Amyblog

GHIBLI PARK

Apologies for the silence in June! The kids are out of school and we had a middle school graduation and the kids started summer school so we've just been swamped with activities! I can't believe we're going to have a high schooler in the Fall! But he's already taking summer class at the high school so I feel like it's not going to be too shocking come August. Also, the kids have been attending Chinese School for the past 8 years at the high school so they are extremely familiar with the campus.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let me rewind back to April when we went to Japan! We took a day to visit Ghibli Park in Nagoya, Japan. We are huge fans of Studio Ghibli movies and have watched most of the movies. Our favorites are "My Neighbor Totoro", "The Wind Rises", "Kiki's Delivery Service", "Up On Poppy Hill", "Spirited Awawy", and "Arriety". So visiting the park is a must for us. If you have not seen most of the movies then there's really no need to visit the park. But if you're like us, then Ghibli Park is fantastic because it makes you feel like you are in the settings of these movies. There is a little village street from Kiki's Delivery Service where you can see the bakery she worked at and go into the loft room she stayed in. There is an area with Kiki's brooms and while we waited for photos with the prop, the people in front of us had the great idea of snapping pictures while the person on the broom jumps up. If you time it right, it looks like you're flying. So when it was our turn, Mr. BAW did a great job of capturing everyone's "flying" photo! Sadly, he has a bummed knee and can not jump so we didn't get a picture of him "flying." Buzz's favorite place was the "Philosophy's Club House" from the movie Up From Poppy Hill where the high school boys hung out. In another area, there is the country house of the girls from Totoro. There is also the entire castle from Howl's Moving Castle. But I think my favorite part is the giant world of Arriety. Arriety is a little person and everything in that area is huge and it was fun to feel like a little bug in a human world.

Overall, we had a great time at Ghilbli Park. We spent all day there and were exhausted from all the walking. The only negative part of it all was that with general admissions, you still have to pay extra to be able to go into Totoro's house or the Moving Castle. But we had so much to see anyway that we would've been way too tired if we saw the other stuff too. Again, highly recommend visiting the park if you love Studio Ghibli movies but skip it if you don't.