We left the ryokan and went to Fukushima Prefecture Environmental Creation Center they explained the extent of the tsunami and radiation damage that happened to Japan five years ago and what they are doing to get Fukushima to become non-reliant on nuclear energy. They told us that 10% of all energy used in Fukushima comes from renewable sources and they are working to make that 100% by 2040. It is quite the honorable goal and I hope they make it. I am impressed with their determination.
I know it's hard to read, but it was telling me that it had been 2052 days, 19 hours, 36 minutes and 24 seconds since the tsunami hit Fukushima at the time of this picture. They had it counting up in real time. I thought it was pretty cool.
After the tour of the facility and presentations they showed us a room where we were able to power various machines with energy generated by bicycle. I rode a train that was powered by five people on bicycles. I raced some mini bicycles using power generated from a bicycle I was riding. There were also a few machines that turned a hard candy into candy-floss from the energy of two bicycles. All in all it was very educational, and I enjoyed learning about the progress towards a completely renewable-energy-dependent Fukushima.
After the Fukushima Prefecture Environmental Creation Center we went to the Abukuma-do Cave. It is a large cave system that stretches through a mountain to the east of Koriyama. It was amazing! You go through the cave partway and then there’s a fork in the road, you can choose to go the free route or pay ￥200 for the “Adventure” route. I chose the adventure route.
This is the Abukuma Caves Mascot. A little... shooting star, or something.
It was totally worth it, there were a lot of caves that had water running through them.
Cormac and Merran.
There were narrow passages that you had to crouch and crawl through.
There were ladders that you had to climb to reach lofty heights.
It was so much fun!
This one was called the "Christmas Tree."
There was a shrine on the top of a rock outside the caves, but I had no time to go see it, we had very little time after the cave walk to look around. I do plan on going back soon to go see the shrine. It looked beautiful and the view has got to be amazing.
After the caves we went to the Gaimax animation museum. I have only seen two anime by Gaimax (“FLCL” and “Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt”) but it was so much fun! They showed us a tour about how the animation process takes place. They had little sets showing each step of the process and props used, with cardboard people. They also had pictures and storyboards that we could touch. It was really interesting.
“It all starts with a party to get drunk and come up with great ideas.” our tour guide said, “and it ends when we get drunk to celebrate!”
He said that the animation process for one episode takes over 60,000 frames. This is a lot, so to simplify this a bit, they layer the images with parts (in this example, face, mouth and hair) so they can lessen the amount of work to create all the images. In this case, if the character were talking, they would only swap out the mouth layer to lessen the workload.
There were lots of examples of things that the studio actually uses during their daily work.
There were also a lot of really intricate miniature statues of the characters from their shows. Lots of people (Otaku) buy these. They were really cool looking.
Here's the TV-Headed robot from FLCL.
Here are some miniature statues of Pany and Stocking with Garterbelt.
And some bigger statues of what Panty and Stocking would look like if they were drawn like a typical anime.
After the tour the museum gave us a few canvas banners to draw and color. I drew the flower border and butterflies along the bottom of one of the banners and I wrote my name beneath the American flag on another banner. My friend Jocelyn drew the red koi fish. I was impressed, it was super good. My friend Merran drew the black one. Cormac drew the drinking shamrock, and Liang drew the anime-style character above my flower boarder. Felipe drew the fire with sunglasses. Many people drew the flags for the JET Study Tour 2016 banner.
After this we drove back to our respective drop-off places. Most people were beat by this time. This was a big weekend, but it was a whole lot of fun! I really hope I am able to go to the next Study Tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment