Tsukuba, Science City

Tsukuba is not really a tourist destination, but if there's something Tsukuba is famous for, it is the fact that it is a "science city". Tsukuba is home to many research organizations such as AIST (where I'm interning), JAXA (space exploration), NIMS, the University of Tsukuba and many more. So today, I have visited various science displays.

The first exhibition I've went to is inside AIST, right beside the cafeteria — The Science Square Tsukuba.

Here, they have a "tape" guide service available, which has an interesting internal. The way it works it that sound is transmitted via line-of-sight light, and the machine will pick up the sound when you stand on the designated spot.

Let's look at some of the interesting exhibits. First is a video conference system which uses chroma keying (green/blue screen) to put everyone in the same virtual space. Unfortunately, I'm wearing a blue shirt today, so I became transparent!

Next is a system which grades English pronunciation. However, maybe it's designed for Japanese and doesn't work so well for other nationals. The system gave me a "100" even when using a "Thai" pronunciation or even when I said a different word!

The inarguably most interesting exhibition is Paro, a therapeutic or "healing" robot. Please enjoy the video below. If you'd like to play with Paro yourself, you can come to Science Square Tsukuba inside AIST. There is no entrance fee.

There are 2 giant rockets in Tsukuba, one standing and one lying down. The standing rocket is a model belong to the Tsukuba Expo Center. The one lying down, however, is a real rocket which belongs to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which is located right next to AIST. Unfortunately, a tour of the facilities require a reservation, so I could only view the exhibits.

The rocket failed testing, so it wasn't used for launch.

For lunch, I went to TonQ, "the best katsudon restaurant in Tsukuba", according to a co-worker at AIST.

While I don't know if the restaurant is the best or not, I can safely say that it is very popular. When I went in, I had to wait for a table. The restaurant has a self-queue system where we enter our name, the number of people and our table preference. However, the queueing system does not have English. No problem, I thought, I can type my name in katakana. But the system does not have katakana either! (My kana-ized name uses the sound "ウィ" which is not present in hiragana.) Finally, when I asked the staff if the system has katakana or not, he typed "ぱうい" for me based on how I've pronounced my name — close enough, I guess.

And finally, here's the food

In the evening, I toured around Tsukuba University and also viewed the University's gallery (similar to Mahidol's hall of fame, but much smaller). Tsukuba University has a very large campus and a bicycle is a must. Interestingly, they're going to implement a new bicycle registration system using IC (RFID) stickers attached to the bikes.

To finish the day off, let's have some ice cream! (Unfortunately, they don't have Cornetto here.)