Tsukuba

So on the 22nd, Ryo and I went to Tsukuba City in Ibaraki Prefecture, which is where Mr. Inoue lives and works. Yoshio Inoue used to be a student of my grandfather's in Arizona. We took the Tsukuba Express train from Akihabara (Akihabara is famous for being nerd/geek central). It was a nice ride. It was kind of strange though because at different stops, it would go way underground like a subway, but some of the stops were really high up off the ground like a monorail. We got to see some nice scenery. This was my first visit to Ibaraki-ken. When we got on the train, the weather in Tokyo was really hot, but by the time we got to Tsukuba Station, it was pouring rain and kind of windy. Mr. Inoue picked us up in his car really close to the station.

Mr. Inoue had wanted to take us to Mt. Tsukuba, but because of the weather, we went to JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) instead. There's a real rocket in the parking lot! We got there just in time for a scheduled tour, so that's what we did. It started off with a video talking about the agency, and then they demonstrated how crazy loud a rocket launching actually is. Then they took us to the Exhibition Hall, where they showed us all sorts of different equipment and previously launched satellites and whatnot. I read all the English information charts because I was having a really hard time keeping up with the tour guide. There were also some creepy mannequins in some of the mock-ups of some of the transport vehicles. Mr. Inoue said that he uses some of the data collected at JAXA in his own work.

Next we went to a geological museum created by the Geological Survey of Japan. There was less English there, but t most of the labeling of the different rocks and minerals had the English names too. On the ceiling in the main lobby, there was a mirror in the shape of Japan with different colored lightbulbs, each representing different earthquakes in Japan's history. (Ryo was acting like a little kid, going around pushing everything that had buttons. Sometimes I wonder if he's actually 27.) There was a giant periodic table of elements that had a large number of those elements encased in glass. There were also origami dinosaurs.

After that, we walked into a separate building, where the Science Square of Tsukuba was. There was all kind of crazy technology there, including PARO (a robotic seal used for therapy), a robotic T-rex, a computer program for learning English that was like 100x better than Rosetta Stone, a security camera system that recognizes "bad behavior," new technology for getting rid of asbestos waste, a weird bicycle, a crazy interactive camera mirror thing, there was a ton of stuff.

Then the staff informed us they would be closing soon, so Mr. Inoue brought us to his house where his wife had made dinner and was waiting. Their house is filled with art made by their younger child and Mrs. Inoue, but neither of their children were present that night. Their two dogs objected very loudly to Ryo and me being there. We had a lovely meal which consisted of two different salads (one with eel and salmon, another with grapefruit and Italian ham), a meat pie with cheese (it tasted like meat loaf with cheese and pie crust), some kind of pastry filled with tuna, chicken, and onions, and for dessert we had roll cake and tea. We talked about their family, and what made me interested in Japanese, how Ryo and I met, and before we left, Mr. Inoue showed us some of his younger child's art. Wow. I was really impressed. Apparently one of the pieces was featured in Ueno (there's a huge art museum in Ueno Park).

Then Mr. and Mrs. Inoue drove us back to the station and we said goodbye. I hope I can visit them again.