Today was my free day in the city so I decided to see some museums I'd read about. On my way out, I dropped off some laundry at the front desk. A bag of laundry in one hand and two folded shirts in the other. "Sentaku" (laundry) I said putting the laundry bag on the desk. "Du-rai ku-ri-n' (dry clean) I said putting the shirts on desk. He nodded and then asked me what types clothes were in the plastic bag. We started writing them down on a note pad, but then he got an "a-ha" look and pulled a pad from under the desk with articles of clothing listed on it. We filled it all out and I was on my way.
Shibuya
The first was the electricity museum in Shibuya, then the Tin Toy museum in Harajuku, the Honda museum in Akasaka and finally the transportation museum in Akihabara. All kinda geeky, but I'm in Tokyo, so its about the technology right? Plus each museum was in an interesting area of town that had plenty to see just by walking around.
When I got to Shibuya it was a pretty short walk to the museum. However when I got there it was still 15 minutes until it opened so I grabbed a coffee and a pastery nearby and waited. When I came back the woman at the desk greeted me and gave me an english floor by floor guide. The first floor seemed to be a cafe and a clothing store, so I went to the next floor. Aparently the building isn't all museum.
The second floor seemed to have another cafe and some kind of furnature display surrounded by some kind of hanging decorations. Looking more closely however, the hanging decorations were small diaramas displaying other living room scenes. There was a finger reader in one so I put my finger on it. Nothing seemed to happen. Then a woman appeared from nowhere and showed me what to do; finger reader on the display then finger reader on a flat table display. Doing this gave me an all Japanese history and explaination of the cubes. Hmm, not much electricity so far. The thumb readers were electric, but...
The next floor seemed to be various home appliances. Washer/driers, electric ranges, refrigerators. Everything was new and it looked like a showroom. There was even a large room that seemed to be setup for a cooking demonstration. This floor contained the first interesting thing; the "Fragrance Personal Computer".
This computer had some sort of olfactory perripheral attached; two pods with 6 holes in each. Each hole was labeled with what I'm assuming was a scent component. The screen showed various types of food. Each type of food had its own little show with a cook creating something while the smell pods pumped out what I should be smelling during each step. I went through a few different dishes but everything smelled like ramen to me.
The next floor was an interactive kids floor with a fairly cool activity room. One wall was covered with hexigonal doors. Each door had a different science themed toy or device. There were a few I wanted to play with, but I restrained myself.
Nearby was a table with six seats. A family of four wsa seated with their faces pressed into some straps in front of each seat. This somehow connected them to the table and also positioned them to be captured on video for
six monitors just above the table. Aparently the table read concentration vs. relaxed brain waves. The goal was to relax which would move a little ball in the middle of the table. The most relaxed side of the table would move the ball to the opposite goal and win. The family I was watching was either equally relaxed or equally stressed out because the ball wasn't going anywhere.
On the rest of the floor were various interactive displays, most of which didn't make any sense to me but were amusing to watch.
The next two floors finally had something about electricity. First there was nuclear energy floor featuring a large cutaway nuclear reactor that spanned both floors. The next floor was hydro power with some large turbine displays and interactive exhibits. This is what I really wanted to see. Too bad it was only a third of the museum.
Harajuku
From there I walked to Harajuku and the Tin Toy museum. On my way I found something calling itself the Uniqlo museum. Uniqlo is basically a Japanese Gap with Old Navy pricing. Its got great, straighforward clothes for cheap. The Uniqlo museum turned out to be a regular Uniqlo with the whole bottom floor dedicated to t-shirt designs that Uniqlo created for other companies over the years. All shirts were for sale and it was actually pretty interesting.
Afterward, I walked around for a while looking at the shops and galleries, narrowing in on where the Tin Toy museum was. The problem was that the museum was probably small and Harajuku is a warren of streets and shops. I knew I was in the right area but after walking around in circles for 20 minutes I couldn't find it anywhere.
I stopped for lunch at a greek restaraunt and had a salmon gyros (horray for Japan!) and asked the waitress if she knew where the museum was. She called over the guy at the front and both of them looked over my map. They both concluded that it was "here" indicating the spot on the map where we were. Ok, tin toy museum was a bust.
Akasaka
I walked to the subway and took it to the stop closest to the Honda museum. I'd been to the Toyota museum/showroom on my first visit to Japan and it was pretty interesting; new cars, concept cars, race cars, interactive displays and a ride in their new electric concept car (along a guided track). When I got to the Honda showroom, it looked like a fairly standard showroom on the outside. A selection of the current models were out and people were kicking the tires. I went inside to see what was going on there.
It was swarming with kids. The whole place was a zoo. Kids and parents everywhere. "Ok, so its kids day" I thought, "it will just be a little more
crowded." However all I could see was tables with food and a stage with some musical instruments. Above each table was a flag and there were several non-native Japanese milling about. It appeared that I had stumbled on to
some kind of "Cultures of the World" event for kids. Food and activities from around the world. Pushed to the side of the show room were a few other Honda products (a snow blower; a chainsaw) but that was it. Nothing to see here, move along.
I walked through a park to the next subway station and stopped for a while to watch some baseball and soccer games going on.
