Japan Day 3: Tokyo

I'm so behind already! On Sunday Tommy and I started off the day with a trip to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. I'm a huge fan of Ghibli films (Nausicaa, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, etc), so I bought tickets weeks in advance from an overseas travel agent (you have to purchase in advance, and they sell out pretty much every day!). We took a train west to Mitaka and had a nice stroll through the neighborhood before arriving at the museum. The outside is super cute, and has a Totoro manning the fake ticket station:

You can't take pictures inside the museum, but it was very cute and well-designed. It has many small exhibits about the films as well as animation in general, and also include a viewing of a short film that can only be seen at the museum. On the roof is a nice garden with a statue of the robot from Castle in the Sky:

After the museum, we stopped by a local noodle restaurant for a delicious lunch of udon:

We headed back to Tokyo and hung around for a while before my brother's plane got in. We got some pastries from a local bakery and they were super good- there are these melon buns you can get pretty much anywhere and they are awesome! I've already had a few since coming here. We met up with my brother and headed to the evening event: Robot Restaurant. This place has become very popular lately, and even Anthony Bourdain has said it's worth going to. I was definitely a bit skeptical when we walked to the neighborhood (a red light district) and saw the front of the building (a horrifically bright and loud monstrosity). We were sent to the waiting room before the show, which was equally crazy and over-the-top.

The show itself was pretty insane, but surprisingly really enjoyable. It's hard to convey in words or pictures, but it was basically sci-fi taiko burlesque. Lots of attractive women dancing provocatively, playing drums, and fighting robots.

It's only an hour-long show, but it's action packed and definitely worth the ticket price.

Random Japan observations so far:

• People don't really get food or drink "to go" in the same sense we do. I don't see anyone eating or drinking anything while they're walking around. When you order coffee to go, they put the cup in a bag and I think you're supposed to only drink it when you're at your destination.
• Probably related to the above, but there are hardly any trash cans around the city. I've had to pocket a lot of trash until I find one.
• People here don't seem particularly welcoming of Western tourists (at least not Americans). They're very polite and don't give us dirty looks or anything, but there's definitely a feeling of us not being welcome that I haven't felt in any other country. This is sad but sometimes really great, since it means we don't get solicited at all by people on the street. We mostly get completely ignored.