From Studio Ghibli to Fukuroda

It's been awhile since my last adventure to British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest but I am traveling abroad once more! I am currently in Tokyo on a quest to photograph the beautiful fall colors here in Japan. We arrived in Tokyo after a 12 hour flight from Los Angeles. From Tokyo airport to our hotel by Tokyo station, it's about 1 1/2 hours by car (hello, Friday rush hour). While we hit a ton of traffic coming into the city, we happened to pass by Tokyo Disney on the freeway and saw the entire firework show! As we arrived at night, we briefly unpacked, had dinner, and went to sleep to prepare for the amazing day ahead.

The following morning, I woke up giddy with excitement because today was finally the day I'd be going to the Studio Ghibli museum!! It was a bit rough getting tickets as they sell out so quickly, but by some miracle we were booked on a group tour (as opposed to getting individual tickets online) so it all worked out. Once at the museum, I waited nearly an hour to take photographs with no people in it (the 10am line had easily over 200 people in it!!).

The line wrapped around the corner through the park!

Outside cafe area

Mom getting excited as it gets closer to our timed entry!!

Outside entrance

Very excited to go!!

Totoro greets you at a ticket booth as you wait in line!

After waiting and waiting until our timed 11am entry, it was finally time to go inside!! Studio Ghibli is one of Japan's most famous animation studios. If you've heard of films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, then you've most definitely heard of Studio Ghibli. The entire museum is designed in the style of the films and many of the famous characters appear throughout the museum. Unfortunately, you can't take photographs inside of the museum so I will do my best to describe how amazing and innovative it was...

Outside of the Ghibli Museum as we get ready to enter.

The first floor focuses on the history and techniques of animation. In one of the rooms, there is an entire wall showing what year the movies came out along with 3D models showing how animators have to make the slightest adjustments to leg placement (demonstrated via models of Totoro jumping and children riding bicycles). There were also 3D layered diagrams that, when viewed at eye level, appear incredibly realistic with proper perspectives. My favorite part about this room, though, was the numerous film reels playing on repeat. Light shone through the reels, revealing all the hundreds of thousands of frames that make up a single animation film. The room also highlighted how sound was applied to the films, and you could walk beneath a speaker while watching a film clip on an adjacent screen.

When you check in, you get a souvenir film reel ticket. You hold it up to the light to reveal the movie scene!

Upstairs, there was an entire area dedicated to the creative process. As a graphic designer, I especially appreciated this section. The walls were covered from top to bottom with character sketches, set sketches, and notes about camera angles. There were sketchbooks laid across tables with notes in trash cans, hundreds of used double-sided pencils, cigarette butts, popcorn jars full of snacks, color swatch books, clear slides that were used to apply paint to animation films before computer animation, and hundreds of cans of paint. Across the way, we saw a rotating special exhibit with the theme of food in Ghibli movies. This gallery is now currently being taken down and changed, so we had perfect timing with our tickets! In Japan, many restaurants use plastic food models to show customers what food is sold in their shops. In this part of the exhibit, they had the same plastic food models lined up to show the research behind food in films. There were also frame by frame sketches of characters eating food to illustrate how the shape of food changes with every bite. Every detail was taken into consideration... even the crumbs dripping down! As the Studio Ghibli museum is totally immersive, there were 3-4 tables for two as you would find in a restaurant. There were even menus on the table that, when opened, revealed more thumbnail sketches. As you walked around the corner, you had to take your shoes off to step on real tatami mats as you made your way through a kitchen fully stocked with plastic food. Around the corner, you were suddenly floating in the sky over the clouds painted on the floor. You walked into a small kitchen stuffed with cheese, silverware, pots and pans, and even soup boiling on the stove. On the next level up, there was a cute children's play area with a huge plushy cat bus from My Neighbor Totoro and a ball pit with the soot balls from Spirited Away. Across the way, there was a marvelous gift shop (where I bought way too much... including 13 Studio Ghibli movies and Ghibli themed cookies!!) and a bookstore. Outside, there was a cafe (with a 2 1/2 hour wait... so unfortunately we didn't get to go there), and a spiral staircase leading to a life-size robot from Castle in the Sky. This robot acts as the guardian of the Ghibli museum, standing at nearly 17 feet tall.

Rooftop garden featuring a robot from Castle in the Sky

The Ghibli museum exceeded my expectations in every way. The attention to detail was incredible. Take a quick look at these other hidden treasures I found while walking around the outside of the museum!! 

Characters from Spirited Away appear underneath the Totoro ticket booth.

On the side of the Totoro ticket booth, there's this great mosaic!

Of course, no visit to Studio Ghibli is complete until you splurge in the gift shop...

Damage at the gift shop... 13 Ghibli DVDs, two boxes of cookies, a mosaic post card, and a Totoro plush!

All the cookies have characters on them and in the center, the large cookie is the Studio Ghibli emblem.

One of my favorite characters from Spirited Away made an appearance on the cookies!

Closer look at the Ghibli emblem on the cookie.

