Summary
- The California Science Center offers an impressive collection of spacecraft that is free to the public.
- The African American Museum features the history of African Americans, but its artistic collection is even more interesting.
California Science Museum
- Unfortunately, the Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibition is currently closed, but I was able to see a special exhibition about the new building that is currently under construction.
- Not only do they have an impressive collection of historical spacecraft, but they also have state-of-the-art spacecraft such as SpaceX.
- They had multiple giant dynamic exhibitions, such as a control room, a human body, and a wave pool.
- It was a really good experience because I could actually see a real human brain. I saw many diagrams explaining the human body, but the actual specimen had stunning detail and a three-dimensional structure that cannot be expressed by printing.
African American Museum
- The exhibition starts with the history of how African people were treated and how they regained their rights.
- Not only do they have a giant painting at the entrance, but they also have an amazing collection of famous African American artists.
- Especially impressive was how they artistically expressed the appearance of African Americans. It still follows a modern art format yet beautifully incorporates elements of nature.
Other Interesting Places
- In many U.S. cities, there is an interesting attempt to connect metro stations with sunken parks. I know that space in Tokyo is limited, yet this design gives a sense of spaciousness.
- Little Tokyo was mainly formed by a relocation order from the government, but now it has become a fancy tourist attraction. It's really small but contains many great aspects of Tokyo.
- Koreatown recreates the good characteristics of an Asian city. It sometimes has amazing shopping malls, which are quite rare in the U.S.
Foods
- H Mart offers significantly cheaper Asian ready-to-eat meals. Kimbap and many other foods are nice, but the blood sausage was not tasty for me. I was really surprised that seafood rice is sold at such a low price.
Conclusion
- The human body is most familiar to us, but we actually don't know how it works, just as we don't fully understand nature. The technology of biomimicry is utilized in many mechanics, but I think we can even extend its application to art and computer science.
- Japan is very reluctant to invest in science and technology. Therefore, the scale of research is limited. However, there are people willing to spend ten times more on the same research, and I hope that those opportunities will be opened to Japanese people as well. I am really looking forward to participating in more large-scale IT projects happening around the world.
- The Japanese artistic style is deeply inspired by nature, but people in other countries have completely different relationships with nature that influence them differently. I am still not willing to visit African countries, but I want to learn about regions I have not yet explored.
- The free museums in the U.S. are impressive but are hardly found in Japan. I believe the reason is people's willingness to share. I think it's better for these spaces to be used by many people rather than kept intact under strict regulation and control. Japanese people are said to be kind, but I think they are often unwilling to give opportunities that might make others superior to themselves. I really want to change the situation where people are willing to sacrifice themselves just to feel superior by holding others back.
- It's really strange, but the area around skyscrapers tends to be calmer than expected. I want to know if this is simply due to it being unoccupied, or if people have moved to other places.
