The Miraikan...

After we visited the maritime museum we headed off to the Miraikan, which is the big science and innovation museum. The building itself is very impressive, love the architecture of it.

Although it is 7 floors, not all the floor are in use for the public. The ground floor had a special exhibit on when we went but we didn't look at it and there is also the shop. The third floor is 'Create your future' and is great, loads of hands on stuff to do, very interactive and everything is fully bilingual. I noticed Ebi-kun always chose the English version, even if I wasn't with him when he made the choice.

There were also volunteers who explained things to the kids, this guy was chatting away for ages, when I went to investigate, he was talking about quantum electronics! 

They also have Asimo there at the moment, I'm not sure if he is always there, so he came out for a demo... Also on this floor are workshops but you need to book ahead to get a place, looked quite interesting though, maybe we will do that another time.

The 5th floor is 'Explore the Frontiers' lots of things to do up here too, quite a big section of space travel, the inside of a section of the space station, that kind of thing. Also, lot of things to do with the body. This section had different types of buttons and levels to make the interactive screens work, it was a bit busier here and we had to wait a few minutes to get on some of the exhibits.

Ebi-kun has a small version of this puzzle so it didn't take him long to put it together but later we tried a brain puzzle and it took us ages, maybe brain surgeon is not the career choice for us.

This enormous globe hangs between the floors and is mesmerising, they have talks and use the globe as a screen, if that makes sense, the images move so they can show the migration of birds or the changing of air currents. It is very clever and super cool, I should have videoed it really!

There is also a planetarium but you need to reserve your seat as soon as you get there.

The only thing I found disappointing about this place was the cafe, the restaurant has been closed down so there is the choice of Lotteria (burger place) or the cafe. We went to the cafe but the food was not up to much, I recommend eating before you go!

I am pretty sure we will come here again, there was so much to see and do and far too much to take in with just one visit! I think next time we will plan ahead and try and book into a workshop too and make a full day of it.