobby was something to the effect of this

Me: (monotone) Hey. I found you.
Vishal: (just as monotone) Hey.
Me: Hey. We're in Japan together.
Vishal: Yup.The hotel staff was laughing at me, I think
Me: Uhhh...that's probably because you're wearing sweat pants. And flip flops. In public. They probably think you went to the bathroom and forgot to change your shoes.
Vishal: Whatever. I'm really tired. Can we save talking for tomorrow?

So a conbini bento dinner and not much conversation later, we hit the hay, without it having really hit us both that we were in Japan. Together.

But the next morning was another story. Just look at that excitedly exhausted face!
Still proudly rocking the flip flops!

The next morning, after sleeping in, we headed for The Ghibli museum! Ghibli is basically Japan's version Disney, essentially, and the head of it, and their Walt, is known as Hayao Miyazaki. He just made his final film before retiring this past year, but the studio is still going on, of course. We hopped a train to Mitaka, and decided that the weather was so lovely, and the road looked so pleasant, to walk it! And goodness was the weather lovely!

These were also the first cherry blossoms we saw, along the river bed. It was like a scene out of Spirited Away. I almost expected Haku to come slithering out from under the bridge through the water.



Along the way, there were also some cute little signs like this for counting down the meters until the museum, and marking the bus stops of the busses that would take you to and from the station to the museum. They were quite cute.

Oh, and here is a picture of a woman we saw walking her Ferrets. On a leash.
In public. Like it was totally normal. NBD.

We finally arrived at the museum after said lovely walk, and Vishal and I managed to sneak actually quite a lot of pictures. (you're not supposed to technically ;3) Enjoy!

The entry

The Totoro Zoetrop. It's sculpted from clay, not an image, so if any of it is
off anatomically, even just a smidge, the whole effect would be
ruined. It's truly a magical thing to see! If you've ever seen the
Toy Story Zoetrope in California Adventure near the Turtle Talk
and Drawing Classes, it's based off of this!

I enjoy the fact that the inscription above the chair is "Eitorin". If you add
a "K" before it, it becomes "Keitorin", the literal/letter for letter, romanization of my
Japanese/Katakana Name. This chair was clearly built for me ;)

Sneaking a picture of Vish climbing the 3 story spiral staircase in a large
birdcage, winding up through the building.

Even the flower pots are magical

For the most, all exhibits in the museum are permanent, but on the 2nd floor, there is usually
one exhibit that rotates. Last time, it was a fairly boring exibit on classic paintings, but this
time, it focused on what you can do with light, glass, magnifying glasses, telescopes, zoetropes,
film strips and looking at the world a little closer and seeing the tiny beautiful things in life.  This was the exhibit's mascot.

The spiral staircase to the roof and the Laputa garden!

Vishal's face of pure joy and happiness just makes this picture so wonderful.

A view of the museum from the rooftop Laputa garden.

Laputa sky soldier!

Sitting casually sexy like on the Laputa block ;)

Overlooking the Straw Hat Cafe!

The Kiki's Stain glass window

Waiting for lunch at the Straw hat Cafe in the museum.

Straw Hat Cafe interior

The Sky Blue Ice Cream Soda. We're not really sure what Sky Blue is, but as far
as we can tell, it's essentially a non-alcoholic/soda version of Blue Curacao. Also, our straw
was legitimately made of straw, so that was cool.

Vishal and his beloved soot gremlins!

A door to the world of the Great Wizard Pendragon and Howl.

After the museum, we headed over to Ikebukero to go to the Kit-Kat Chocolatory, which we were under the impression was a giant Kit-Kat store, full of original Japanese flavors, but instead, it was a counter where the sold 5 different flavors daily, and when they sold out they sold out! And goodness they were expensive. We bought a few - Cream Cheese, Cherry Blossom Green Tea and Chili. Also worth noting, was that there was a special edition Kit-Kat CD for sale. We're not really sure what was on it, but we'd really like to imagine it was variations on Gimme A Break.

