Mark snuck a photo of a mural at the Ghibli Museum. We have some other photos that we'll post later. Thanks to Randy and Laura for telling us about this!





Kotobukiya store in Akihabara actually had for sale the Dagger statue Mark designed for Sideshow.













Just one of the many Engrish signs we have seen! It's endlessly amusing and actually kind of cute. Japanese are CUTE.


We're a little behind, but it's because we have been doing so much and when we're not doing things, we are trying sleep! Monday was our day to go to the Tsujiki Fish Market, which is supposed to be one of the best sites in Tokyo because of size and selection of fish. They have a renowned tuna auction that takes place first thing that is also supposed to be quit an attraction.

We woke up at 4:30 am, caught a cab to the market and got there by 5:30 only to find it CLOSED! There were about a dozen or so all night sushi joints open in the stalls just outside the actual market and one of the employees told us it was a holiday for the market. Instead of being mad, we actually thought it was pretty hilarious. We wandered the dark stalls, surprised at the number of people eating sushi that early and ran into a few other tourists who were also SOL. One of them told us about a huge modern Buddhist temple around the corner. We ducked into one of the sushi joints and ate some yummy super fresh sushi at 6:30am. Our sushi chefs were incredibly nice and happy.

Afterwards, we went to the temple just in time for the start of a service. It was pretty stunning to listen to Buddhist monks chanting. The temple was modern beautiful, the alter was a marvel. We sat for about 30 minutes before heading back to the hotel to take a quick nap.

We ate lunch at a great, cheap noddle place near our hotel and then headed off to Ghibli Museum. The museum is the brainchild of one of Japan's most popular (if not the most popular current) filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki, who created Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away (my favorite) and Howl's Moving Castle (Mark's favorite). To describe this place as a magical wonderland would be an understatement. It was pure joy and imagination! It is not just a tribute to the work of Ghibil Studios, but to imagination, creation and children. We took some photos outside (which are on the camera that we can't download photos yet) but no photos were allowed inside. There were children everywhere and they were so freakin' cute we found ourlseves missing Jack a ton.

On a side note, the museum is located in a suburb of Tokyo called Mitaka. We wisely chose to walk to the museum from the train stop instead of taking the bus and enjoyed this really beautiful area that was so calm and relaxed compared to the city - we imagined that if we ever moved to Tokyo (haha) we would want to live there.

We had dinner at an Italian place, which was mediocre, if not entertaining - it was the japanese "this is Italian" restaurant. They had wine - so i (Lisa) was happy. We knocked off early to prep for another busy day.