On our seventh day, C and I spent the earlier part of the morning packing up our things and take them over to CZ’s hotel. We were checking out that day, and we wanted to leave our things at the same place for when we came back from our morning adventure: the Ghibli Museum!

Oh yes indeed, we had scored tickets to one of the most exclusive places in town, where the entrance tickets for the entire month sell out in about 15 minutes. The tickets are not expensive, about $7 for adults and $2.75 for kids, but one can only get them through an advance reservation system. The museum sells only 2400 tickets a day, or 600 for each of the four entrance times. We had hoped for the 10 AM entrance, but it was completely sold out when CZ entered the virtual queue so she snagged the 12 PM. We had just the one day and were lucky to get any tickets at all. There are also no photographs allowed inside the museum, making it all the more mysterious.

We had an hour on public transport to get from Roppongi to the museum; first the subway to Shinjuku Station (the world’s second largest station and where in 1999 I got lost), then the train to Mitaka Station, where we grabbed an early lunch, and then a nice 15-minute walk to the park where one finds the Ghibli Museum. The weather was quite warm but the sky a startling blue, which made the museum, with its bright, colorfully-painted walls covered in ivy, stand out all the more. The line outside wasn’t short, but it moved quickly and soon enough we were inside. Though I understand the Studio Ghibli creators simply want their visitors to live in the moment, oh, how I wish we could have taken photographs! The museum is not large, but the rooms, including the beautiful wood lobby and atrium, are brimming with details that demonstrate the whimsy and artistry of the Ghibli animation. It was crowded and we had kids who don’t fancy lingering and reading a lot at museums. We still spent two hours there, but had we had more quiet, CZ and I could probably have spent at least another hour there.

We had another hour back by train to the hotel, then we gathered our things and caught a taxi to our hotel in Odaiba. After settling in a bit, we all headed over to the DiverCity mall. Unfortunately, the weather had turned with a light rain falling. Though it was the rainy season, we had thus far only had rain our first morning a week before. Our luck had run out.

At the mall, we visited the Unko Museum. “Unko” means “poop” and the museum is just another item in the list of the weird and silly things one can find in Japan (this is not to say that America is also not full of the weird and wonderful; it is). The museum is more about the poop emoji and capitalizes on the youth’s penchant for taking social-media-post worthy photos. It reminded me of the place C and I visited with my sister and her family in Amsterdam, the Upside Down Museum, It was kind of stupid and yet also good for an hour of silly fun.

The food court offered us a great spot for dinner before viewing the evening show of the giant Gundam Unicorn statue in front of the mall. The statue was neat but the light show a little long for what it was: the statue lights up and strobes different colors, transforms its helmet, and scenes from the animated show are projected behind it onto the mall building. Maybe it was just fine, but after days of mostly awesome sights and activities, something like this that did not quite hit the mark was a letdown. And the weather was a downer too.

One of our plans for Odaiba had been to spend the evening walking around enjoying the evening lights, including a view of the Rainbow Bridge. The increasingly steady rain put a definite damper on this and when we found the Rainbow Bridge just lit up with regular lights, we learned the colored lights are only for special occasions. Yet, perhaps it was all just fine not to have a good reason to stay out later as we had an early morning wake-up call the next day.

The alarm went off the morning of our eighth day at 4:45 AM. C and I had laid our clothes out the night before so we could just get up and get dressed and meet CZ and Little CZ at 5 AM in the lobby for a taxi over to the Toyosu Fish Market. In another stroke of luck, CZ had one the lottery to be one of the 60-100 people for the special observation tour of the famed tuna auction at the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. Even though I do not eat fish (my only seafood consumption is shrimp) and C often goes into a gag reflex when smelling fish, we were pretty excited about this opportunity.

Getting to the tuna auction proved a little trickier than expected as the market complex is so large. We arrived just in time to hand over our lottery tickets and join the English tour beginning at 5:30 AM. The auction is quick with most of the choicest fish gone within half an hour. From our special observation deck, we could see a few auctions in progress; the auctioneer standing on a box or a chair, excited motions as he called out prices, quick hand gestures and noting of things on a paper, the ringing of a bell when the price reached. Fish were being moved with large hooked tools, loaded onto wheelbarrows, and hauled away. It was all over by 6:30 AM. I am glad to have had the chance to see it.

