Day 24 - Ghibli Museum

Amy, Meg and I spent some time in the Tokyo Temple this morning - with ice cream afterwards. It was a nice, calming way to start the day, and we met several very kind temple workers who helped us, including one who is a military liaison missionary for Yokota Air Base and lived in Fussa, where I was born. 

This afternoon we got rail passes for the rest of our journey - hard to believe we have just three weeks - and then headed toward the Studio Ghibli Museum, with a short stop at Kichijoji Station where Chieko met us for farewells - complete with brownies she baked. She really has been remarkably kind and hospitable to us even though we just met three weeks ago. I hope she'll visit us sometime so we can attempt to repay part of her kindness to us. 

The excitement of the day came when we arrived at the museum and I was told that the paper ticket reservation I got a month ago when the school trip first arrived in Japan was invalid because I had read it wrong and failed to do the last step of purchasing the tickets at the Lawson convenience store where I reserved them. After a moment of panic that we wouldn't be able to go in - they are very strict about reservations and the museum is totally booked for the next three months - an incredibly kind worker took pity on us and got us super-secret same-day vouchers (so secret that he took us around the corner to give them to us so others wouldn't see that someone got in without a valid reservation). I don't think I've ever bowed lower to someone in gratitude, and I joked with him that without his act of pity, my girls may just have killed me. He thought that was pretty funny.

The museum was cool, but I've been there several times and I'm ready for the new park that is apparently being built. The highlights for me were watching Lila play on the cat bus and seeing the little movie that they only screen at the museum -- "Takara Sagashi" (Treasure Hunt).

マジで、娘達に殺されそうだった。