Japan 2013 (Day 9 - 20th July)

Hi, how is everyone today?

Today I’m going to write about a day that was very special to me. It’s not something that you’ll find to be incredible or anything but to me it just was a different day (trying new things in Japan) and also an incredibly special opportunity that not many foreigners had I’m sure.

I had a bun with butter and a mini potato salad for breakfast. I love that salad so much I could eat it for dessert.

Then the morning was as usual, calm, letting my husband work on his thesis while looking after Mari and hanging out with the rest of the family.

At lunch time more or less my father in law drove us to our destination: an Aeon shopping mall somewhere that has a movie theater, our final destination.

It was a day for many first things in Japan for me.

First it was the only time I had ever been in a shopping mall that looks so similar to the ones back in my country. In fact it kinda looks like Colombo in Lisbon.

Second it was the first time ever to go see a movie in a Japanese movie theater.

Third it was the first time I got to watch a Miyazaki movie in its work debut. I had seen one in the Portuguese debut but never in the first time ever to be shown to the public.

The first place we went to was the movie theater.

We went straight to the machines to confirm our tickets that were bought online. We did that and someone came to help and we very much needed that help.

Seriously I have not seen anything so confusing for a while. My husband was there doing that registration process for a long time, I felt kind of sorry for him especially since the session we wanted was already sold out.

But I could not help, only stay in the way so I went to check what else was showing and would be showing in the future. One of them caught my eye, Captain Harlock the movie! I love Harlock so I cannot wait for that one to come out. Unfortunately it’s not due for a while so I cannot watch it here.

 I also noticed a wall with all the movie flyers and took some. I was sad to see there were no more Kaze flyers though.

After a while longer my husband finally managed to get the tickets and we went to take a walk since there was still a long time for our session.

Since it was lunch time and we did not have lunch we went to yet another fast ramen restaurant where he had (yes you guessed it!) ramen and I had some gyoza and rice with salmon and seaweed.

It was good actually but then again these things are never that terrible in Japan.

We then decided to explore the shopping mall for a bit.

It really does look like a Portuguese typical mall… they even had h&m etc there which made it even more familiar.

Other than the kaze merchandise for sale in the cinema store (we do not have those in Portugal saddly) there was a gibli store in the shopping mall so we went in and drooled over everything. I have no idea why we didn’t buy anything, I think it is because I have a very hard time picking things out and my husband wasn’t very helpful either. I’m sure I can find gibli stuff elsewhere but that was kind of silly.

We went to a couple more shops but the one we spent the most time in was actually Toys r us. I love toys and so I wanted to take a peak and see what’s different in Japan. And I was blown away.

I’ll just leave some adorable shots for you to contemplate on.

After all that doll-related drooling and coming out with nothing again we went to the cinema where surprisingly my husband got me some popcorn that he ended up eating almost by himself during the movie. He likes salty popcorn, I like the sweet. So he was a nice guy and got the sweet. After that we realized that the cinema had a special option where you could divide the bucket with a cardboard piece and get salty in one side and sweet on the other. BUMMER

Also they have barbecue popcorn, I mean what is that?!?!?

So if you are a Japanese Animation fan and even more so an Hayao Miyazaki fan then you already guess that I went to see the new movie, Kaze no Tachinu in its debut day in Japan.

If you have no idea what it is watch the trailer:

風立ちぬ aka Kaze no Tachinu aka The Wind Rises 
"The film is based on the manga of the same name, which is in turn based on a short story by Tatsuo Hori, a writer, poet and translator from mid-20th century (Showa period) Japan. Kaze Tachinu is a fictionalised biography of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft which served in World War II." (wikipedia)

This is basically a story about a boy's dreams but also about a very beautifull timeless love story. I am weak to good movies especially when they are moving so, even though i could not understand every single piece of the dialogues (as there were no subtitles), I ended up crying in a room full of strangers. 

There has been some controversy around this release, especially because the movie relates to the second world war and because of some public statements Miyazaki has made about the japanese envolvement in that same war. The director/writer is being heavily criticized by some and even being called anti-japanese and a traitor of the nation by the most radical ones.
Those things though should not matter here though as the movie has no political inuendos to be noticed and is just another, beautifully animated piece of art.

More relevant might be that there is only one flaw to maybe be assigned to this movie, there is clearly an attempt to merge two stories together in order to please both the male and female crowds which I, myself, appreciate dearly and do not mind at all, but there might be some viewers with a different opinion on this.

We were late, don’t forget we didn’t have tickets for the session we wanted, so we rushed to find the local train station. Unfortunately when we got there the train we could get in was leaving so we had to wait 20min for the next.

It was in the middle of nowhere and it only had one track which means trains took turns to go to one side or the other.

We finally got home (super tired!) and dinner was already being made, my mother in law was making takoyaki! Her food is sooo good! 

I ate so many of these I was super full and felt very guilty but who could resist! Also my mother in law made typical takoyaki but also cheese ones which was different.

And of course the post could not end without a photo of my baby girl being cute… in this one it seems as if she wants to fly.

Piu Piu Pajama flying Princess Mari.

And that was it, I hope you liked reading again!

Lolita buy from shopping day:

Innocent World Vied Logo socks (blue/Beije)

Love,

Jo