After a break for C and I and a nap for CZ and Little CZ, we all headed over to Miraikan or the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. I had high-ish hopes for this museum but overall it was just ok. There are a lot of interactive exhibits and many were quite fun. The robots were by far the best part of the museum. However, it is also a LOT of information and it was overrun by school groups, no doubt a fantastic day trip for students. The movie shown in the large dome theater though was far too long, provided way too much information, and was hard to follow with English dialogue through provided headphones. C completely zonked out and I too may have caught a few zzzzz’s.

C and I then broke off to go to the Tokyo Sea Life Park. I have long had a thing for aquariums and have passed that on to C; we try to visit them wherever good ones are found. CZ is a diver and finds aquariums to be trying. Thus C and I grabbed some lunch and then started our trek to the aquarium. Nearly everything that could go wrong did. Though we were not all that far from the subway, the GPS led on a wildly out of our way direction that was further complicated by the continuing rain. We had to change once because of completely different train company lines and got on the train going the wrong direction. And it was a rapid service train to Tokyo Station, so it whizzed by several stations, taking us further and further from our destination. We got off at our first opportunity to try to grab a taxi. The first driver cancelled on us, probably due to the rain. The second took a while to get to us and then got lost. Apparently, it is is not just foreigners who have trouble finding the Sea Life Park. By the time we finally arrived, we had just over an hour and a half to explore. Though I am not 100% sure it was worth all that trouble, I know I would have been disappointed to miss it while in Tokyo just because it’s one of our things.

We headed back to our Odaiba hotel, reunited with CZ and Little CZ, and then took a taxi to our next destination where we would spend our final days in Japan: Tokyo Disney!

CZ and I love Disney! We have met up together with the kids in Paris and Florida and C and I had also visited the Disney parks in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and California; Tokyo would be our sixth and final park. This was indeed the icing on the cake for our trip to Tokyo. Wanting to make this trip truly special, CZ had sprung for the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. We had a beautiful family room with two double beds, a trundle bed, and an alcove bed, in a stunningly gorgeous hotel just across from the Disneyland entrance. We also had early entry to the Disneyland park.

We bought tickets for four days at Disney; one day at Disneyland and three at DisneySea. We figured the former had many of the rides we have been on in other parks and the early entry would give us a fighting chance to get to those that were unique. Lucky for us, it worked out that way; we were able to get on all the rides we wanted and to ride the fabulous Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast twice. DisneySea was absolutely amazing! The scale and detail of the park blew us away. DisneySea is not a large park, though the new Fantasy Springs expansion adds to its size, but the design of each area makes it feel larger. I found the Mediterranean Harbor, the Arabian Coast, Mysterious Island, and the mostly subterranean Mermaid Lagoon section for kids absolutely brilliant. The rides Aquatopia, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Peter Pan’s Neverland Adventure were my favorites.

On our final day in Japan, C and I hugged our friends and travel partners CZ and Little CZ farewell. C and I would head to Roppongi for one more night as we flew out of Haneda Airport, while our friends spent a bit more time at the park and then would stay their final night near Narita Airport. Just before we flew to Japan, I found out about a taiko drum performance in Roppongi the night before our departure. I wanted to squeeze in one more cultural event. Drum Tao put on a great show!

Then the next day it was time to leave. Our two weeks in Tokyo had come to an end. From Sumo wrestling to instant noodles; an Imperial Palace and an animation studio; karaoke and pocket monsters; ancient temples and modern sky scrapers; traditional tea in kimonos and a famous amusement park. We had squeezed so much into our time and yet we had run out of time, missing out on many other sights and activities. As we departed, Japan afforded us one last iconic glimpse of the country: Mt Fuji peeking through the clouds just beyond the metropolis.

Sayonara Japan! Until next time.