Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in Tsukuba

I went to Tsukuba space center with my friend on June 1st.

He and I met in Korea by coincidence. We stayed at the same guest house in Seoul and talked about many topics and ate lunch together, so we became friends.

He said to me, he is a researcher of solar batteries and he is working at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

It sounded very interesting! So I wanted to go to his office.

He said to me there is tour to visit the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 4 times per day.

He kindly reserved this tour for me.

I arrived at Tsukuba station early in the morning, because I had to join the practice of AWA-ODORI in Koenji from 4:00pm.

We didn’t have enough time to visit there and eat lunch, but he kindly fitted in around my schedule.

This day was a special day for all Japanese, because a Japanese astronaut, whose name is Hoshide, went to space.

His mission was very important.

In space, 15 countries are forwarding their plans to develop an International Space Station.

Japan are involved this project and developed “Kibo” which is the first manned facility for Japan.

Hoshide’s mission was to fix the robot arm on Kibo.

At Tsukuba space center, we could some real parts of “Kibo”, rockets and artificial satellites!

It was very amazing!

If I had had these experience when I was a child, I would have been interested in space and wanted to be an astronaut.

I found out that only 1 astronaut is woman!

He said to me, it was a rare experience for him, because he has been working there everyday.

After visiting of the center, we ate Soba at an old house with windmill.

I like this style of house very much, because I like the local areas of Japan!

After lunch, we went to a famous cake shop which he recommended to me.

We ordered 3 cakes and shared them. I like cake….

I left Tsukuba at about 2:30pm, and joined the AWA-ODORI practice.

I was very satisfied with such a wonderful experience.

by the way, Tsukuba is not so far from Tokyo.

There is the Tsukuba express from Akihabara to Tsukuba. We can go to Tsukuba from Akihabara in about 1.5 hours.

In Tsukuba, the air is very clean and there is a lot of nature. I wanted to run there.

I want to go there again, and try to running or climbing Mt.Tsukuba someday.