Citizen's Center for Disaster Prevention in Kyoto

Read in Japanese

In Kyoto we visited the Citizen's Center for Disaster Prevention, which is entirely FREE. It's not that big of a complex, but I had an even better time than I expected to have (and hearing that there were earthquake/typhoon etc simulators made my expectations quite high.) 

Yes,  you can experience it all free. Everything is scheduled though, so you can't go about it willy-nilly, but there is a Mud Slide experience, Typhoon experience, 3-D Earthquake experience, Smoke Inhalation experience, and a Fireman video game, amongst other things. They have an English pamphlet, but all of the activities are in Japanese. The staff are extremely kind and helpful. 

 Yeah you can get in this helicopter. Yeah you can.

One of the activities which wasn't scheduled while we were there. 
And yes, the one on the right has his intestines hanging out.

Doro and I went through the activities for Smoke Inhalation, Mudslides, Earthquakes, Typhoons, and the 3-D Earthquake. For the Mudslide, Typhoon, and 3-D Earthquake experiences, you don't have to do anything but experience. Mudslide = aural stimulation (a family stuck in a mudslide), and moving chairs, etc; Typhoon = letting the wind blow at you (you get to choose the velocity); 3-D Earthquake = sitting in a roller coaster chair like the one in that presentation at the beginning of Jurassic Park, and watching the terrifying experiences of an animated boy and his earthquake-prevention robot. In that one, you get rocked all over the place and watch the poor robot get smashed and then come back to life. It was a strange mixture of fun (I mean, you're in a roller coaster chair, flying through the air behind a robot, and it's 3-D!!!!) and terror (I don't ever want to experience the level of earthquake shown in the video).

The Earthquake Activity and the Smoke Inhalation, though, require you to do tasks after a short presentation (almost everything is proceeded by a presentation, telling you all of the facts about the said disaster, and how to keep yourself safe). For the Earthquake, you have to do things like hide beneath the table, turn off appliances, etc, while the entire room shakes at different intensities. In the Smoke Inhalation room, you have to make it through a smoke filled corridor. Our presenter for the Smoke Inhalation room was a really affable old man. I didn't think I'd heard him right when he told us that the smoke smells like pudding (in reality its acrid and burns your lungs, of course, which is why it's dangerous), but the simulated smoke really does smell like pudding. 

The Center 

About fires and smoke: you think the little lighted signs are going to be a great help in a fire, but half the time we couldn't see the light at all... It really did make me think about how I might act if this were happening to me for real and the smoke didn't smell like pudding. I most definitely learned quite a bit, and highly recommend a visit. It was interesting, and it was a lot of free fun.

Frog partaking in FREE FUN in the rescue helicopter

Thumbs UP.