I got up early this morning intending to get my rice cooker so I could pack it up before we left but after getting over to the store in Akihabara they didn’t open until 10 so I went back to the hotel buying some coffee and breakfast (including a tuna/egg/cheese melt thing that was not bad actually). We got packed up and checked out of the hotel having them store our big luggage for the day while we went out for our last day in Tokyo. Our first stop was the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Studio Ghibli is kind of the Disney of Japanese animation and have made several of the highest grossing movies of all time in Japan. It had started raining when I was in Akihabara and had only increased since and was another cold day so when we got to the station we looked around for the bus to the museum immediately. We found the stop and purchased 2 round trip bus tickets and boarded the cutely painted (in Studio Ghibli style) bus that stopped. We got off at the museum and showed them our paperwork and received our movie ticket for the special 20 minute film they show there and the ticket itself was a 3 frame film cell from one of their movies. We looked around the museum which is a very ecclectic building itself filled with art and animation demonstrations on all of the 3 floors. There is also a little roof garden with a statue of a robot from one of their films. After we looked around through all of the different galleries (including mock animators offices) we headed back to the first floor to go to the special film. It was a cute little short film about a little girl out on a camping trip and all the sights and sounds she saw and heard as she went along. We finished with that and went up to the gift shop where Becky and I both bought little trinkets for ourselves before heading back to the bus. After taking the train back into town we decided to see a couple of other things in Tokyo we hadn’t done yet and the first was in Shibuya. There is a story of a dog who used to come meet his owner at the station every day at a certain time. The owner ended up passing away and supposedly this dog would still come every day for 10 years until he died. There is a statue at the exit to the Shibuya station a Japanese political speaker driving around in 2 vans with loudspeakers blaring whatever their message is. After this we decided to make a quick stop in Harajuku to look around. This is an area where the really crazy fashions of Japan are on display with teenagers hanging out dressed in everything from pink frills and hello kitty to chains and goth. We walked down one of the main streets outside the station and saw a few pretty wacky people but it was really raining and cold by now so we decided to head back to Akihabara to get my cooker and to the hotel to get the luggage. We got the cooker and headed back to the hotel and decided to take the subway as it would keep us out of the rain for the most part as it came out right under our hotel. We packed up the luggage (which had grown a bit) and went down to the subway station but unfortunately the path to and from the subway station was all stairs with no elevators until the station itself. This left us panting by the time we got to Tokyo station (2 trains later). I left Becky with the luggage so I could go get us reservations on the train to Narita Airport on the express line. Tickets in hand we wrestled the luggage down to the platform and waited about 30 minutes for our train. When we got to the airport I headed up to the main floor to return our rental cell phone (saves a trip tomorrow so don’t call it now if you had the number). When I got back the train was waiting to take us to Narita City where our hotel actually is. When we got out at the station we immediately saw our hotel and thankfully it was close because with all the luggage we couldn’t use our umbrellas. We headed out into the rain and after a short (relatively in the rain) walk we got to our hotel and got checked in. Being relatively short on available Yen we headed down to find something hot to eat and found a Japanese restaurant in our hotel building that had Udon noodles which was exactly what we both needed to warm up a little. Becky went to swim (they wanted to charge me 1000yen or $10) and I relaxed in the room and watched a Lakers/Oklahoma City game on TV with Japanese announcers! Obviously our final updates will likely not happen until we are home and more likely sometime Saturday after we have caught up on sleep a little. P.S. Actually this one too as we just found out it’s like 10 bucks for internet here.. wierd because their sister hotel in Tokyo was all free.