We're not the only ones from the Netherlands who are in Japan at this moment. A couple of friends have their trip more or less at the same time, although they are currently staying in Osaka, and will visit Hokkaido as well before spending their last week in Tokyo. Still, they didn't mind hopping on the Shinkansen to Tokyo, and today we'll be going to the Miraikan museum together.
I haven't been there before, but Kaj has told me some very good stories about it, and he and Robert are going to join us for the visit. It is a museum that focuses on (future) technology, and is part watching and reading, but also a very large part of actually interacting with all kinds of displays. One of the most prominent displays is a huge globe, covered in multicolour LEDs, which (usually) depicts the Earth. Watching the weather patterns spread over the globe can be an almost hypnotic watching experience.
Another fun thing you can do there is send messages over a physical model of the internet. Using a simple coding scheme of black and white balls, the model illustrates how messages are being sent, with address header and contents, and in this case, the balls are actually physically transported from one station to the next.
And since this is a model of the Internet, my brother can't refrain himself from making it even more realistic, by sending (the first ever?) Spam over this network.
Afterwards we head over to Fugetsu to eat okinomiyaki, which is best enjoyed with a large glass of beer. A very nice day indeed, and even the rain can't spoil it (thanks to our 100 yen umbrellas)