Tag: Informative

The Final Countdown

Our last day included two tasks: attending UnrealFest and visiting CyberConnect. After a semi-late start at 10 AM, we were able to get into UnrealFest, which I had been promoted from the waitlist the day before. Unfortunately, today was also the day of the typhoon, dooming rain upon us.

UnrealFest had a lot of cool games, though I had to admit it after my feud with UE5 during the Game Jam. It was a little difficult at times learning how to play the game because most of them were in Japanese, but I had fun nonetheless.

Afterwards, Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I found a soba place where I was able to order and absurd amount of so a for around 1000 yen – it was so much that I couldn’t finish it, and that’s saying something. Then, we went to Radio Kaikan for some last minute gift shopping.

The image I stole from Steve because I didn’t take any photos that day

We met back up with everyone around 2:30 PM to say goodbye to Toshi – probably the saddest part of the trip. He walked us to the subway, where we parted our ways as he went back home and we went to the CyberConnect studio.

We had a small introduction to the studio by their PR manager, and a cool tour that included seeing a lot of anime and manga spread about their many shelves. After CyberConnect, we were officially done with our Japan trip agenda and were free to spend the rest of our last day how we chose. Brody and I, who were exhausted after the whirlwind of activities in these last weeks, just decided to get dinner and rest in our room.

Instagram Day

This day was special: it was where most of my pictures were taken. Our first destination was the Diver City Mall where we saw the large gundam statue. After some lunch, a minute amount of shopping, and a slightly underwhelming gundam transformation, we found our way towards the Museum of Science and Technology.

Fabian and I at the Gundam statue

The Museum of Science and Technology had some fascinating exhibits, like a robot that replicated your facial and arm movements, a depressing and interactive viewing of our world in the future, and a guided learning experience about iPS cells and stealing kidneys from pigs. A lot of it was actually really interesting and I enjoyed walking around the various exhibits.

Next, we made our way to teamLabs, which was an artistic experience based on room-to-room art exhibits. Unfortunately, we were split in two. But, It was truly insanity some of the sights I saw.

One of the many pictures at teamLabs I took

After teamLabs, Maddy and I went back to Akhihabara to get some Chinese food. I had mapo tofu for the first time and it was one of the most delicious dishes I had during the trip. However, it was a rough realization when I started thinking about how it was one of my last in these remaining days of the trip.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

Today we went to Hiroshima to visit the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. It was a really emotionally taxing day, but I think it was a really important thing to experience. We started the day by taking the Shinkansen to Hiroshima station and then bussing over to the A-Bomb Dome. This structure was almost directly below the bomb dropped on Hiroshima but it remained mostly intact. The structure was kept intact and not demolished due to people finding a little girl’s diary speaking on how important the building is.

After we were done looking at the A-Bomb Dome we walked across a nearby bridge to the rest of Peace Memorial Park. Here there was a flower bed filled with plants and trees donated by other countries, there were none from the United States. Next to the flower bed was a memorial to the children who were killed by the bomb. It depicted paper cranes and children flying around a bell. There were other small things scattered throughout, like a stone donated from Scotlands highest mountain. All of the trees in the park were donated by other countries, which was really interesting. The park itself is meant to symbolize peace and cooperation throughout the world, so the fact that so many countries and regions contributed to both its existence and preservation was really great.

After walking around the park and not letting Sten take a group photo next to the dead children memorial, we went to the Peace Memorial Museum. The museum was fascinated and also heart wrenching. The first floor had lots of information and artifacts on the foster children of the bombing. It also had a clock that counts the number of days since Hiroshima was bombed and since the most recent nuclear test happened. The latter was far too low, sitting at ~650 when I saw it. The clock also had gears that connect each other and are spun by a single gear at the top, which will have its speed increase whenever the earth is in danger. If the gear at the bottom of the clock is ever moved, the clock will self-destruct. This symbolizes that the earth is beyond saving and humanity has gone past the point of no return. The floors above the first showed all sorts of artifacts from survivors and victims of the bomb. There were sections on school chilren who died, parents who lost their children, fostered children, those who died from after-affects of the bomb, and what it was like when the bomb went off. After walking through all of those ‘exhibits’, we arrived at a large room that overlooked the first floor. This room contained a table that you could learn all sorts of information at. From how the city was rebuilt to how the atomic bomb was built. There was also information on the walls of this room that explained this information in greater detail. Overall the day was very difficult to get through emotionally, but it was a really important thing to do in my opinion.