23072012 Ghibli Museum & Biohazard Cafe

The second time I visited Japan in 2012 it was summer, and some things were pretty messed up in my own personal life at this point. My relationship was on the rocks, was occupied with too many other things, a senior’s wedding and other whatnots. Going to Japan was for business, but an acquaintance was to follow me back, and till the day I left, I was still busy trying to sort everything out.

The day I arrived, I had made plans to meet up with a friend to head to the Ghibli Museum. I had originally wanted to visit it back in 2010 during my JAL Scholarship stint, but my host parents couldn’t get hold of any tickets, so we visited Nikko instead.

This time, my friend was lucky enough to secure two tickets from Lawson. Took the fast train out of Narita Airport till Nippori, then changed to Yamanote line to get to Shibuya, then again for the Inokashira line to get to the Inokashira park. My friend was running late when I called him, and he only reached after 20 minutes.

To get to the Ghibli Museum, we cut through the Inokashira Park, and it was actually very beautiful and serene. There were also lots of kids out and about since the summer holidays had already just started. It was a long walk from the station to the Ghibli Museum, but strolling through the park made it rather worthwhile.

Was greeted by the huge Totoro who was the ticket master. We then entered the building and the original printed tickets we got from Lawson were exchanged into decent tickets which had cutting of flim strips on it which we could keep. Mine was something out from Ponyo while my friend’s showed a kettle, and we had no idea where did that came from.

Exhibits in the museum were mostly interactive or hands-on, so visitors could enjoy the whimsical arts and imagination of the Ghibli Studios. The only downside was that there were too many people and children about, creating havoc. Apparently Mainland Chinese Tourists too have this place included as one of their stops, so there was a huge group of them in the museum at the same time.

Both of us decided to just head to the cafe for lunch first, and it turned out to be the best part of the whole visit here. Despite the long queue to get in, it didn’t take us very long, and the staffs were nice enough to pass out the menus so that everyone would be ready to order once we were seated.

We were first seated at a small table, but my friend requested for one at the counters since it opened up, and we got places there. It was pretty fun, as the counters were directly in front of the kitchen, and also the mini bar where they prepared drinks, so we could watch all of the cooks and staffs in action.

Ordered a drink aptly named sunrise, and it was served in a bluish tinge, with a healthy scope of frozen sherbet floating in it. As you stirred, the sherbet dissolves, and the colours changed form blue to yellow to orange, and finally a reddish pink, which was almost magical to watch. We also ordered the rice pilaf to share it between us. It had a huge meatball with a tomato in the middle, and for someone who doesn’t like tomatoes, it was surprisingly delicious.

Our dessert was strawberry shortcake, and I swear I would kill to have it again. We also got to choose the type of flags we want to have on our cake, so I went with the Totoro one. After we were done with the cake, we could keep the flag to bring it home.

After we finished our lunch, we climbed up to the rooftop to get a picture with the robot from Laputa. We finally finished our tour of the museum and saw all the exhibits, including a short original flim in a mini theater. As there weren’t any more seats, we sat on the floors. With the movie, we wrapped up our Ghibli tour.

Headed back to Tokyo, and both of us were discussing should we press on with our Gundam Cafe visit, as my friend wanted to visit a Biohazard one which was just set up and it was only running for a short period. Finally we decided to go ahead with the Biohazard one, and contacted a 3rd friend who was joining us later about the change of plans.

The Biohazard Cafe was locatedin Shibuya, on the 7th floor of the Pasco building, which took us much effort to find it. We made reservations for 3 on the 5.15pm slot. Since we still had some time, visited the Disney store, and my friend was pestering me to get the night pass to go to Disneyland with him but I refused because I had work! We then headed down to Uniqlo to do some shopping and came back just in time for the Biohazard Cafe’s admission.

After we were seated, something didn’t feel quite right. We had this feeling that this wasn’t your typical casual cafe where we could come in and have desserts since we were too full from all that eating at Ghibli earlier on. Read the menu again and I was correct, it was a tabehodai (literally all you can eat). It was too late to back out by then, so when the 3rd person joined us, he offered to eat our portion too, since it costs 3700yen for males, and 3300yen for females, which wasn’t cheap either.

The food wasn’t that bad, it was quite delicious and interesting. Kidney dishes were used as plates, and rice was served in a health tool box, almost like out of the game. Meat was grilled on long sticks and then brought out to be shared among all, carved by sexy waitress. It was at this point when I realised most of the patrons were males, and the 2 guys at my own table were enjoying themselves. Oh well.

Halfway throughout the dinner, there was a dance performance, followed by a short skit about the monster breaking out and the fighters, who were actually the waitresses, killed it and then proceeded to high-five all of us. The guys enjoyed it greatly but for me, where were the male fighters!?? After that, they passed around the guns for everyone to pose with the defeated monster, which was actually a huge figure situated in the center of the restaurant.

I didn’t managed to stay till the end of the dinner, and by 7pm, I left to make my way to Tokyo Skytree.