After a quick lunch at an udon shop, it was then time to visit the Yayoi Kusama museum. Yayoi Kusama is a avant-garde Japanese artist who is famous for her polka dotted pumpkins. She was prone to hallucinations due to mental illness and her work is viewed as in between representation and abstraction. For the artist, her work is a representation of her experiences but to the viewer, her work is pure abstraction. Her work is fascinating when you take into consideration her life story. When she was a little girl, she had a hallucination that she was in a field of flowers when they started talking to her. To her, the field of flowers were like an endless field of dots... giving birth to her inspiration for her work. With her polka-dotted work, she creates a feeling of self-obliteration. As a child, she loved drawing and painting though her parents didn't want her to be an artist. Her mom actually tore up her drawings! When she was older, she moved to New York where she was exposed to pop, minimalism and surrealism. Sometimes referred to as the princess of polka dots, she experiments in various mediums including painting, sculpture, performance art and installations. 

The museum itself is actually quite small (five levels, four of which have work displayed). At the very top level, there is a huge pumpkin sculpture ("Starry Pumpkin") underneath a geometric shaped opening in the roof. There is a floor-to-ceiling glass wall directly opposite the pumpkin with views of Tokyo below. 

"Starry Pumpkin" on the rooftop gallery

View of Tokyo from the rooftop

The lower floors house some of her botanical themed paintings. Perhaps my favorite piece, however, was her two minute mixed media installation called "Pumpkins Screaming About Love Beyond Infinity". Groups of about six people were let into an enclosed black box with a huge floor full of pumpkins and mirrored ceilings within a glass case. Outside, staff set a timer for two minutes, locked you in, and the experience began. The room went dark, and slowly each pumpkin began to illuminate until all the pumpkins were in full yellow. Towards the end, the pumpkins changed to orange and as quickly as it began, the experience was over.

Pumpkins Screaming About Love Beyond Infinity

The museum was very small and only took less than an hour to view all the work. Regardless, her work is fascinating to see in person and the museum is actually located near the mental hospital Yayoi Kusama voluntarily checked herself into (and where she lives now). Like the Ghibli museum, there was still great attention to detail with polka dotted mirrors in the elevators and bathrooms! 

After the Yayoi Kusama museum, we began to make our way to Fukuroda Falls, a very remote, rural part of Japan. We drove 2 1/2 hours from Tokyo to the rural village, passing an endless line of cars out and about on a Saturday night. Finally, we reached our ryokan Honen Masaku (the closest to the falls). After a traditional Japanese dinner, we went to sleep after a very long and exciting day. 

Our room in the ryokan with traditional tatami floors... No shoes allowed!!

Part of our dinner course... sashimi (tuna and white fish).

Our futons set up for the night.

In the morning, we woke up to rays of light shining on the mountain top. In the 40°F weather, I stepped out onto the balcony and began shooting with my telephoto lens. 

The trees in Fukuroda are about 75% changed right now.

Quick iPhone shot from the balcony.

After breakfast, we walked about 10 minutes to the falls. We crossed a bridge, walked by some shops, up a hill, and through an underground tunnel.

Pathway to the falls right after crossing the bridge.

Fukuroda-no-taki Falls is considered one of the three great waterfalls in Japan. It's over 230 feet wide and has a drop of nearly 400 feet. The water comes from the Taki River and descends in four tiers of cascades. The appearance of the waterfalls changes dramatically with the four seasons, giving it the nickname of "Four Times Waterfalls". It is said that people need to view the falls in all four seasons to appreciate the true beauty. While the water was a bit low, the trees were starting to change.

One of the viewing platforms had a nice side view.

Another viewing platform had a front view.

On the way back to the ryokan, we stopped to take some photos along the river. We also stopped at a local shop selling apple pie... famous in this region! One of the ryokan staff's mother makes apple pies and people line up to buy them! 

Macro shot of the changing leaves.

Along the river in Daigo (Ibaraki Prefecture).

The line for apple pie, featuring our ryokan in the background. The apple pie is sold in a little stand!

Homemade pie.

After some last minute shopping (we bought Japan's version of apple butter!!), we took the ryokan's shuttle to the train station. As we were in a super rural area of Japan, the entire train station was one little log cabin lookalike... and only had one track.

This is the entire train station!!

From there, we were off to Mito where we changed trains to Tokyo.

The track in Fukuroda, headed towards Tokyo.

Once in the Tokyo station, we made a super quick detour to a kito kato store (Japlish for Kit Kat) because of all the different flavors offered here. 

SO many flavors of kit kats!! Each city in Japan has different flavors.

My mom went a little crazy with the kito kato's and we bought: Japanese sake, strawberry cheesecake, Tokyo banana, matcha, red bean, purple sweet potato, and flan. 

All the flavors of kito kato we got featuring the view from our room.

Thanks for reading about my adventures in Japan… Stay tuned for what's to come and be sure to hit the subscribe button to be notified of new posts! As always, follow my instagram @elissatitle for more pics.