One of the highlights of this trip was our day at Ghibli park. It was so cool to see things from my favorite movies in real life! I was absolutely blown away by the amount of detail all of the areas had, especially Howl’s castle (though I may be biased because it is my favorite movie). I was expecting it to be more of an amusement park, but I think I prefer it the way it is. I will definitely be going back and visiting places I missed last time. I also want to see another one of the exclusive animated shorts next time.

Aside from the park, I was surprised about how much Ghibli merch there was around the city, like the store at Sakae. I feel like there aren’t many opportunities in America to visit stores for a specific franchise unless you are near an amusement park. All this to say, I am missing Nagoya a lot recently, and I am actually applying for my student visa this week!