We started out the day at a mall with a life-size Gundam statue out front. While I have never seen Gundam, I loved seeing the larger-than-life figure in person. It even moved a little, lit up, and played voice lines. There’s apparently another one that moves it’s arms or legs but it was closed for renovation for at least several weeks.
We also got to go to TeamPlanets – which reminded me of Otherworld in Ohio – a huge warehouse filled to the brim with different light, sounds, and tactile experiences. First walking in, we walked up a ramp that was running water continuously. Then we walked through a giant room covered in pillows and bean bags. Which was surprisingly hard to not fall over in, but it was so much fun.
My two favorite rooms came next: the mirror and light room, and the koi pond. There were thousands of lights dangling from the ceiling and mirrors on the floor and ceiling. The room had quite a few cycles that showcased different light patterns creating a number of kaleidoscopic sights. The koi pond was a large room filled with opaque water topped with koi made of lights. Being a big fan of water, I found the dark room very relaxing.
Today, we went to see the life-sized Gundam in Odaiba, Tokyo. We also had lunch in the Diver City Tokyo Plaza and looked around the mall before heading to the Miraikan Museum of Science and Innovation. There were many cool exhibits there, including a jarring robot controlled by A.I, pieces about how humans should evolve to live in sustainable prosperity, a scale model of a living quarters in the International Space Station, and an interactive game to promote medicine. After that, we went to teamLabs Tokyo and went through all of the art exhibits that make use of your eyes, ears, and touch for a complete experience.
McDonald’s again? Yes, McDonald’s again! This time, I got a sausage McGriddle with a hashbrown and a caramel latte. I’ve never had a McGriddle in the U.S. so I cannot really compare the two, but I thoroughly enjoyed the one I had here. It was a good mix of sweet and savory, and the hashbrown helped to tame the strong flavor of the McGriddle. The caramel latte was also super good. 10/10 breakfast. I would definitely go to McDonald’s in Japan again because (spoiler alert), I never got the chance to go back after this breakfast.
For lunch in Odaiba, I had this noodle dish native to China. Why am I having a Chinese dish when I could get a Japanese dish in Japan? Honestly, I think the better question to be asking is, “Why have you eaten McDonald’s so many times in Japan?”. So obviously, although I do appreciate all of the authentic Japanese food I’ve had here, I also enjoy trying other food while I’m here. For all I know, the Chinese food they have in Japan is better than the Chinese food in America. And boy, if this noodle dish is any indicator of how much better Chinese food is in Japan, then it is way better. It was hearty and savory and mellow and just good. It was yummy. I would go back to Odaiba again just to have these noodles again.
For dinner, Brody and I found this cafe connected to a few soccer fields. Side note, I think this idea is brilliant. Imagine how much money you would make from soccer moms who want to grab a good dinner together as a group and gossip as they watch their children. I think it’s an incredibly smart idea, and if that already exists in the U.S., then I’m upset that I didn’t get to witness that as someone who played soccer for six years. Anyways, this meal was super good. Chicken, rice, and raw egg. Where can you go wrong with that?
I was super excited to go to Unreal Fest the next day as well as go to CyberConnect2!
Technology day followed similarly to culture Day with our start at noon. Some of us went to grab Starbucks in the morning before we made our way to Diver City.
At Diver City, we saw the giant Gundam statue, shopped and ate lunch in the mall. I bought two shirts from Uniqlo for less than 2,000 jpy before running into Kat at a pizza place for lunch. We also waited to see the Gundam move which was kind of anticlimactic as only a few pieces and panels on the face moved.
Next, we went to the Miraikan museum which was… not my favorite. Many of the interactions were problematic at best or didn’t have anything meaningful to show other than being slightly cool. For example, there was a game where you chose a goal for the future of humanity. However, many of the different goals were interconnected such as solving global warming and equal access to drinking water. Some were of lesser importance such as the ability for everyone to eat fish. Then, you would send your message into the future by setting a path and trying to avoid the hazards. However, the entire experience didn’t give the participant any feeling of agency or what they can do to help the problem. The museum was also very sparce and did not utilize the space well, in my opinion.
