Ghibli Museum, Mitaka

Everyone knows about Disneyland when you mention Tokyo but how many are familiar with Ghibli Museum. Ghibli (pronounced Jiburi or Gee Blee), you say, what is it? Japanese is known for introducing Anime and this is a museum dedicated to the works of the well-known Japanese animation collaborators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. As my kids were on holidays with us, I had specially planned a short trip out of Tokyo to see this museum.

Several anime features created by Studio Ghibli have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award including Castle in the Sky in 1986, My Neighbor Totoro in 1988, and Kiki's Delivery Service in 1989. In 2002, Spirited Away won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award (extracted from Wikipedia).

From our accommodation of Ikekuburo, we took the subway to Shinjuku and from there switched to the the Chuo Line for the town of Mitaka. Tickets to the museum has to be purchased prior to the visit but before Nov 2007, those who willing to take a risk could purchase entrance tickets at Mitaka's JTB office. We were the fortunate ones as we decided to leave Tokyo earlier. A guide on how to purchase tickets presented by Lorenzo Conti is at http://digilander.libero.it/joe.chip/ghibli_e.htm

After breakfast and purchasing the tickets, we took a slow stroll through the town on our way to the museum. Upon reaching the museum, we were greeted by a colourful structure looming in a park. In the museum, there were many displays related to the many works of the company. Unfortunately, photographs is not allowed inside the main museum. Visitors could also enjoy specially created some short animation clips at their small theatre.

A special momento for visit the museum is definitely the entrance ticket fashioned like a strip of negative. See picture at http://www.flickr.com/photos/riverseal/386146507/.

We also attempted to visit to Sanrio Puroland, the theme dedicated to Hello Kitty but unfortunately we arrived 5 minutes after the ticketing booth closed. Oh well, the next best thing was to explore the Tama town, otherwise known as Hello Kitty Town.

Den Do Festival

On the web, a search on festivals in Vietnam will produce numerous results. That's right, many provinces and even some villages have their own unique event to commemorate each year. Some of the events are closely linked to the arrival of the New Year while some are to celebrate and remember historic fiqures.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to enjoy the sounds and sights of one such event. This took place in Apr 2008 in the nearby province of Bac Ninh in the village of Dinh Bang. The village is located in Tu Son District, about 20 km northeast of Ha Noi. I went there by public bus from Long Bien Terminal (Bus 10).

The three-day festival is held at Den Do (Do Temple) to commemorate the enthronement of King Ly Thai To. He is best known for establishing Ha Noi, then known as Thang Long, as the capital of Vietnam in 1010. Den Do was built under the Ly Dynasty in 1030 in Chau Co Phap village (now Dinh Bang village), in Tu Son district, where King Ly Thai To was born. The temple was to dedicated to the King and then his seven successors. King Ly’s descendants from the Republic of Korea have returned to join local descendants and thousands of pilgrims in the festival, which annually takes place on the 14th-16th day of the third lunar month (which fall on April 19-21 this year) with the main rituals on the 15th day. The Ly family from the RoK is descendants of prince Ly Long Tuong, seventh son of Ly Anh Tong (1138-1175), who had to leave the homeland in 1226 to avoid a bloodshed made by the Tran Dynasty which took the throne from the Ly Dynasty. [Italics - extracted from http://www.smiletravelvietnam.com/]

By the time I reached Tu Son, the procession had already started and the bus I was on was caught in a massive jam. Considering this was a one-lane, two-day road, it was a slow crawl. not wanting to miss out, I decided to alight short of our destination and walked the remaining 300m to the junction leading to Dinh Bang.

The procession was a sea of colours when young and old dressed in their traditional costumes lining up in two making their way to Do Temple. Along the way, the procession stopped at Dinh Bang Commune Hall for a short rest. When I arrived at Den Temple, it was filled with many people either offering prayers or just to soak in the atmosphere. (to be continued)

Chua Huong (Perfume Pagoda)

In Vietnamese, Chua means pagoda while Den means temple. Chua generally is associated with Buddhist while Den is for worshipping ancestors. And in Vietnam, there are many pagodas and temples. In fact, all villages have at least one temple.

Towards the end of my nine-month stay in Ha Noi, my foreign friends and myself made a final field trip to Chua Huong in Ha Tay province. Located about 70km south of Ha Noi, Perfume Pagoda is one of the most popular pagodas in Vietnam. The festival of the pagoda is one of the longest, stretching from Feb to late-Apr each year. It is said that all Vietnamese endeavour to visit the pagoda once in their lifetime.

Well, after studying basic Vietnamese for close to nine-month, I eagerly look forward to my trip. The three of us (Chinese Huang Min and Thai Weerapan) made our trip on a Sunday. Through her contact, Huang Min managed to arrange for a taxi (engaged for a day) for the three of us. We started off from our school in Hoai Duc District at about 0700H. From our school, the taxi headed towards the provincial capital of Ha Dong before taking Highway 1 for the journey to our wharf for our boat trip to the pagoda.

At about 0900H, we reached Ben Duc pier. There were not much crowd there as the festival had ended a fortnight earlier. We had to pay a little more to get a boat specially for the three of us. According to our boatwoman, most of the inhabitants at Ben Duc are involved in the tourism business and each boat owner are limited to one trip every month (or three month. I cannot recollect exactly). The boat ride took us about one and a half hour.

I have not been to the famous Guilin in Chinese but I was told that the scenery along Yen Vi river to Perfume Pagoda is not unlike that of Guilin. Upon reaching the foot of the mountain leading to Perfume Pagoda, we made our way to our first destination Thien Tru Temple (Den Thien Tru). Thereafter, we made our way to the cable car station for our accent to Perfume Pagoda as we did not want to make the difficult trip up. The trip up by cable car allowed us to enjoy the wonderful limestone outcrops formation in the region. Fortunately for us, it started drizzling after we reached Perfume Pagoda.

When we reached the entrance to the pagoda, I was surprised to find that we have to descend to a large cavern. This reminder me of a similar religious complex I had visited 14 years ago in Thailand's Petchburi province. There were many worshippers at the pagoda and we were told that no meat items are allowed as offerings.

After spending some time there, we decided to make our descend to the boat pier for our trip back. By the time we returned to Ben Duc, it was almost 1630 in the evening.