Miraikan

The other day I went to the Miraikan Museum (未来館) on Odaiba. The English name is "The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation", but the Japanese just means "future building", which is much simpler.

I went with Rob and his parents, because they were in Japan on holiday, and they invited me along for the day.

They had JR rail passes, which really are the most convenient way to travel around Japan if you're here on holiday. But there are no JR (Japan Rail) lines to Odaiba, so unfortunately they had to pay a bit extra when we arrived at Tokyo Teleport station on the Rinkai line.

Originally we had just intended to wander around Odaiba, because one of the receptionists at Rob's parents' hotel had said that the Miraikan would be closed because it was just after New Year.

But we decided to check for ourselves, and very lucky we did, because it was open!

It was a beautiful day, with the usual winter high pressure making it bright and chilly. We passed the Fuji TV headquarters building on the way.




The museum was a big glass building, and as soon as you walk in you can feel how modern the place is.

It cost Y600 per person, but Rob's parents treated me to the ticket, and later lunch, which was extremely kind of them.

We went into one of the exhibitions (I think there are about 7 floors, each with different exhibitions, and you put your tickets in the barriers to get into each individual area, but you can go in more than once.)

Everything was fascinating. There was everything from space to climate to photography, all with a futuristic spin on it. All the signs were in both Japanese and English, so it was very accessible.


We followed the route around the exhibition, and had a go on a lot of the interactive exhibits.





I liked this globe, which changed from displaying climate and weather, to cloud cover, and population information.






This exhibit was very interesting. The white lines that look like cracks in glass are actually streaks of radiation falling through the air. Normally it's invisible, but there was a special gas inside a glass case that made it visible to the naked eye. There was information about how the different types of radiation show up.

This robot is apparently a prototype for a much bigger one, that is at the moment hypothetical, but will eventually transport people over any terrain.

I'd heard about this Asimo robot before, because my British housemates from 2008 visited this museum and told me about it. He moved really quickly! It was very impressive.



I really recommend the Miraikan if you're in Tokyo for a long holiday, or living here for an extended period of time. It's definitely worth the cheap entry fee, and everything there was so interesting. I'm really glad I went along with them.

We didn't do everything there by a long shot, so if you fancy it, you could spend a whole day there doing and seeing everything you want to!