The most interesting interaction I had in the museum was with a Ukiyo-e Hatsune Miku who introduced you to vocaloid.These robots served no purpose other than looking cool.
Next, we made our way to Team Lab planets. Even though I had been before, the experience was almost just as good the second time around. They also added a garden exhibit since I last came.
The Infinite Crystal UniverseProjected Koi that transformed into flower petals upon contactStrange Egg like shapes in the garden exhibitThese flowers slowly moved up and down
Lastly, we went back and gathered people for Karaoke. The experience of doing it for the first time was really fun and the mics could reverb really well inside the room.
An early morning trip out to the Tokyo port area brought the group to the Gundam mall! This mall featured a life-sized Gundam statue that even moved and played audio every once in a while. Although I am not a Gundam fan and know basically nothing about the franchise, it was still a fascinating landmark to see.
Not far from the mall was the Miraikan Museum of Science and Innovation. We were able to split up and spend some time in the museum and there were some really cool exhibits. Almost all exhibits were interactive in some manner, with some examples being a robot that mimicked viewer movement, modern health science exhibit, and a game in which you can see the trajectory of a hypothetically future.
Finally, we reached our last destination do the day — TeamLab Planets!
TeamLabs is a series of interactive art exhibits that immerses viewers completely in the art. Upon entering, visitors must take off their shoes and socks and wade through cleansing water. This is because the exhibits are barefoot and involve mirror floors, water, and textured surfaces. My favorite exhibits were the first room with pillow-like flooring, the maze of crystalline sparking LED lights, and this pond of virtual colorful fish.
today we awoke with two essential missions in mind: see the future museum and the teamlabs exhibition. but first, a side quest: see the big gundam.
the big gundam was the least interesting thing i have seen in my life but it was nice to see fabian excited. what came next though, was the mall behind the statue. me and megan split off due to a disinterest in getting real food and ended up trying mister donut due to liam’s glowing endorsement (mid btw). afterwards we encountered a donguri republic and as always i was legally obligated to make a purchase.
[he eats my coins.]
throughout this mall journey we mainly noticed how similar it was to malls from america. save for a few shops, the lineup was identical and the interior design was ripped straight from my mall at home. with the exception. of this one store called “wego.”
wego is, to put it conservatively, a clothing store that presents a surreal parody of american culture and the english language that is marketed unironically to japanese customers. it has 2 sectors, one “resells” “used” american college merch, (i do not believe for one second they are doing the digging to acquire that stuff, it’s most likely unsold stock, but it was labeled as “used” nonetheless) and the other makes original designs. and oh boy. as weird as it was to see a real demand for college t shirts that the buying demographic has never attended, those originals were something from a wormhole. reading these things was legitimately disorienting, each and every one of them spoke to an interest in projecting an experience that was neither authentic to its culture of origin or the experiences of the people it was supposed to be marketing to.
i want to clarify that i do not care in the slightest about “the sanctity of the english language” or “appropriating ‘american culture,'” it’s just that seeing it portrayed as aspirational in conjunction with a reverence for the worst parts of american consumerism was… weird. tshirts for t shirt’s sake i suppose. also reading so much of my first language written in a way that almost completely disregarded actual meaning was legitimately off-putting after some time, while i knew what the words meant the way they were being assembled was basically a foreign language. it was a land where any effort to make sense of my surroundings only further disoriented me. we came in for laughs, and they were had, but leaving that store was a bit of a relief.
[a microcosm of the greater horror. imagine a whole store with nothing but this. whatever you are thinking of right now, it was worse.]
after that we went to the Future Museum which sure had a lot to show. in an effort to avoid being a public hater as much as possible i will instead show my favorite part which was this note wall that was filled with book titles and quotes from children in a bunch of different languages.
