Day 13 - Mitaka & Kichijoji
Usual early wake up...
After a few Google searches, I realised that the Guardians of the galaxy movie was out already in Japan.
As I looked for cinemas nearby, I also noticed that some cinemas are showing as early as 8:00 a.m I book for a session for 9.
I can't really book online as registering your family name with Kanji is pointless, so I just go to the cinema and I see that actually the cinema is pretty full for a 9:00 a.m. session but it is holiday, constitution day.
It was a good movie. I enjoyed it
After that I think maybe I shouldn't go home and just go for a walk without my camera. I had a few plans for going towards Kichikoji and getting back to Nakano, just to see what Kichijoji is all about as many people reccomended me.
Heading to the station. I catch the next train going to the right direction, I am listening to my japanese lessons.
A while later I realised it's a rapid express and instead of going all the way to my station it goes to Mitaka instead which is just one station away.
I still decide to head off and I see that there's a nice park nearby and actually is the park with the Ghibli Museum.
The area around is surprisingly peaceful. All the streets are straight, long, modern all the houses are maximum two floor high. Makes it look more fancy then it actually probably is inside.
The park has a few tennis courts, a full baseball field and a lot of other sport activities. But as soon as I arrived closer to the Google Museum, I see a lot of musicians performing mostly music from the Ghibli and the museum itself which is very very small in comparison to rest the park or the surrounding area.
Of course the queue is big and I believe all the reservations are booked until a few months in advance so no point of me even asking.
I see on the map that I'm still in the beginning of this park so decide to go and see this. A lake ahead of me, some type of a zoo, some type of a bird watching area. So still quite a lot of things to do and I explore this quite a bit.
Notice a few photographers bird watching, a few thousand bikes parked, people doing the usual picnic with family. It is a holiday after all.
A temple, a lake with people canoeing or swimming in those swan shaped boats.
And as soon as the park is beginning to end I realise I actually passed my destination station, so I backtrack a bit.
One of the train crossings away and I see the city is again and mix of big typical japanese shopping streets, restaurant, stalls, malls, and the usual confusion you can see in a small suburb in Tokyo. Some bands are playing jazz in front of the stores, some restaurants are having the usual queue, as I pass by one that I wanted to see, it's really just too expensive for 300g of meat, reminds me of london, I decide against it for now, and go towards a chinese dan dan noodle restaurant that looks better than the rest of surroundings.
I crouch by the menu translating what actually is spicy or not... a few asian foreigners, maybe singaporean maybe chinese ask if I need some help, as they were coming out of the restaurant. I said, yes, could you reccomend me something... the older man said, I would reccomend this one.
So i followed his advice.
It was tasty, not spicy, a lot of black pepper, and fairly priced. I had to pay in cash so can't remember exactly, but under 1000 Yen.
I decide not to wander much around as it's getting hotter and the rest of the way to Nakano would be without any tree cover of nice parks, I head back towards central Tokyo, get on one interchange station, confuse one platform for another, go back another station, decide to just head towards Tokyo central Station and walk back as it's still a pleasant day ahead.
Sit down with my laptop, and engage in deep work, dinner had to be some cup noodles as I still wanted to finish off some bigger tasks today.
Went out for a desert around 10pm and thought after a few more moments, crashed for the night...