last day in tokyo

On our last day in Tokyo we went to the Ghibli Museum. I'm a pretty big fan of Miyazaki's work, so even though the museum was designed for a little younger age, I was still pretty captivated. They had a ton of sketches and intresting movie artifacts, as well as interactive games and movies.


it's a little hard to see, but here's a video of a really cool Totoro display. It is made up of little action figures, all in different positions. When the machine starts, it spins them and turns on a strobe light, so they look like they're dancing. (edit: it looks like blogger compressed my video even more... try watching it full screen and you might be able to make out whats going on.)


japanese boy scouts outside of the museum



I was interested as to what kind of school this was

after that, we went to downtown Tokyo to change travelers checks to Yen and hang out for a bit before our next plans. We first went to a department store. Department stores (or in Japanese
"デパト" or "Depato") tend to usually be anywhere from 6 to 14 stories tall, usually with fancy restaurants on the top floors. In the basement of the one we had gone into, there was a big Organic wood expo going on. It was a whole bunch of different vendors who were selling their goods, which ranged from drums and flutes to sandals to wooden blocks, all made from organic wood.


building with the blocks