Today definitely goes on the books as being the most fun day of school in my life. I went to school at the usual time and arrived about when I usually do. Everyone from B, C, & D classes gathered in the lecture room at 9:00 and was briefed on how we were going to get to the Disaster Preparedness Center. After that we all got on the train headed away from Shinjuku and past Akihabara. When we got off we walked for about 10 minutes and arrived at the center.
Inside we were given the gist of what we were going to be doing and proceeded to the second floor. Here we did "emergency telephone" practice. Which involved watching a video screen and, when it told you to, dialing "119" (not 911...) and giving information on a situation. In Japanese it is quite difficult. Most of the students (myself included) don't know our exact address so we approximated. The video was automated so no matter what you said (as long as it heard you) it would move along. This was fun until someone found the "English Dub" button, then it was HILARIOUS! Bad dubing at it's best. After we had all practiced making 119 calls we went to the forth floor to watch a movie on earthquakes.
Lets see... the movie, eh? Let me go in order. First, they passed out IR (infared) headsets that let those of us not fluent enough listen to the movie in English (another terrible dub though). Next several groups of Japanese business men came and sat with us. Evidently their company had them come learn about disasters. Then they passed out the 3d glasses. Yes, this was a 3d movie. Did it get better? Indeed it did. The floor even shook when the earthquake was shown on the screen. There wasn't a lot of plot to the movie. Mostly terrible things happening to people who "didn't adequately prepare". When the movie ended we split into groups of 10 or so (the business men had their own groups) and each group went to a different station.
The first station my group went to was the typhoon station. Here we put on boots, water proof pants, and a heavy duty rain slick. I found out that I'm a size 30 Japanese shoe and a size 4L pant. I feel huge. After we were all suited up we went into a little room with a grated fan on one wall and large sprinklers in the ceiling. First we experienced a torrential downpour. This was ridiculously frightening for nothing more than the hideous noise of so much water falling. After the "rain stopped" the 30km/s wind was turned on. I have to say, actually, 30km/h wind isn't so bad. I can see however, that mixing that kind of wind and rain is quite the disaster. We exited the "wet room", took off the rain slicks, and dried off (and I wondered why I did what my teacher said and brought a towel.) We then went to the "Smoke" practice area.
Imagine if you will a lazer-tag facility where they never turn off the fog-machine. That was more or less the "Smoke" area. The idea is to learn how to escape in case of a fire in which there is too much smoke to see. We entered in one end of a "maze" and had to stay low and follow the exit sign to get out. I don't know what they used to make the smoke but it smelled like hazelnuts. Once free of the smoky trap we headed to the "earthquake experience" area.
The earthquake area was more or less a platform where a model kitchen had been set up. The most notable feature was a large kitchen table in the middle with cushions on it. What happens is you stand on the platform, then when it's turned on you have to get under the table and put a cushion over you head. Wow that was a lot of fun. The floor starts to move and doesn't stop. I can't say it did anything for my want to feel a real earthquake, just a small one. After we had all been tossed around and had our fun we went to the fire readiness room.
In the fire readiness room there were fake fire extinguishers filled with pressurized water which we used to "put out" a fire displayed on a screen. The exercise went like this. 1.) Scream "Kagida!" (it's a fire!) at the top of your lungs 2.) Pick up the fire extinguisher and charge the fire 3.) Pull the pin and remove the hose 4.) Spray at the fire until your tank runs dry. That's it, if that doesn't work I guess you're out of luck. After we did this exercise we were done with our training and all got certificates saying that we completed the disaster readiness program.
I really think a place (places) like this in America could really save lives. I'd have to say if I understood more than 10% of the complex words that were used I'd have learned more, but hey why sweat the details?
Once we left the center those of us with afternoon classes made a bee-line for the train, having only 20 minutes before class started. I stopped in Ichigaya station at the store and picked up some Onigiri (rice balls with stuff in them) and a pop to tide me over in place of lunch. thank goodness there's a convenience store every 5 feet here.
Back at the school we all made it back just in time for today's lecture. The lecture part of class took maybe 15 minutes before it broke down into a savage beating of the teacher by his own students. The subject? Kendo! Today was Peter-sensei's lecture on his favorite pass-time. This is the teacher who invited all the students to come try Kendo with his dojo. As far as what we actually did in class this picture sums it up best:
Inside we were given the gist of what we were going to be doing and proceeded to the second floor. Here we did "emergency telephone" practice. Which involved watching a video screen and, when it told you to, dialing "119" (not 911...) and giving information on a situation. In Japanese it is quite difficult. Most of the students (myself included) don't know our exact address so we approximated. The video was automated so no matter what you said (as long as it heard you) it would move along. This was fun until someone found the "English Dub" button, then it was HILARIOUS! Bad dubing at it's best. After we had all practiced making 119 calls we went to the forth floor to watch a movie on earthquakes.