We had some time to kill before we were to meet Araragi, the girl I hosted when I was 17, in Shinjuku, so we wandered through the Seibu department store, until we came upon a section of LOFT that had the most amazing massage chair from the Dream Factory. It was like getting a real massage, and after all that travel, it was the most amazing thing. I regret now not buying it,  as $300 seemed expensive at the time, but for what it was able to do, and all of the different settings it had. We planned to walk through more of the stores, but eventually agreed that nothing could be better than that massage at the moment, so despite the stairs and the store staff who probably wanted to say something, we just sat there...for the next 30 minutes. I have found said wonderful Dr. Air Massage chair online, and the minute it's available (apparently this was a pre-sale and it's not really available until the end of April!) and I have the funds, you best be believing I shall find a way for this to journey to America; more specifically, my apartment!





After getting a bit turned around and lost in Shinjuku station (though to be fair, Araragi DID tell me to meet her at the East turnstile/ticket gate...and there were multiples of those), I finally found Araragi....and her boyfriend Yoshinori! Holy GOODNESS! Let's just take a moment to re-cap. I hosted Araragi when she was 15...7 years ago. She wasn't a particularly girly 15 year old, short and skiny for her age, with a short page boy hair cut. Think Arya Stark from Game of Thrones if you would. 4 years ago when we met up in Tokyo and Mito, it was much the same. She was just starting to get into girly clothes, but hadn't quite found her groove/style just yet, and she was very self-depreciating towards herself. When I saw her in the station this go around, my jaw all but dropped and at first I didn't recognize her!  Her hair was longer than mine, she was wearing high heels, tights, a dress, makeup...the works! And the boyfriend was a revelation that I had learned about over the course of a day...and they've been together for 2 years!

The pure confidence and happiness that exuded from her every pore, and the innocence and and sincerity of that happiness was shocking. Her back was ramrod straight and she was but a shadow of the shy and insecure person I once knew. And I think based on the way that Yoshinori looked at her like she walked on water and how happy and at home she looked when she looked at him, it's because of him. So long story short, I really liked the boyfriend...but of course, he got my traditional warning ;)


She first took us to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, just at sunset, and the weather and lighting were absolutely perfect. We spent so long talking and taking in the sights that we got the rare look of being able to see the Tokyo skyline at both sunset and then at night. It was simply gorgeous!

Then back we went to Shinjuku station, to grab a delicious Tonkatsu dinner at Tonkatsu Wako, apparently a very famous Tonkatsu restaurant in Shinjuku station. Tonkatsu, for lack of a more eloquent explanation, is the Japanese version of Wienerschnitzel, but with Panko breading, though it is different from Wienerschnitzel isn't exclusive to Pork, and can apply to chicken as well as pork, and just about any vegetables. And it is one of my favorites! Perhaps one of my favorite parts of this was that I was able also get Japanese Pumpkin Tonkatsu! And Japanese Pumpkin is one of my most favorite of all foods!

Afterwhich, I did my older sisterly duty, and informed Araragi that I was going to further her corruption (just hearing my snarky talk alone can classify as 'corrupting' a Japanese lady at times, I'd suppose.), by dragging her into Kabuki-cho, the red light district of Shinjuku, just around the corner from the station. Now let's be clear. Do any quick google search of Kabuki-cho, any tour website will tell you that the Japanese "Red-light district", pales in comparison to the American definition, and is rather safe and squeaky clean. Araragi was on pins and needles the whole time, saying it was dangerous....but I just kept laughing. Have I mentioned that I've wandered straight through the heart of the Tenderloin District, as well as the scummier areas of Hollywood/Downtown Los Angeles at 4am, by myself and with headphones in (I never said it was my brightest moment)...so Kabuki-cho was like walking through Downtown of my college town on a Tuesday night.

Beware this den of depravity and danger!

  So what did we do? Soap House? Pink Bar? Pachinko?
We headed straight for.....

an arcade to play....
MARIO KART! (so scandalous!)

Sticking around for Purikura and Mario Kart was about the most I could
get out of Araragi before she was like "Okay, but really, can we get out of
here?!"

It was INSANELY fun and I was so happy to see her and see how much she has grown, changed and how much self-confidence and self-love she has developed! It was truly wonderful to see her that happy! It made me so happy!