[i love little note walls like this. you can tell when kids were told to write an answer to some bullshit “big question” and they just write anything to get it over with. or maybe i’m projecting. idk. i feel like when i was a kid i could tell when no one really cared about the questions being asked but if we didn’t take it 100% seriously we were doing something wrong.]
last part of the day was the teamlab planets exhibit. i mostly thought this was pretty cool. in the words of david (kcg guy of the day (long story)) it was whelmed. not over or under, pretty much just exactly what you would expect. i think for a place that is trying to provoke a feeling of immersion the lines could have been handled better, the whole “corral as many people as possible in a dark room” strategy doesn’t exactly inspire connection with art. it was mostly a few pretty rooms that looked cool in pictures that didn’t contain much to do or think about.
[oh my god i felt so bad for these flowers. many of them did not look well and they were getting run into and torn by attendants. i know plants can’t feel like we can but i wish people just had a bit more respect.]
the day ended with a group trip to a conveyor sushi restaurant. i was sitting with liam and skyler and we just had a ball. hot takes were had. liam would not stop going off about how the conveyor isn’t the same since the sushi licking incident of 85. we all had melon sorbet that was decidedly mid and i stole the container it came in. i loved going to restaurants with liam specifically during this trip because watching him navigate conversations with staff and reading menus was genuinely awe inspiring. watching the countless hours that had gone into learning the language get put to use never stopped being fascinating to watch. also i think i probably would have starved to death without him giving me the confidence to order food in multiple scenarios. owe that man my life fr.
[see the sushi came to us directly via the upper deck, and not the conveyor belt below where in theory anyone could take it. this was apparently a blight on the pure reputation of conveyor belt sushi.)
this was coming up on my last day with everyone and feeling bad about that was inevitable i think. but i don’t think now is the time to talk about that. i had a good day. i used as much time as i had to hang out with as many people as i could and while i feel like i would have liked more time i know i used all of the time i had to the fullest. alright. last one’s next and it’s gonna be the Big Sad. prepare yourselves >:2
We woke up super early to prepare for our train to Hiroshima. To prepare for our 2-3 hour ride, I downloaded some episodes of the Queens Gambit, one of my favorite shows.
Going in the bullet train is one of my favorite modes of transportation just because of how fast it feels, and with a window seat this time, I could really experience the relentless speed first hand.
We got to Hiroshima and grabbed a quick lunch at a food court. Then we went around the Dome, which was a beautifully tragic sight to see. The fact that it remained so intact is still so fascinating to me. Afterwards, we went to the Peace Museum. It is incredibly tragic, yet optimistic in its goal to end nuclear warfare, and reading all of the stories and history was an invaluable experience.
The Dome in Hiroshima
After the Peace Museum, we went to visit a nearby castle, adding onto the many steps we’ve taken since entering Japan. We saw a lot of carp and koi fish, and another temple. For dinner, went to a unique place that had recently burst in popularity, but KCG was able to get us an impossible reservation, and it was a fulfilling and delicious meal.
After dinner, some of the group members and I split to go see the Hiroshima Pokemon Center, and as long as we were back at the station by 7:30 PM, we would be okay. After failing to hail a cab for 10 minutes, we finally got one and arrived at the Pokemon Center at 6:40 PM. After buying some stickers, it was time to go back. However, our group reached a point of indecision on how to get back: cab or station. With how difficult it was to get a cab, and our cluelessness with the subway, we wasted another 10 minutes. So, instead of wasting even more time, we decided to do what any sane tech students would do: speed walk.
It was a race against the clock and we were keen on winning. With our feet already straining from all of the walking throughout the past couple of days, our journey was made even more treacherous. The only thing motivating us was the fear of missing our train. It was a war between the ground and our feet; an unstoppable march towards the rendezvous point. Small disputes and skirmishes about directions caused tension, making it a mental battle instead of a physical one. After a long path of sweat and tears, we made it to the station at 7:31 PM, finding the rest of the group. This was an event for the history books.
Anyway, we got onto the train and it was a comfortable ride back to Kyoto, though Sten’s snoring might have broken some of the rules of the quieter, Japanese culture. After a long time doing laundry and a nice bath, I hit the bed and fell asleep faster than ever before
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.