Lets see... the movie, eh? Let me go in order. First, they passed out IR (infared) headsets that let those of us not fluent enough listen to the movie in English (another terrible dub though). Next several groups of Japanese business men came and sat with us. Evidently their company had them come learn about disasters. Then they passed out the 3d glasses. Yes, this was a 3d movie. Did it get better? Indeed it did. The floor even shook when the earthquake was shown on the screen. There wasn't a lot of plot to the movie. Mostly terrible things happening to people who "didn't adequately prepare". When the movie ended we split into groups of 10 or so (the business men had their own groups) and each group went to a different station.
The first station my group went to was the typhoon station. Here we put on boots, water proof pants, and a heavy duty rain slick. I found out that I'm a size 30 Japanese shoe and a size 4L pant. I feel huge. After we were all suited up we went into a little room with a grated fan on one wall and large sprinklers in the ceiling. First we experienced a torrential downpour. This was ridiculously frightening for nothing more than the hideous noise of so much water falling. After the "rain stopped" the 30km/s wind was turned on. I have to say, actually, 30km/h wind isn't so bad. I can see however, that mixing that kind of wind and rain is quite the disaster. We exited the "wet room", took off the rain slicks, and dried off (and I wondered why I did what my teacher said and brought a towel.) We then went to the "Smoke" practice area.
Imagine if you will a lazer-tag facility where they never turn off the fog-machine. That was more or less the "Smoke" area. The idea is to learn how to escape in case of a fire in which there is too much smoke to see. We entered in one end of a "maze" and had to stay low and follow the exit sign to get out. I don't know what they used to make the smoke but it smelled like hazelnuts. Once free of the smoky trap we headed to the "earthquake experience" area.
The earthquake area was more or less a platform where a model kitchen had been set up. The most notable feature was a large kitchen table in the middle with cushions on it. What happens is you stand on the platform, then when it's turned on you have to get under the table and put a cushion over you head. Wow that was a lot of fun. The floor starts to move and doesn't stop. I can't say it did anything for my want to feel a real earthquake, just a small one. After we had all been tossed around and had our fun we went to the fire readiness room.
In the fire readiness room there were fake fire extinguishers filled with pressurized water which we used to "put out" a fire displayed on a screen. The exercise went like this. 1.) Scream "Kagida!" (it's a fire!) at the top of your lungs 2.) Pick up the fire extinguisher and charge the fire 3.) Pull the pin and remove the hose 4.) Spray at the fire until your tank runs dry. That's it, if that doesn't work I guess you're out of luck. After we did this exercise we were done with our training and all got certificates saying that we completed the disaster readiness program.
I really think a place (places) like this in America could really save lives. I'd have to say if I understood more than 10% of the complex words that were used I'd have learned more, but hey why sweat the details?
Once we left the center those of us with afternoon classes made a bee-line for the train, having only 20 minutes before class started. I stopped in Ichigaya station at the store and picked up some Onigiri (rice balls with stuff in them) and a pop to tide me over in place of lunch. thank goodness there's a convenience store every 5 feet here.
Back at the school we all made it back just in time for today's lecture. The lecture part of class took maybe 15 minutes before it broke down into a savage beating of the teacher by his own students. The subject? Kendo! Today was Peter-sensei's lecture on his favorite pass-time. This is the teacher who invited all the students to come try Kendo with his dojo. As far as what we actually did in class this picture sums it up best:
The whole class took turns thwacking Peter-sensei on the head with the shinai. I'm sure by the end, even with the face mask, he still had a headache.
So that was my school day. I got to ditch the first part of my day to get drenched in a typhoon and shaken up by an earthquake. The second part of my day was spent watching my teacher get pummeled by his students. (He's really a nice guy, everyone likes him, but when he says "go ahead hit me" who can refuse)
I probably won't be updating again until monday night as I'm going out of town this weekend. I'll be taking off directly from school after classes tomorrow. Oooh, shinkansen. Makes me giddy just thinking about it. Until next time...
Ja Mata Ne.
posted by Dockett at 8:00 PM
1 comments
