Odaiba

Friday, May 27

Today started with a trip to Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo and popular tourist destination. After talking with the students the day before, I formed some expectations of what this area was supposed to be like but I was surprised to find out that it was much different than what I’d conceived. The area had a sort of industrial feel to it, much more open than the compact, busy areas of Tokyo we’d explored already. Our first destination was Sona Area, a “Disaster Prevention Experience-Learning Facility”. We were physically walked through the steps of surviving the first 72 hours of an earthquake. This is the most crucial time to survive until help finds its way to you. After 72 hours, chances of survival drop dramatically, but within the first three days, if you can take care of yourself, you are more likely to be found alive. We learned how to re-use common trash and recycling for first-aid and other survival uses. All of it was really useful, life-saving information that could apply to any sort of disaster, not just earthquakes. It was really interesting to explore the very real possibilities of natural disaster and prepare for what kinds of courses of action we’d need to take in a serious emergency.

After the Disaster Prevention center, we stopped for some lunch at a mall food court, then made our way over to the Miraikan, the Future Museum. This place was really cool and had a number of fun interactive exhibits demonstrating cutting edge research and technology. They focused a lot on questions and helping make the world better through science and knowledge. We got to see a demonstration of the robot Asimo who’s pretty famous online for falling down stairs a lot. He didn’t fall down and was actually pretty impressive. It was a cool place to conceptualize which kinds of tech might become the new standard in the near-future world and how our world will change with these kinds of developments.

We walked from Miraikan over to a pretty famous giant Gundam statue and took pictures. Then we walked past the gorgeous FujiTV building and I felt the urge to run up the huge flight of the stairs. So I did and it was great. It turned to that there was a One Piece themed restaurant at the top. Only a few of us went up so we couldn’t stay but it seemed like a pretty cool place, if a bit touristy. But that’s one of the things I’ve noticed so far here. Even the touristy places actually seem fun and interesting in their own way.

After taking the train out of Odaiba, we stopped by the Ginza neighborhood because Owen, one of our group members, wanted to stop by a really fancy pen and stationary store called Itoya. Immediately it was clear that this was a high-class shopping district. We looked around the store but eventually left Owen to his own devices since the rest of us just had a casual interest in the products. We had some delicious desserts at a nearby café while we waited and wound down from another busy day. After we returned to Ikebukuro, we stopped by the Pokemon Mega Center shortly before they closed. This was one of my big indulgences since I’m a huge nerd, but it was really cool and totally worth going. I’ve always loved those stupid monsters so it was a nice thing to check off the list. Plus I got some cool toys to remember it by.