Creepy Japanese robots at the Miraikan

The Miraikan is Tokyo's Premiere Emerging Science and Technology Museum.  Japan and Robots in my mind just go hand so it's was no surprise to find several robots at this museum...but why are they all so incredibly creepy?

The first robot display had fembot lounging on a couch in a typical casual Japanese soccer mom type attire.  She smiled and waved, perfectly coifed and manicured.  Her voice was high pitched and saccharin sweet - the entire tableau made my skin crawl.

The next robot exhibit allowed you to have "fun" with the robots in a singing game.  These robots sang a song perhaps known only to Japanese folks and they sang it over and over, faster and faster.  This song will haunt my dreams now to the end of my days.

The final robot experience was very odd.  You went into this black corridor and to the right was a slit cut out of the wall at eye level.  Through this slit in the wall you could see a bright white room almost glowing and a robot sitting on the side of what looked like a like a hospital bed.  The woman robot in this scene had what appeared to be a white hospital gown.  With no instruction or indicators for interaction we all just stood there waiting for something to happen.  After a few minutes of silence just standing there looking at the robot with all the other visitors, Elizabeth in a rather loud voice asked why the robot was in a white hospital gown. I quickly answered that the robot had just been abducted by aliens and wash happily waiting for the medical experiments to start 😜.

Japan - the toilet issue

So what is this Japanese obsession with bathroom activities ? Yes this is the toilet blog.  Although I had recently experienced new and interesting squirty types of toilets in Turkey, Japan takes toilet culture to an entirely new level.  So many buttons, privacy features, music options, deodorizers, hot and cold water, various water pressures, water aim, heated seats etc etc no wonder there is always a long lineup for women's bathrooms.

This toilet features both hot and cold water.  It took me a few days to realize that the difference between spray and bidet was exclusively water temperature as the pictograms indicates a coverage difference 😜

These images make it look like the force of the water will blast you off of the toilet.

This device provides a sound feature of flushing water for "privacy".  In one toilet I could not figure out how to flush the toilet and kept hitting a button that only provided the sound of a flushing toilet, made me angry 😡.

Most toilets have complicated instructions - giving you the "gist for use".  Do you really want to be faced with this type of tutorial when you have to go or perhaps it is for bathroom reading and not a  mandatory reading before pressing cheek to toilet seat type of guide.

This was a 10 step tutorial on how to wash your hands!  John's method has regrettably only one step wipe hands on shirt.😜

No idea what all there buttons with dot images symbolized.  I like the flower dot pattern the best but what does this really mean in "toilet" speak? 

And if all else fails there is an emergency button which was normally clearly marked.  I suspect that possibly the force of the water shooting up from the toilet or a severe allergic reaction to the deodorizer being unexpectedly spritzed on nether regions, are the number one reason for pressing the emergency button.

At times the toilet seat was heated, a feature I did not want, or need.  Nor could I figure out how to turn off in the +40 Celsius Tokyo weather.  Curse you hot Tokyo Museum toilet! 😠

Hello Tokyo

Crazy to think we are here in Tokyo.  The 10 hour flight from Vancouver was just an appetizer to the full Japan experience.  It was all about the toilets on the plane and electronic entertainment systems with the kids.  The time flew by very quickly however due to so much excitement with movies and multi player games, the children declined my advice to nap and immediately crashed hard in the taxi to the hotel.  They missed an incredible light show that would rival Time Square NYC.  Jim and I were careening our necks out of the cab windows to catch every fascinating site.  John woke up for a minute and then yelled I can 't do it, I am too tired and then went back to sleep.

We were all up bright and early after a wonderful sleep.  We have two separate rooms at the Citadines apartment hotel.  Well equipped modern hotel and super clean - a cool oasis to relax after a hot day of sightseeing and they provide kimono and slippers for all.

Once again the toilets are a hit and automatically play sounds of waterfalls.  There are way too many buttons on these Japanese toilets.  To date I have seen toilets with the following features - sound for both privacy and encouragement, bidet, spritz with cute little icons of where the water will actually hit your under pinnings. Buttons and dials for water pressure, temperature and this afternoon I encountered a toilet at the fancy Rippongi Hills shopping mall that had a deodorizer feature.

Our first morning in Tokyo was spent on a walking tour of Meiji-jinku Shinto shrine and Senso-Ji Buddist shrine.  It was crazy hot and humid - well in the '30's at 10am. Our guide Mitaki was lively and tried to keep it fun for the kids which was much appreciated.  The best part of the tour was that Mitaki gave us a tutorial on the Tokyo metro and the benefits of pay as you go vs pre paid cards such as Suica.  We are now armed and dangerous with Pasimo metro card and disrupting the calm that is the Tokyo subway culture.

Speaking of Tokyo culture...it is so incredibly quiet here.  We are staying in the Shinjuku area a lively restaurant area but we never hear people actually talking, laughing or making any loud noise for the matter.  We went out early dor breakfast around 7:30am and found ourselves walking against a sea of workers all going to their place of employment, everyone pretty well dressed the same in white starched shirts and dark pants or skirts completely in silence.  It was rather eerie.  The same goes for riding the metro, total silence, everyone keeping to themselves.  You can just imagine how easily Elizabeth and John are able to disrupt this silence with their constant fooling 😜.

Ready, Set Go!

We were off to the races bright and early the morning of July 9. The countdown clock was at 0 hours and 0 days.  It was a strange feeling locking the door for the last time and leaving several notes and reminders for Bonnie and Cyril the house sitting couple. 

Every house has a perticular smell one that you get used to over time.  I was thinking that in 6 months' time I would really notice the familiar smell of our home.

There was no long epic movie worthy goodbye as Django hit the high road and hid the moment Uncle John showed up at 4:15am to drive us to the airport.  I had been giving him maximum love since returning from Greece and Turkey and he was becoming increasingly demanding especially when the suitcases appeared on the upper decks.

We are off on our adventure but why do all adventures start so early 😃.

Packers Remorse

How does one pack for a six month adventure?  Very carefully as every item must have many purposes.  Less is always more.  Good thing that I had a three week trial trip to Greece and Turkey to test out equipment and see what was a necessity vs what was a "nice to have". 

My real challenge was packing for 3 seasons plus Christmas.  Shoes are the bane of luggage as they tend to take up the most room and are heavy.  I Love shoes so it is just cruel to limit my happiness with minimal and utilitarian footware.  I packed and re-packed, rolled and used the zip lock method.   Everything fit into the three pieces of luggage - small piece of luggage for John and medium pieces for Elizabeth and myself but as I soon found out just because things fit into the luggage and are under the max weight doesn't automatically mean that you are good to go.  I knew after our first two flights to Abbotsford that I had packed way too much.  Just rolling my luggage around was a strain due to the weight.  I was already suffering from packers remorse.  It didn't help the situation that Jim man handled John's small carry on rollie on our first flight and broke the handle right off the luggage - we hadn't even left Ottawa and we were already pulling up lame in the luggage department. 

A cull was required.  I took time while Elizabeth was napping and Jim and John were out visiting and re-scrutinized each and every item and managed to fill up a large box.  Tomorrow it will be shipped back to Ottawa and then and only then will I really feel ready for Asia.