Japan, VR, and Henn Na Hotel

After spending time in the relative warmth of SE Asia, we went to Japan to visit Aya's parents and spend some time in Aizu. It is always nice going back, like going home for many reasons. This time around the house was quite noisy as brother in-law plus family were staying there as well. Most of the day revolved around two energetic kids.
We did also have a new year's day meal with uncle and aunt. Mostly we just enjoyed chilling, eating, and for me, running in snowy Aizu. I spent a good deal of time with Sheri sleeping and getting in some good scratches. I also played a game where I had no idea what I was doing and I think that the rules where changing as Sota made them up. The last day we were there it snowed really hard as Aya's parents drove us to  Fukushima to catch the Shinkansen.

Arriving in Tokyo we had an unusual hotel experience. I had heard about these hotels that were run by robots and, knowing my excitement, Aya booked us at one that had just opened. The rooms themselves were pretty normal business hotel types except that they had a closet sort of thing that was supposed to clean clothing if you hung it inside. It was odd, but we tried it and our clothes did in fact seem to be a bit cleaner. The attraction at the hotel were the animated robots that checked us in and out. It was cool, but not exactly what I was expecting. I don't know quite what I thought would happen, but I guess I thought the robots would be more interactive. What happened was that we approached two dinosaur robots, yes dinosaurs, and then we interacted with a touch screen while the robots moved and spoke to us responding to what we chose on the touch screen. Other than the check in and out interaction the hotel was pretty normal, but still it was kind of fun to go.

We had an afternoon flight back to Beijing, so we decided to try a VR gaming place that Aya had read about. It was really cool. Basically it was two floors of games, all VR, ranging from normal nintendo games like Mario Kart and fishing games to haunted house type games. We tried two games, Mario Kart and Horror Hospital. Mario Kart was pretty neat and since the seat/kart we sat in also moved it added to the overall feeling. After playing the game and taking off the gear we felt kind of weird. Since the games were a bit expensive we decided on just one more and went for the horror one since there were warnings not to do it if you were especially sensitive. Standing in line waiting to play there were many screams coming from the people playing, so I was expecting some really scary stuff. It was scary. Basically you both sit (in the VR world in a wheelchair) and then use a joystick to guide yourself around a hospital trying to find the other player and get out. As you do so people come out at you, but the scariest bit was when blades or things got close or cut you. Based on the VR head gear it really did seem like the blades were plunging into you, an uneasy feeling. I'm sure if we get a chance to we will try more games again some day. 

After enjoying Japan, we chilled at the airport lounge at Haneda, watching the planes come and go and waiting for our turn to return to Beijing.