Today was an arty day!
In the morning, we headed to the photography museum which had free admission with our GRUTT passes. However, that was just to the top floor which had some nice old photos if you like that sort of thing. We had to pay a hefty 1000yen (£5) to see the latest exhibitions. They were pretty typical random contemporary art things; Random nudity, decaying rabbits etc.
After the photography museum we went to the Ghibli Museum which was really cool, even the building. It was a house crammed with weird artworks and concepts. They had some pretty spectacular animation technique displays. The free screening of an original short film was great too. All in Japanese but I guess the focus was on the animation anyway. The only bad thing about the museum was the gift shop. It was full of absolute crap. I mean, half the shop was a counter to get a china Totoro dinner plate set. Really tacky. But the Japanese were really loving it, with you hardly being able to move for all the people that were too old to be buying overpriced toys in your way. Studio Ghibli merchandise is available in pretty much any anime or toy shop in Japan, so why everyone went so crazy in there is beyond me.
And so, with me feeling souvenierless, we went to Akihabara. Its fun to look around there, especially in the evening when the otaku come out. They were all running down the stairs of Animate with copies of their latest mangas or suggestive schoolgirl figurines, eager to get home.
So a fun day of art and anime of lots of different kinds, even if I didnt buy anything for myself.
