After the long round trip, I wanted to take it easy on the first day back in Tokyo. The weather was really bad, so it made sense to do an indoor activity. Unfortunately, my planning was bad: Digital Arts Museum, Studio Ghibli Park, tea ceremony – all of this requires several months of planning, and a lot of luck as well. It was thus fortunate that Amber had found something that had something to do with Studio Ghibli: An exhibition about the studio’s producer, Toshio Suzuki, had just opened at the Yokosuka Museum of Art.
Yokosuka
Getting there was a bit more complicated. First I had to take the train to Yokosuka. The Mikasa, an old battleship from the early 20th century that has been converted into a museum ship, is moored in the harbor there. It would have been a perfect opportunity to pass the time until the exhibition started. But there was an event at the harbor. Despite asking several times I couldn’t find out where the queue for the ship was.
So I trudged through the rain back to the train station, munched on a bite to eat on the way, and then took another train and finally a bus to the museum. I got there too early, and since the admission times there (like almost everywhere in Japan) were strictly timed, I had to kill about an hour at the end of the world. Too little time to visit another exhibition, too long to explore the area in the wind and rain. Poor planning on my part.
Toshio Suzuki Exhibition
Finally, I was allowed to continue freezing in the queue. After about 10 minutes I was inside in the warm museum.
The exhibition… Well… It was exciting, or at least it could have been if I had understood anything. Unsurprisingly, all the texts were in Japanese. Not so bad in itself, but unfortunately I had no reception or WiFi in the building. So my beloved Google Translate couldn’t help me. I should have paid more attention to the language course.
There were many impressions to take home, but the bigger picture and Suzuki’s importance for the studio remained hidden. And since it was quite full, I rarely had enough time to look at anything for a longer time. But at least I was able to pick up a bunch of merchandise.
Conclusion: Interesting, but I probably could have spent the day shopping better.
Dinner in Asakusa
After a long odyssey back, I headed straight for Asakusa. I had planned to visit my favorite Izakaya, but everything was already booked there. So I had delicious soba with fried onion and then flambéed tuna in one of the countless other restaurants around Sensō-ji.