Akihabara
My next stop was Akihabara and the Transporation museum. Getting off at "Electric Town" I was in "moe" heaven. Pronounced 'mo-eh', its a Japanese word to describe people to are in love with cartoon characters. Its a fetish basically, and there were several girls dressed up like cartoon characters feeding that fetish and handing out advertisments. I plowed through the gauntlnet of moe and got out onto the main street. In just a few blocks I got to where the Transportation museum was supposed to be. This one I knew was large and unmistakeable; where was it? I saw a local area map across the street and looked it up. It was unmarked on the map, but apparently I was standing right in front of it. I walked around the corner to find the entrance. When I got there I found this:
Sigh. A few other transporation souls came and went, just as disappointed as I was. I bought an apricot drink from a street vending machine and sat down to rest.
Museum Overview
At this point my museum tour was over. After much deliberation, I voted the Electricity Museum the best of the bunch. Here's a breakdown by category:
Existance: 10/10 (perfect score!)
The Electricity museum definitely existed. It garners a perfect 10 for this category.
Content: 6/10
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a museum as:
"A museum-like place that contains exhibits and cool stuff to look at; in the case of the Honda showroom it should probably contain race cars, videos and cutaway views of engines."
This was the Electricity museum's lowest scoring category, due to the high homemaker quotient. However the nuclear reactor and hyro floors were cool enough to give it a 6.
Not a Uniqlo: 9/10
Another strong category for the the Electricty museum. The clothing store on the second floor of this museum caused my scoring pen to waver, but overall this museum has strong "not a uniqlo" attributes.
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I have to admit I was a little down. My museum day was not what I'd imagined. However walking back to Akihabara I realized that nothing can warm my tin heart like gadgets and technology in the raw. Akihabara opened its arms to me bringing wonders I could only dream about.
It began at the edge of Akihabara where a small shop had several things out on the street for sale. I almost over looked it, but I was glad I didn't; Boxes and boxes of every type of small electric motor you could think of, all for sale. Here were micro motors; here were linear motors, DC, AC, motors with biscut fans, squirrel cage fans, everything and all within a 12 foot stretch of sidewalk. I bought a small electric pump with plans to make a water fountain for my cats and moved on.
More raw parts; here was a store that only sold headers (small bits of plastic with metal posts, useful for creating a place to plug things in or make something modular on your project); another store had all types of small pliers and tools; yet another place sold discrete electronics. All these stores were nestled between large, bright neon consumer product shops, as if to show you in full glory what was possible, the things that could be built.
I entered one that seemed to just be about computers (rather than cameras, phones, watches, or household items) and read the floor listing. First floor: display floor; Second floor: accessories; Third floor: printing; Fourth floor: Desktops and laptops; Fifth floor: perripherals and robots; Sixth floor: books.
Wait a minute...perripherals and robots? Hmm, maybe my robot *does* need an upgrade! I was not disappointed. A full wall of robot goodness. There was a section for toy robot kits, some full kits (walking lion, RC car) others components that you could use for some other project (tank tread kit, car kit). There was a section for structure parts; plates, fabricated plastic bits for X, Y and Z. There was a section for drivetrains; gears, pullies, rods. There were partial kits for augementing your robot with a specific feature and there were cosmetic kits for making your robot look good. There was also some fully articulared robot kits (and already constructed examples) in a display case opposite the wall.
I bought a walking lion robot and took the escalators back down to ground level. When I got outside I heard something familiar. What was it? Where was it comming from? I looked around in vain. But then, by chance I looked up and saw it. Super Potato! Yes, that's right, Super Potato, the video game super store bargain shop. Its like a cramped used record store but for video games. The music I was hearing was from "Legend of Zelda" (which as it turns out was for sale on a DVD filled with complete scores of countless video games.) Inside, there were countless video game systems, several updates on the classic Nintendo system (from Ninendo and 3rd parties), and rows upon rows of video game cartriges (sans bulky box or instructions.)
After I'd had enough of Super Potato, I walked back to the train station. It was nearing dinner and I was getting hungry. I took the train to Shinjuku and walked through the narrow streets around Shinjuku station looking for exactly the right place. The first time I was in Japan I found this little alley way almost too narrow for two people to pass and packed on both sides with places to eat. Each place had a bar that extended away from the alleyway, and offered about 6 stools of seating. One or two people stood behind the bar, took orders and cooked.
Shinjuku has a huge number of small places to eat like this which makes this kind of place very difficult to find among everything else. I did find a small area that was similar, but it was a whole micro neighborhood of bars, and nothing to eat. It started to rain so I abandoned my search and found someplace agreeable to eat.
After dinner I was dead tired from walking around all day, so I took the train back to my Hotel. When I went to get my key from the front desk the person working asked me to please wait one moment. He came back with a note from the Hotel's english master informing me that because of the overload of clothing, my laundry would not get started until Tuesday. "When will my clothes be ready?" I asked. "Ah, probably Thursday night" he said.
Thursday. Pretty much the whole week without any of my clothes. "Can I have them back?" I asked. I'd rather wear slightlyl dirty clothes than wear the same clothes over and over until they were seriously a problem. "I'm sorry", he said, "they are already at, uh, the factory".
Then it clicked. "You sent all my clothes to the dry cleaners?" When I only wanted two shirts dry cleaned, they had sent those shirts, plus my pants, socks and underwear to the dry cleaners. "This is all I have", I explained as patiently as I could pointing at my clothes. After a while we worked it out and my normal laundry would be brought back to me Monday evening. I'm not sure if they are going to wash it or not, but I just be happy to get it back.
Oh, and I'll end this with a shout out to vox, already catching on here in Japan!
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