Day 11 - One of the main attractions: Ghibli Park!

By now everything was down to routine. Today was another pretty early morning as we knew we'd have to leave by 8AM to make it to Ghibli Park for our noon reservations. At the time I made the reservations, overseas travelers were allowed just noon or 2PM entry times (the park closes at 5PM) and we were only allowed into the Grand Warehouse. I was okay with that as taking a look at anything this unique was worth the trouble of getting there. The Matsumoto train ride was a solid 3 hours, during which there were some very nice 

views and plenty of time for writing and reflection. It was pretty simple to get to Aichi from there, the station leading to the automatic train looping around to get to the park area was a simple, but decorated station. Luckily they did have large lockers for us to leave our backpacks in, but we did have to use our old trick of buying something at a vending machine to get change again. They weren't keeping it a secret that this was a station that would connect you to Ghibli, that was for sure. Some pictures and a quick vending machine snack and locker loading later, we were on the pretty high-tech cool looking elevated train to the park area.

The overview of the park area was vast, we just followed Google Maps on where to walk to as it wasn't painfully clear and there were no real signs telling you to go one way over the other. Once off the train platform we were dropped into a covered area that had a 7-11, rest stop area (both indoors) and then an outdoor café area. Not sure how far in advance we should line up for our noon tickets, we did not stop to eat lunch or grab a bite here and instead opted to go straight to the café inside Ghibli once we got inside. This is something I would do differently if given a second chance. Instead I would recommend arriving by 11AM for noon tickets, taking 30 minutes to eat here (or 7-11 food), then walking over and lining up closer to 11:45AM. The let us in at exactly noon and being towards the front of that line didn't seem to make much of a difference once inside.

There wasn't a whole lot of information on the park yet when we were planning the trip in February or so 2023. After not being able to find a lot of information, I decided to just keep it "spoiler free" and go in with an open mind. I only knew that from our limited experiences in Japan with "tourist attractions" (I try to avoid them) that food and lines would both be issues. We headed for the café first thing and were able to order the mediocre food and drink for US pricing without issue. We ate and left within 30 minutes or so, but the food wasn't "good" and I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone. A real missed opportunity for Ghibli theme pastries, desserts, sandwiches or even the food seen in the movies! They didn't even have curry! Just super bland sandwiches and drinks with little "Ghibli paper flags" stuck in them. Cost about 7,000Y for three people to eat lunch too.

    After lunch, we were off to the theater, watched their featured short (this is the same process you get at the museum in Tokyo if you've ever been). No subtitles, but generally small amount of spoken dialogue and it was all simple Japanese. Being they know their audience is largely comprised of foreigners, this always makes me wonder why not a simple set of subtitles? It was about a family puppy that gets lost after running out of the house when the kid goes to school and his little adventure. Short, simple and out of there within 20 minutes. We found ourselves in front of the kids play area next, but just pretty much walked through it, even though it was ages 12 and under, it was pretty much for little kids. On to the "food of Ghibli" special exhibit (which was pretty hilarious after eating real food at their café)- plastic models and pictures of how they have the most delicious things showcased in their films. On to the next area where they showcased their films in every language/region released. Seeing the different covers for DVD's, Blu-Rays, LP's, VHS and CD's was really interesting here and it actually dumped us into a room with an adult sized catbus! A real surprise as I was under the impression the small one in the kids room was again going to be the only version here. The disappointment faced at the museum in Tokyo. But now we could go inside and get pictures, woot!

After walking through the entire open facility where there were open sets for Arietty and Castle in the Sky (along with random Mononoke along the way, seen here), along with Baba's workshop from Spirited Away and a replicated Miyazaki desk/workroom, there were two "buildings" left. One was a covered warehouse where you were on an elevated walkway with a large variety of items "in storage" below you. Dimly lit, on purpose and very atmospheric (a good camera or phone camera snaps great shots in here). The only one left now was the "red building" a we decided to get in the very very very long line as by poking our head around, we realized this is where all of the newsfeeds got their pictures from, it was where various Ghibli scenes were scaled up to life size so you could take a picture of yourself in the action. Referring back to one of my first pictures here, this was the "red building" when we first entered and went about our business. When we finally got in line for it closer to 3PM (closing time is 5PM and there is a second timed entry at 2PM), the line was a solid hour long to just get into the first scene. Yes, go to the red building FIRST (whoops).

Pictures were taken, fun was had and luck would have it we got the best picture of the entire trip when the kiddo attempted to 'pretend' getting punch by a Porco Rosso statue and ended up actually falling down. This provided comic relief for the rest of the day (trip... year...) and was worth the wait. A good amount of time spent in the overpacked gift shop (very high prices for Japan, but think going to Disneyland, it's the same thing, stuff you won't find anywhere else). And we emerged back outside. Unfortunately none of the other parts of the park were either open, or open to foreign visitors yet, but you could see the construction taking place and some buildings in the background. On the visitor brochure they also discussed this large gate that actually came from a Chinese restaurant, but was used as the real life inspiration for Spirited Away. We were allowed up to the gate area and to a small area just inside with some statues and other things, however further down that trail started Totoro Forest and another ticket would be needed to enter there, so we headed back to the station. 

We took a breather at the rest area and 7-11 I mentioned previously before heading back up to the train. The outside gate from this side was decorated with icons of Ghibli dates such as when their first film was released and formations of relationships, etc. - it was a pretty nice touch. Our next stop was Nagoya where we would spend the next two days. Nagoya is a very fast up and coming major city in Japan and I wanted to scope it out for future information so we would stay, for just a little while.

Train trip was pretty forgetful, it was all a blur at this point. The local system did drop us on the literal block of our hotel though, which was a very nice change. Hotel check-in was smooth and it was early enough (5-5:30PM?) that we checked Google and decided to hit up the Nagoya tower before it got dark as it was a bit out of our way and would be difficult to fit into the next day. Unfortunately, Google isn't always correct and it seemed they closed early on days there weren't many visitors and this was one of those days, making it a bit of a waste of the 1,800Y taxi fair and ten minutes there. The night would end with a trip over to the local (large) Don Quixote for a new roller bag (we ended up purchasing a very cute yellow roller with a Pikachu picture on it, perhaps I'll snap a picture for here later) and then walking back to the hotel (25 minutes or so total), grabbing a burger and eating in the hotel tonight. It was a very long day and we were just sorta done. But, there was the photo.