NHK

Well, I've been back in Tokyo for a about a week now with more exciting things going on.
Last Saturday, I had 2 exciting things on my schedule:

1) I ate lunch and dessert with MEGAN KLEVEN (from St. Olaf)

2) I spent the afternoon with ANNE TALBOT (my friend from high school) and ERIN AND BEN GIBSON (who were visiting Anne)

Anne, Erin, Ben and I went to the NHK Studio Park, which is like an interactive NHK museum (NHK is a major television network in Japan). .
While walking through the "museum" I saw a family enter a room that must have had some sort of green screen technology. A television screen showed them transported into virtual reality land for about two minutes. I watched as the woman and two small children enthusiastically enjoyed their adventure. They waved to the cute little bunnies that wandered by and acted like they were swimming when the screen showed them in water.

The next family that entered was a mom, dad, and a girl who looked like she was about 12. All three of them stood in the center of the room, straight-faced and completely still. The family's adventure began with them falling through the sky, surrounded by fluffy clouds and cartoon birds that were cute enough to be on Dora the Explorer. I watched the family, transfixed the entire 2 minutes as they maintained a level of stoicity that Chuck Norris would have been proud of.

When the adventure ended the mom, dad and daughter exited the room. Then in one moment all three of their stoic faces broke out into huge smiles, so blissful that there was no way I could doubt that they all had a really good time on their virtual adventure.