23rd September

TEPIA
This morning, we were going to spend about 1 hour and a half at TEPIA, Advanced Technology Exhibition Hall.

After entering the hall, we waited at the lobby for a few minutes. There was placed a super small lithium-ion battery-powered electric vehicle, non-polluting and energy-saving. The assistant at TEPIA took a picture of our group together. There were 2 lovely guides. Then we were divided into 2 groups, like the group of workshop in Akita, to follow our guide. My group had sister Danich as the translator. Following is the description of what I have seen:

Earthquake-proof structure
First, we found out about the earthquake-proof structure. Our guide explained to us that most buildings in Japan were built with special earthquake-proof features, one of which was the adjustable frame. Personally, I would like to explain that when the ground shocks, the frame of the building also shock with the ground, but the building itself doesn’t shock as strongly as the frame. Another one was anti-elasticity rubber. The guide showed us a little experiment. She held 2 little balls in her hands. One ball was made of ordinary rubber, and the other was made of anti-elasticity rubber. She dropped 2 balls freely at the same time to the floor. Consequently, the ordinary rubber ball jumped higher that the anti-elasticity rubber ball. It meant the anti-elasticity rubber received the force of reaction from the floor less than the ordinary one, by the method of physics. Therefore, it could reduce the force created by earthquake.

Gesture Remote Control TV
Second, we experienced the Gesture Remote Control TV. Maybe this was the latest technology which hadn’t been released widely outside yet. The guide stood 3 meters far from the wide screen of the TV and pushed her palm straightly toward the screen as sending the command. When the TV received the signal from her palm, it reacted and changed to channel scrolling mode. The guide moved he palm round and round, and channels were scrolled round and round following the movement of the palm. The guide pushed her palm again toward the screen and the channel was selected. There were other functions with using the palm like adjusting the volume and the light. It seemed like a magic which everyone could do.

Pop-up books
Third, we enjoyed the electronic Pop-up books at the space behind the Gesture Remote Control TV. The tools were quite simple: a book, a monitor and a webcam. The book had several pages of pictures, and every page contains a small black square mark, working as barcode. When the webcam received the picture of the book and the information from the square mark, the monitor displayed not only the original picture but also 3D effect ascending from the book. We only saw the picture of fish in the book, but we cold se fish swimming in the monitor.

Hydrotect tile
Forth, we learned about “Hydrotect Color Paint and Hydrotect Tile”, which was a special material automatically and naturally cleaned by sun rays. With this material, a building always looks new without any stain. Our guide also made a little experiment. She stained 2 pieces of tile, one was the simple tile and the other was the Hydrotect tile. Then, she put the artificial sun rays emitted by a device over those 2 pieces of tile. As a result, the stain on the Hydrotect tile miraculously disappeared, while the other was not changed.

PaPeRo and Smile Evaluation
Fifth, we communicated with PaPeRo, a talking robot. It could only understand a few Japanese words. Then, we witness the Simile Evaluation Technology. Standing in front of a big screen, we saw our face being detected and our smile being evaluated. It depended on eyes and mouth to evaluate the percentage of our smile. If we were wearing a doctor mask, the value would be 0%.

There were other leading technology items I did not mention above such as Ultra-Thin LCD-TV and Care Robot Yurina.
After the end of guiding, we had about 10 minutes free for self-seeing and self-experience inside the hall. I tried the Gesture Remote Control TV, so cool! Then I spent all the time at robot play ground. Electrical dog, cat, dinosaur, cars, and Wall-e were all controlled by wireless joystick, which we could play freely.

When we finished our visit at TEPIA, we got the group photo taken earlier, but it was not very clear. The Hokkaido group arrived at TEPIA after us, and we traveled on bus to see the Royal Palace from outside.

Outside the Royal Palace
The bus stopped far from the Palace, so we had to take a long walk. The view along the side walk was pretty good. Green trees were everywhere. We saw the statue of Ancient Japanese Emperor riding on his horse. The path to the Palace was paved with little rocks. The sky looked wide and clear. The Royal Palace seemed to be hidden by trees and separated by a stream. From the stream, it was the nearest place where could see the Palace. We took photos as much as we could because it was the last destination we had to visit in Japan.

Funny Chanko
Today the lunch was all the same for 3 groups. We had lunch at the same restaurant, specially serving food for Sumu athletes. The food was called Chanko, a big pot of soup of noodle, mushroom and other vegetable. Personally, I thought it was simple. What made this meal interesting was the funny speech from Sopheak about the soup. He said the soup water in the pot were about to run out, but it seemed to be increased again after we talked. Sopheak had another funny story about sister Yamada and Mr. Ros Keng, which made Sunmeng and I bursted out laughing! I couldn’t stop with that.

Last shopping in Tokyo
We returned to hotel. In fact, next, we were planned to visit Harajuku, a popular area for youth, but the plan was changed due to too much crowd as today was a special day. Therefore, we could only go to a 100 yen shop nearby as substitution. It was the last place we could spend our money. I couldn’t find anything interesting to buy because I had seen similar items at 100 yen shop in Noshiro. However, I would like to say the shop was much bigger than the two I had entered in Noshiro. I bought about 20 items, so I had much money left, especially coins.

Farewell Party in Tokyo
It’s nearly over! This evening, the farewell party started at 5:00pm. It’s similar to the farewell party in Akita, but we didn’t have our host families this time. Two tables sere for each group. Each group was having cultural performance. We were not worried at all because of our experience once in Akita. We could see the performance of the 2 university groups were not well prepared, while ours was perfect. Each of us obtained a certificate of JENESYS and a big group photo. My group’s photo was the photo at Mt. Kanpu. Finally, 55 participants had the last picture taken together.

Noodle Party
We finished all the missions. Tonight, we held a “noodle party” for celebration. 14 of us and sister Danich gathered in a room and ate the noodle we had brought from Cambodia. I ate a cup of my noodle. Then we played a game, called question of heart. We had a lot of fun that night, really. At 11:00pm, we went back to our room respectively, packed our luggage, and slept.