Japan Week: Day Six

All good things must come to an end and sadly, Japan Week is one of those things. Today marks the final day of Asian awesomeness here on Scarlet Pyjamas - it's been a pleasure having you all along for the ride! Don't shed a tear just yet though, we still have two more points of awesomeness before we finish. Let's find out what they are shall we?

11. Studio Ghibli

Photo - We Heart It

Studio Ghibli have gifted the world with some of the most magical animated films ever seen - Ponyo, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro - each one more whimsical than the next. Some of the first movie dates J and I ever had were to watch Studio Ghibli movies, so they are very dear to our hearts. In fact, our house has a bit of a Totoro decorating theme. 

Here's one...

...and here's two more...

...and of course you've met this little guy before!

In addition to purchasing nearly every piece of Ghibli merchandise during my stay, top of to do list would be visiting the Studio Ghibli Museum. Notoriously hard to get tickets for, the Ghibli Museum is a place shrouded in mystery for me - photography is not allowed inside so, despite hours of Internet sleuthing, its secrets remain intact. What I do know is this...

Photo - Entertainment Designer

The robots from Laputa: Castle in the Sky guard the site.

Photo - Deviant Art

A familiar friend sits at the ticket booth.

Photo - Entertainment Designer

And you can even see a little Ghibli charm when you sit down for lunch! Magical!

I'm intrigued, aren't you?

12.  A chance to practise the language

There is no better way to perfect a new language, than to speak it in its country of origin. Japanese is a notoriously tricky language to learn - did you know they have three character sets: hiragana, katakana and kanji? That's a lot to learn!

As a household, we've been trying our hand at learning Japanese - here's just a few of our study books! I confess, J is the far superior student - he can write his hiragana character set beautifully, whereas I've only mastered a few key phrases as yet. I remain hopeful that we two will one day master this beautiful language - and what better way than to try our hand in Japan?

- - - 

Well, dear readers, that brings Japan Week to a close. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have!
These last few days have been my entry to this here contest - keep your fingers crossed for me won't you?

In the meantime, it's over to you! Why would you like to visit Japan? I'd love to know!