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There are three Bosai-kan in Tokyo. Tachikawa, Honjo and Ikebukuro.
I went to the Honjo Bosai-kan. It’s about a 10 minute walk from Kinshicho station on the Sobu line or the Hanzomon line.
And it’s open from 9 to 5. And admission is free.
This is me standing in front of the building.
At the Honjo Bosai-kan there are lots of elephants. Elephants outside, elephants inside, elephants driving, pictures of elephants ...
And apart from elephants there are lots of activities to educate people what to do in a disaster.
Unfortunately, when we went there the earthquake simulation wasn’t available I think it was closed for maintenance or something. So we couldn’t do that.
But all the other sections were open, and first we went to the 3D theater. And we watched a movie about an earthquake in Tokyo – which I thought was really well done. It gave you a good idea of what it would really be like in an earthquake with broken glass everywhere, roof tiles falling off, that kind of thing.
Then we did Fire Fighting Training. We practiced using fire extinguishers ... but they weren’t real ones. They had water in them and we squirted it a fire on a screen.
Then we did the smoke maze. In a fire you’re supposed to avoid breathing in the smoke because it kills you ... so in the smoke maze you have to crouch down or crawl and escape. They have sensors in the walls and whoever stands up, dies.
Next we looked at some information. They have a disaster library. And have English pamphlets like this one giving robust advice on how to act in an emergency.
Like “don’t let rumours panic you”.
This is the Emergency Report Training section. And this is me practicing how to call 119. This woman is cooking and she forgets about her cooking, goes to answer the door and all hell breaks loose.
I was using a regular camera to take this video so, not a video camera, so the, the sound, there’s something wrong with the sound so I have to mute it or else ah, lots of crazy noises come out.
This is the Training Performance Evaluation section. And this is me doing a quiz and getting pretty excited about it.
And I even got a certificate, which was pretty much the highlight of my day really.
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