Robot toilet

On our last day we went back to the tasty coffee place not only to have some more delicious coffee but to have a look at the fancy robot toilet. If it had not been for the big Push here button I would have been lost at how to flush.

Miraikan

Because the Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation was closed the day before, we went back the next day. It houses a number of permanent expositions and some temporary ones. That day the Game-On exposition about the history of Video games was on show and not only offered to let you play with a surprising number of historic and classic games you could also try out the Playstation VR. However all the tickets for the latter were already sold out and you had to wait in the cancellation line if you wanted a shot..

In the atrium it demonstrated Honda's Asimo robot that did an astonishing performance hopping on a single leg and kicking a football around. During a later demonstration a foreign President was present but Asimo, the joker that he is, refused to kick the ball at first saying that it detected no ball despite it clearly lying in front of him. It is a bit disconcerting how easy it is to call a robot him instead of it.

Among the other Exhibitions were interactive games whose data on the people would be used in research later. An extraordinary cute robot baby-seal invited to be petted and even reacted to the nick name you gave it. We wandered along, passing by space waste disposal systems and a giant 13 ton steel globe containing more than 10000 display panels showing accurate weather information gathered from satellites.

As a last experience I rode a Honda Unicup which is a seated unicycle using the same balancing technology as the aforementioned Asimov robot. I am not sure where you would need such a vehicle but it sure was fun to ride it and quite easy to learn within 5 min.

Meiji-temple

In stark contrast to the Odaiba tech-festival the Meiji temple we visited offers a serene forest with a shrine of the late Meiji emperor and his consort.
Unlike the very flashy and loud and touristy surroundings of the temple in Asakusa this offers an atmosphere of inflection and peace. Definitely worth a visit!

Bavarian Shabu-shabu in Shinjuku

When the park closed we went to nearby Shinjuku to pick up some English Manga in the local Kinokuniyabook shop (7th floor is all about foreign books). The funny things is that those books although being originally Japanese are imported back into Japan from the country that they have been published in.

For dinner we found a German-styled Shabu-Shabu restaurant to quickly eat dinner before heading back to our Hotel in the Minato ward to pick up our luggage and journeying to our Hotel close to the Narita airport.

Journey to Narita

Unfortunately we were a bit late and so the usual Asakusa line was no longer directly driving to the airport. We went to Shinbashi station and the station officer's English was not the best and could only convey that we had to transfer if we wanted to arrive. Where and when and how was not clear. Almost on the verge of desperation, the officer changed and we asked again and this time we even got a written notice of the station's name where we had to change (Takasago). With that we made the hour-long ride. The Asakusa line actually turns into the Keisei line after Oshiage station so the name of the station where we had to change was not even advertised before the name change.

We finally made it to the airport and ran for the shuttle bus and arrived safely in our Hotel at last.

One morning three countries

The next morning we took the shuttle bus to the airport, returned our Suica card at a JR counter as well as our Wifi hotspot to the provider. If you return your Suica card you get your 500 yen deposit back which can be well spent for Snacks or small tokens in the duty free shop.

We boarded our flight from Narita to Seoul/Incheon and then another flight to Jinan and arrived some hours later (China is in a different time zone than Japan and Korea) in China where Ran's parents waited for us. Now I am sitting on the couch of the Grandma and writing this post while everyone else is watching TV :)

PS: Actually I am sitting now on the couch of Ran's parents waiting for the hotpot to be ready.