Tag Archive Studio Ghibli

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View From the Top

When I was in Qingdao, China with my daughter, we got lost a lot. Maybe because we navigated by the strange Ghibli-faced monsters that rose above us on a hill. Eventually, we made our way to that hillside, and discovered that they were towers you could enter, like the Space Needle except shorter, to get a view of the city. Except the glass was dirty and there was no air conditioning. Anyway, here is the view from the top.

(By the way, I keep referring to these as Ghibli towers, but there is no actual connection between the Japanese animation studio and these buildings in Qingdao. They just look to my eye like something Hayao Miyazake would design.)

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Do They Deliver?

Chinese Bakery

I really have to wonder if Hayao Miyazaki spent time in Qingdao. So much of the old German Concession area of Qingdao looks like the pseudo-Europe of Studio Ghibli productions. It gave our entire trip a bit of a fantasy feeling. This super cute little cafe looks so much like the bakery in Kiki’s Delivery Service that I wouldn’t have been surprised if a little girl in a black dress came running out the door and hopped on a broomstick.

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Park Tower

Qingdao Park Tower

This is the tourist tower at Xinhao Shan Park in the old part of Qingdao. From a distance, I think it looks like a Studio Ghibli character design peeking out of the trees on the hillside.  Up close, it looks like someplace a Ghibli character might live.

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Ghibli Towers

Towers in Qingdao

This is Signal Hill Park (Xinhao Shan 信号山) in Qingdao. It is one of the ten important hill parks in Qingdao, and was very close to our hotel in the old German concession area. These red blobs are look-out towers for tourists. But to me, they look like Studio Ghibli creatures keeping watch over the city.

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What a pretty fire

prettyfire

In the Hayao Miyazaki movie Howl’s Moving Castle, Lauren Bacall voices the English version of the Witch of the Waste. Even as an animated old hag, the fabulous Bacall steals the show. My favorite line of hers is, “What a pretty fire,” as she stares at the fire demon that powers the castle.