Hey Hive/Steemit!
If you didn't catch the last couple of posts, this series is about
our trip to Tokyo (again) way back in August 2016, when we went there
for a short international exchange program called Promoting Asian
Leadership (PAL) with Keio University! The program was a week long, but
we went there a few days ahead of time to explore and revisit our
favourite places.
Last week,
we finished up our day in the tallest tower in the world - Tokyo
Skytree! We had a very pleasant evening watching the sunset and seeing
the city lights come to life while enjoying some cake at the Skytree
Cafe.
10 August 2016. Tuesday.
This was the last day of the program! Yes, finally! But okay tbf we
only had activities in the morning, and it wasn't too bad. We were
divided into different groups and had to come up of ideas for a new type
of Japanese souvenir. I'm not sure what the purpose was but it let me
flex some creativity muscles and I could draw stuff so it was alright.
My group mates didn't have too many ideas, but I came up with one
that everyone seemed to like so we went with it. It was a perfume bottle
shaped like the Tokyo Skytree that had scents Japanese flowers fitting
for the season.
We were supposed to draw our ideas on a big sheet of paper to present
it to the whole class, so I drew the mockup and we presented it as a
group.
This was Sean's group and I guess their idea was about Mt. Fuji
shaped rice balls with various fillings inside. It seemed like a really
cool idea.
We worked on this activity until lunchtime, and while they went off
for lunch in groups, we we were busy with moving to another Airbnb!
Since we were still gonna be staying in Tokyo for another day we decided
to book a last minute Airbnb so we could spend 2 nights in an apartment
by ourselves.
Sorry about my hair it was really windy.
Just to refresh, during the whole length of the program we were
staying with the other participants and some of organisers in a
not-so-big house together. It was like a frat house but with total
strangers.
So yeah I got sick of that real quick and we just wanted to get out of
there so we booked our own Airbnb to finally get some privacy.
And an hour after we left Keio campus, we arrived at our new place!
It was a simple apartment but nice and comfortable. Literally any
Airbnb in Japan would be a massive improvement over that frat house tbh.
There was even a really nice-smelling bakery downstairs! I think the
smell of freshly baked bread is probably one of my favourite smells, as
odd as that sounds.
We were practically starving by the time we arrived at the Airbnb, so
we went around our neighbourhood looking for some lunch. And just 5
minutes later, we found a small noodle shop to try.
I think my biggest gripe with tempura in noodles is that it gets
soggy. But other than that I think these noodles were pretty good! I
ordered soba and Sean ordered udon. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo
of the shop, but I think compared to other udon shops it's pretty
average.
Anyway, after that we were off to a very special place! I teased
about it at the end of the last post, but when I found out about this
place I knew we just had to go!
Sean looks very enthused.
It's the Snoopy Museum! It had just opened the year we were there in 2016 in Roppongi and I was so excited to see it for myself.
I've been a huge PEANUTS fan since childhood; I remember reading the
comics everyday in the newspaper and always looking forward to Sunday's
when they print in colour. In hindsight I probably should've cut them
out and put them all into a nice scrapbook. That would've been a really
nice keepsake and really document how long I've been reading PEANUTS.
But my mum did get me quite a few PEANUTS comic books too, so that's
something.
Source: InTic Web
I knew Snoopy was really famous and had a long history thanks to
Charles M. Schulz, but I never knew just how many fans he had until I
came to Japan! He's such a hit with Japanese audiences that they have so
many exhibits, stores, and now even a whole museum dedicated to Snoopy
and his friends!
And it's such a happy coincidence that on the day we visited the museum, it was Snoopy's birthday!!
I actually didn't know Snoopy's birthday was 10 Aug until that day! But hey what a nice surprise!
They even had a Snoopy food truck outside but the line was
ridiculously long so we passed on it and went inside to get our tickets.
The counter was so cute; recessed inside actual comic strips blown up to wallpaper size.
The first thing we saw when we entered was these 2 screens, with one
of them playing a message by the museum's director, Karen Johnson. It's a
really sweet message thanking Japanese fans for their support and
introducing the museum - saying you get to learn about the Charles
Schulz and study all aspects of his life, including his dog Spike, which
inspired the character of Snoopy!
Just beside these 2 screens is a huge mosaic wall of Charlie Brown and Snoopy (that I teased last week)!
The entire wall is made up layers and layers of individual Peanuts
comic strips! I'm not sure how many they used exactly, but man it was so
impressive!
Just after that was various exhibits showing Charles Schulz life.
I think this was a comic that he first created before Peanuts.
And this was the very first Peanuts comic book that sold in 1953 for 10 cents!
It was so cool seeing all these pictures and videos of Charles
Schulz, and how he created such a huge fanbase with his comics and
characters. What a treasure.
Oh yea these were our tickets! They each came with unique comics on
the back, and they also gave us a special sticker since it was Snoopy's
birthday!
The sticker is from this comic strip that was published on Aug 10, 1968!
Source: Pinterest
There was a dark room where they played a short video of how Charles
Schulz got started in his career by drawing one-panel comics called Lil'
Folks that got published weekly in a newspaper called St. Paul Pioneer
Press. It was in Lil' Folks that he came up with the name Charlie Brown.
Other newspapers got interested in his drawings and a large editorial
column called United Feature Syndicate also bought Lil' Folks, and when
Schulz developed Peanuts, he was pleased to find that they preferred
that version. Peanuts then made its first appearance on Oct 2, 1950, in
seven newspapers and soon became one of the most famous comic strips of
all time.
May you rest in peace Mr Schulz, I'm sure your comics will continue to inspire young artists for years to come.
Anyway, the museum had so many kinds of exhibits. From old comic
strips, to photos from Charles Schulz' life, quotes, magazine covers,
videos, various merchandise and more.
There was so much to see! But it was all very neatly arranged and decorated so the museum itself was spacious.
The overall interior decor had a natural, minimalist look to it. Fitting for comics imo, since most of them are black and white.
The museum curators and designers did a fantastic job. Everything looked so neat and nice. It was truly pleasant.
And it was so cool seeing the comics blown up so huge like this. Man,
if I had a plain white wall in my house I would totally do something
like this too.
Ah I remember reading this particular strip in my Halloween-themed comic book.
I'm not really a fan of figurines, but I do have 1 Snoopy one. I'm not sure if it was official merchandise or not though.
I think this was a specially made Snoopy plush for a famous Japanese
baseball team called The Yokohama DeNA BayStars. I'm not familiar with
baseball irl so ¯(ツ)/¯
I'm so glad I got to come here with Sean. Although he never read
PEANUTS at all, it was a huge part of my childhood and just sharing this
experience was so special.
Oh yea there were in the background you can see a lady taking a pic
through the wall. These walls had holes in them that you could look
through to see funny little drawings like these:
After looking at pretty much everything, we made our way to the gift shop! And man, was it huge! And crowded.
But you know what, I think we'll explore this next time! There's just so much stuff and the cafe as well that I wanna show so tune in next week to see more!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #73 (Japan 2.0): Birthday Cakes at Skytree Cafe! 🍰
